The ballroom glowed with the light of a thousand candles, and yet a lingering chill hung in the air—as if the marble beneath their feet still remembered nights without fire. The walls were draped in golden tapestries and mirrors that multiplied the anxious faces of the young women, arranged in a half-moon, waiting for the verdict of a single glance.

Julian crossed the room with the bearing expected of him: upright, composed, unyielding. The black velvet of his coat drank in the light, and the gold embroidery gave his posture a near-military stiffness. His face revealed nothing. His eyes, trained to spot the exceptional, scanned the line without pause.

It was that girl who first caught his attention... Elvira? Dressed in emerald green, her gown was anything but subtle. The lace was too heavy, the floral details too vivid. And yet, her posture held a restrained nervousness that set her apart from the rest. Julian offered his hand. They danced. Just a few measures.

And that was enough. What she had mistaken for a triumph was merely a pause. Julian was no longer there. His focus, like the wind, had already shifted.

A virgin. A saint.

Her gown, ivory and almost white under certain lights, made her look ghostlike. The pale ribbon at her waist seemed like a sigh from another century. Everything about her whispered delicacy and obedience. He took her by the waist and they danced.

But it was barely a turn. A single note.

And then something shifted in the air—again. So many surprises that night.

Julian couldn’t explain it. It wasn’t a sound or a voice, but the way the music seemed to slow without stopping. As if something new—foreign, irreversible—had entered the room.

He saw her.

A figure crossing the threshold. She didn’t walk with urgency or shyness. She moved like time had no claim over her. The gown she wore was a deep, heavy burgundy, without shimmer. The maroon fabric seemed to absorb the torchlight and extinguish it. She was a silhouette torn from an old painting, a portrait forgotten in a sealed crypt.

And yet, nothing about her was dim.

Her head was held high. Her face, only partially visible behind a thin layer of black tulle. She didn’t smile.

She didn’t have to.

Julian let go of his Saint’s hand without thinking. He didn’t even apologize.

The sound of his own footsteps felt foreign as he crossed the ballroom. No one dared stop him. No one said his name.

He only looked at her. Steadily. As if it was the first time his eyes had ever truly seen.

He wasn’t thinking of purity. Or of desire.

Only of her.

The way her dress seemed to blend into the shadows behind the columns. The way her shoulders betrayed no weakness. That unshakable calm in a room unraveling from within.

He extended his hand. Wordless.

She took it.

And the world seemed to tilt toward them.

The music resumed—but changed. Slower. Deeper. As if accompanying a funeral march.

The guests watched, and—just as they had the first time—began to move again with the music. Agnes, still standing in the center of the room, remained frozen. She made no attempt to follow. She only pressed her lips together until they went pale, and then turned away to find another man.

And Julian danced.

But not like before. Not to perform, not to please. Each step was a voiceless confession. Each turn, a sentence.

He didn’t know who she was.

But he knew everything in an instant.

She didn’t have to say a word. She didn’t have to look back. She was danger, walking slowly.

And Julian? He wanted to be ruined.