Chapter 3

The silence followed them halfway across the ballroom, a wake of held breath and wide eyes that parted around Daniel's path like water around a prow. Seraphine did not look back. She had learned, in the years since Gavin walked out on her, that looking back was how you stumbled.

Lily's small arms were looped around her neck, and Daniel's hand was a warm, steady pressure at her back, and for a long moment the only sounds were the soft scuff of silver flats against marble and the way her own heart had finally stopped pounding.

Then Gavin's voice cut across the room, louder than before, stripped of its polish.

"Wait. Wait — is that her child? You can't — that's not —"

He was walking after them. Of course he was. The man had never once in his life let a moment pass without performing for it, and this was the biggest audience he'd ever had. Daniel's hand tightened on Seraphine's back, just slightly, the only sign he gave that he had heard.

"Gavin." Delphine's voice was sharp, nearly frantic, and her heels clicked against the marble as she hurried after him. "Gavin, stop. He's Daniel Mercer. You don't —"

"Since when do you have a daughter?" Gavin shouted, and the room flinched. Somewhere near the terrace windows, a glass clinked against its neighbor, a small, nervous percussion. "She wasn't — you never — you can't just —"

Seraphine stopped. Slowly, she set Lily down, her hand resting on the child's shoulder as the little girl turned to look up at her mother with wide, questioning eyes.