“I actually think square dances are less shameful than this,” David muttered at the top of the stairs. Still, he held his arm out gallantly to Elizabeth Adams, keeping his spine straight and shoulders back. As they made their way down the staircase, I watched Saylor and Mary Beth. They had gone into the alcove by the front door, and Saylor was talking to her while holding her hands and looking into her eyes.

Once Elizabeth was at the bottom of the staircase, David jogged back up to take Abigail Foster’s arm, then, once she was done, Amanda’s, then Bee’s. There was only one other girl between me and Bee: Lindsay Harris. According to The Aunts, every girl in town had done Cotillion when they were young, but now, fewer and fewer girls did it every year. It was becoming one of those traditions that some people thought was a little too old-fashioned, a little embarrassing.

Once Lindsay was safely at the bottom of the stairs, David came up to me, crooking his elbow. “Shall we?”

But before I could rest my hand on his forearm, Saylor called, “Actually, David, I’d like for Miss Riley to go first.”

“Sure,” David said, shrugging and raising his eyebrows.

I was left to hover there awkwardly as Mary Beth walked back up the velvet-covered stairs, her white heels still hanging from her hands. When she reached the top, she took a deep breath, slid the heels on, and took David’s arm.

David made his way down the steps as carefully as if she’d been made of glass, but he shouldn’t have bothered. Mary Beth didn’t just walk. She floated. She glided. She practically levitated down those stairs.

As she passed me, I got a hint of rose, and then they were there at the bottom of the steps. With a little squeal, Mary Beth clapped her hands and bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. Even David seemed impressed.

Magic. Whatever Saylor had done to the lady who’d run Cotillion before, or the former head of the Pine Grove Betterment Society, she’d done it to Mary Beth, too. If you asked me, it seemed like kind of a waste of something so super powerful, but if it kept me from being trampled, I guess it was all for the good.

No reason to feel bad about ditching my Paladin duties, then. What would it matter if the occasional guy broke through Saylor’s wards? Maybe she’d already made them stronger.

Now that Mary Beth had finally made her first successful run down the stairs, it was my turn again. David offered his arm, and I laid my palm as lightly as I could on his sleeve.

“We need to talk,” he said in a low voice as we started to descend.

“We don’t,” I replied through clenched teeth.