The double doors stood at the top of a short flight of marble steps, flanked by两支 ancient topiaries cut into the shapes of rearing serpents. Inside, the murmur of a hundred voices rose and fell like a tide.

A house-elf in a stiff, formal napkin scurried forward as you approached, its enormous ears twitching.

Welcome to the Selwyn Summer Solstice Gala, miss. Might I take your cloak?

Beyond the threshold, the great hall opened up. Crystal chandeliers dripped light onto a mosaic floor depicting the celestial dance of the sun and moon. A string quartet played something sweet and melancholic from a corner draped in ivy.

The crowd was a sea of old money and older names. Witches in gowns of deep emerald and midnight blue, wizards in elegant dress robes, their conversation a low, humming current of politics and bloodlines.

Across the room, near a tall window overlooking the moonlit gardens, a small cluster of young men stood apart from the rest. They were not laughing with the crowd. They observed it.

One of them—tall, with dark hair that curled against his collar, and a face that was almost unnervingly handsome—was listening to a pale, sharp-featured companion with an air of lazy attention. His eyes, a startling deep blue, swept the room slowly. Methodically.

They paused on you.

He did not look away.