And then a few strange things happened at once.
First, the orchestra missed two bars of the sonata entirely. The violinist pulled his bow in an awkward, off-key screech in between. They stumbled for a moment, unable to find their way back to harmony while Leander looked up at them, eyes narrowed.
Then a hush fell over the ballroom. People stopped talking in midsentence, stopped walking about and laughing, the ice in their drinks even seemed to stop clinking. Silence filled the room. The plump, laughing woman with Alejandro lifted her hand to her mouth, clutched his arm, and sank her fingers so deep into it that Leander almost felt the bruise forming from where he stood.
Alejandro frowned down at her—all his teeth showing though he wasn’t smiling—then lifted his gaze. He too froze in pla
