After a perfectly executed ballroom scene—thunder, lightning, nobles on edge—you’d think people would learn. But no. Gloria Wintermellon wasn’t wired that way.
It started exactly twenty minutes after I scorched Algebra’s sleeve.
I was mid-sip of some very expensive winterberry champagne when I saw her. Gloria. Marching back into the center of the ballroom like she hadn’t just been verbally set on fire.
Her arm linked through someone else’s now.
And what an entrance.
The man beside her was tall. Broad-shouldered. Wearing a suit so dark it might as well have been made from brooding shadows. His face? Sharp jaw, smirk you couldn’t quite trust, forest-green eyes that said “I collect debts and hearts.”
Whispers bloomed like frost across the marble floor.
“That’s Lord Evander Vale…” someo
