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He wasn’t looking at Bree.

He wasn’t looking at the crowd or the band or the chandeliers. He was looking at me, with a look I’d seen exactly once before, at midnight, on empty ice: naked, helpless, absolutely undefended. He was looking at the necklace. He was looking at the way it lay in the hollow of my throat.

And he looked so happy that it hurt.

Bree said something, but I didn’t hear it until she repeated it: “Are you okay? You went white.”

“I’m fine. Sorry. I have to—” I stepped back. “I need the bathroom.”

“Is it a guy? “ she demanded, and grinned when my mouth fell open. “It’s a guy. It’s always a guy. Go. Go! Be happy!”

“You’re a very strange bride.”

“I’m a magnificent bride!” she yelled after me.

I pushed through the crowd with my heart in my ears. When I looked back, the pillar was empty.

My phone buzzed against my thigh. I got it out in the hallway by the restrooms, under a sconce shaped like a swan.

ICE PRINCE: Room 101. Second floor. The door is not locked.

ICE PRINCE: You do not have to come. If you do not come, I will understand.

ICE PRINCE: But I have missed you with my whole body.

I stood there for a long time.

A woman came out of the ladies’ room and gave me a strange look. I put the phone in my pocket, leaned my forehead against the cool wallpaper, and said, very quietly, to the swan: “Calm down. Calm down. You haven’t done anything wrong. He’s the one who—”

He’s the one who what?

Who folded my underwear. Who learned the emoji. Who bought honey bread three times and stood in a stranger’s kitchen to watch it made. Who wrote it is not a leash, it is a gift on a card and gave me a piece of himself to wear against my skin.

Who I had left standing in the doorway with a crumb on the plate and fuck buddies ringing in the air.

“You’re the one who did something wrong,” I told the swan.

The swan, being a swan, said nothing.

I took the stairs.

The second-floor corridor was long and quiet and lit in low amber, carpeted in deep red. Muffled music came up through the floorboards like a heartbeat. The numbers on the doors ran up in gilt: 96, 97, 98, 99, 100.

At the end of the hall, there was one more door. It was plain dark wood, with a brass plate.

101.

I stood in front of it. I could hear nothing on the other side, and then, very faintly, I could hear something: the slow, patient stillness of someone waiting.

I lifted my hand.

I remembered what Vanessa had said, and then what I’d told Jenny, and then what Maksim had written on the card. Running is what idiots do.

I knocked.

“Come in,” said the voice from within.

I pushed the door open, and walked into the light.