Why, then, was Jaya doing this now? Wouldn’t it be safer, more drama-free, to just leave things alone? Caterina had done nothing recently but threaten Jaya. This didn’t concern her. Besides, Caterina wasn’t doing anything besides staring at Alaric. And who could blame her? She and Alaric had gone out for almost three years. Surely she was entitled to some stewing.

But it was the look on her face, the utter mask of coldness, so carefully constructed, when Jaya could see in her brown eyes a very deep despair, an overpowering loneliness.

“Hi,” Jaya said, trying on an easy smile in spite of the fact that she was in a very un-smiley place currently. “You look fantastic. Valentino, right?” She gestured at Caterina’s green dress.

Caterina was frozen crystal. Her eyes barely flickered in her direction. “What do you want?”

Jaya turned and watched Alaric and the girl in the red dress too. Here, behind the circle of light the lanterns threw on the dance floor, it was possible to believe you were in another colder, darker dimension, looking in on happiness. “It’s ridiculous how happy they look, isn’t it? It won’t last. Alaric isn’t capable of appreciating anyone the way they deserve to be appreciated.”

“No, he isn’t,” Caterina said.

Jaya glanced sidelong at her. “It would be easy, you know, if this had happened to me, to let it consume me. To reject all the good things about myself—how charming I am or how socially gifted or generous. To really let the hatred take me over. If it were me, I mean.”

“It isn’t you. You don’t know anything about how this feels. You don’t know anything about me, Jaya.” Caterina looked at her, her brown eyes sparking in the dark. “You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

Grey

Grey had barely walked into the ballroom and scoped out the place, looking for Jaya to ask her if they could speak soon, when his cell phone began to buzz. Frowning, he pulled it out from an interior pocket of his tux.

It was a number he didn’t recognize—an international number. It wasn’t from the UK, but he was seized with a sudden fear that it had something to do with his father, that something terrible had happened.

Striding quickly to the double doors that led outside, Grey pressed the “answer” button. “Hello?” He pushed the doors open and slipped out, walking down the steps lined with lanterns to a cluster of blue spruces off to the right. The chilly night air wrapped its hands around him.

“Is this Grey? Grey Emerson?” a slightly grating male voice asked in an Indian accent.