I did not mean to look at him—did not want to. The intention was never there, only the inevitable gravity of it, the impossible weight that seemed to curl around my spine and tilt my chin upward before I had the presence of mind to resist it. My gaze flicked upward, brief as a breath held too long and released too suddenly, and in that fragile moment—barely more than a blink—I met his eyes.
And the world, for a heartbeat, ceased its turning.
Atlas Blackwood stood not ten feet from where I stood frozen, and though there were people all around us, pressing in with polite murmurs and silken laughter and the rustling hush of formalwear sweeping marble floors, I could not hear a single voice, nor see a single face. There was only him, carved in shadow and candlelight, tall and terrifyingly st
