Tess and Max felt almost invisible as they went slinking through the party. The women, in four-inch heels and antique party dresses, and the men, in formal suits, were all engrossed in conversation or swaying to the music. In the dining room, silver trays were piled high with desserts and displayed on the buffet table.

Max quietly linked his pinkie to Tess, subtly down at their waists. A secret pinkie swear which meant they had each other’s backs. Although neither Tess or Max was sure what was making them feel cautious and shy. Certainly, they didn’t know anyone besides Colin although Tess had met the man in the bowler hat, who was now wearing a top hat as he played the piano, but it was more than that. . . . They were each feeling that they didn’t belong.

Tess wondered if Colin felt that way, too, although she doubted it, as he led them so effortlessly through the crowded party, stopping for a moment to smile at someone and in one case kiss an older woman’s hand. There was something so affectionate and respectable about it, Tess wondered if it was his aunt or his mother’s best friend or someone royal. That was the theory she liked the most. Everyone was so elegant. It felt to Tess as if, somehow, she and Max had faded and the rest of the party was in bright Kodachrome, an old kind of film that Max had learned about in photography class, where colors were almost brighter as if they’d been enhanced.

The jewelry alone sparkled, particularly the diamond necklace on the neck of the woman who came up to greet them and kiss Colin on the top of his head. Her light brown hair, tousled in pin curls around her face, the shape of which was almost pixieish, except she was classically beautiful, with dark blue eyes and long dark lashes, a perfectly shaped mouth, accented by soft pink lipstick, rouge on her cheeks which were framed by elegant and delicate cheekbones, and a lovely dimple on the right side of her mouth when she smiled, which she did when Colin introduced them to her and explained that she was his mother and her name was Janice Sanborn.

It occurred to Tess that her last name (and presumably Colin’s) was the same as the hotel’s, SANBORN HOUSE, and wondered if that meant they had a connection to the hotel or to the family who owned the hotel. Or they were the family who owned the hotel? It could explain why they had the entire top floor and a private entrance. That made sense. Tess was feeling a little bit like Max at the moment—she found it comforting when things were logical.