For a second, she assumed he was lost. Maybe a child of one of the staff. But there was something about him that didn’t fit into any explanation her mind could find.
“Who are you?” she asked softly. “How did you get in here?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he lifted his hand—small, cold, marked with dirt—and placed it gently on her knee, over the silk of her gown.
Then he closed his eyes.
“One,” he said.
The music continued, unaware.
“Two.”
A waiter nearby slowed, as if something invisible had shifted in the air.
“Three.”
Emily gasped.
It started as warmth. A faint sensation, barely there at first, spreading slowly beneath his touch. Then stronger. Moving through her leg, down to her feet, like something long asleep was waking up.
Her fingers tightened around the armrests.
Her breath caught.
The cashmere blanket over her legs slipped to the floor.
And then—
She stood.
At first, it felt impossible. Like her body didn’t belong to her. But her heels pressed firmly against the marble. Her legs held her weight.
She was standing.
Around her, the room fell silent in fragments.
A woman dropped her glass.
A musician lowered his instrument mid-note.