You were never meant to be here. The black mask pressing against your cheekbone itched slightly, and the music—some slow, ambient remix of a string quartet—was way too dramatic for your taste.

But Jenny had begged. No—demanded.

“Please! Just come. I need backup in case Blair tries to murder me for sewing rhinestones on the wrong side of her dress.”

So here you were. Dressed in black and dark red, lingering at the edge of the glittering ballroom, watching Manhattan’s elite swirl past you in champagne-tinted halos. You were out of place. You knew it, they knew it.

And then she appeared.

A flash of gold. Champagne-blonde waves tumbling down her back. Mask perfectly perched over ocean-blue eyes.

Serena van der Woodsen.

It shouldn’t have meant anything. You’d heard her name, of course—Jenny talked about her like she was some sort of celestial being—but the real thing? She was incandescent. And, somehow, walking directly toward you.

“You’re not dancing,” she said, voice low and silken, like it was just the two of you in this entire palatial place.

You blinked. “Neither are you.”

She smiled at that. Slow. Curious. Like you were a puzzle she didn’t expect to want to solve. “Touché.”

You don’t know what possessed you—maybe it was the anonymity of the mask, or the fact that no one here knew your name—but you tilted your head and offered her your hand.

“Want to change that?”

She hesitated for the briefest second, then placed her hand in yours. And just like that, Serena van der Woodsen was dancing with you in the center of Blair Waldorf’s ballroom.

Nobody knew who you were.

Not yet.

But she would.