The music softened, strings sliding into a gentler tempo, the hum of conversation rising to fill the ballroom's glittering expanse. Chandelier light spilled across silk gowns and polished shoes, across the sweep of crystal glasses raised in toasts. Laughter echoed, brittle and perfumed, as waiters threaded silently through the throng.
Arkellin stood near the far edge of the room, half-shadowed by a marble pillar. From here, he could watch the entire hall without being fully swallowed by it. His glass of champagne hung loose in his fingers, untasted, the fizz long dead.
That was when she appeared.
Mira Aurelia Clock.
She crossed the ballroom with the kind of elegance that bent attention without demanding it. Her black satin gown shimmered like poured night, diamonds at her throat scattering cold sparks each time she moved beneath the chandelier. Guests parted subtly as she passed, offering nods, small bows, murmured greetings. She answered none of them with more than the faintest incline of her head. Her focus was already set.
On him.
Arkellin's gaze tracked her approach, steady, unreadable. He didn't shift his weight, didn't raise his glass in acknowledgment. He simply waited, eyes dark under the fall of his messy hair, the streak of white glinting faintly in the light.
Mira stopped a single step away, her perfume drifting into the air between them—roses and something sharper beneath. Her lips curved in a small, practiced smile.
"You don't look like a man who enjoys parties," she said. Her voice was smooth, low, wrapped in poise but with steel beneath.
Arkellin let the silence stretch a beat longer than polite. Then he answered, his tone flat, his words edged with quiet amusement.
"I don't enjoy masks, Miss Clock. But I do enjoy reading the eyes behind them."
Her brows lifted slightly, the faintest crack in her polished demeanor. Then her smile deepened, not wide but genuine enough to reach her eyes. "A dangerous hobby. Some people prefer not to be seen."
Arkellin swirled the champagne in his glass, watching the golden liquid circle the rim. "Then they shouldn't step into the light."
The words hung there, heavier than the music. Around them, laughter rang, glasses clinked, shoes scuffed marble. But for a moment, their circle was its own world—sharp and silent.
Mira studied him, her gaze steady, too direct for polite society. "You speak as if you've been watching this world a long time."
Arkellin's mouth curved in something close to a smile, but his eyes never softened. "No. Just long enough to know it's rotten under the crystal."
She tilted her head, diamonds catching the light. "And yet you came."
His gaze flicked briefly across the hall, over the polished crowd, the gilt edges, the masks disguised as faces. Then it returned to her. "Storms don't choose where they break, Miss Clock. They just do."
The violins swelled behind them, filling the silence that followed. Mira's lips parted slightly as if to answer, then closed again. She studied him a heartbeat longer, as if weighing the balance of risk and curiosity.
Finally, she inclined her head, that faint smile returning. "Then perhaps I should be careful where I stand."
Arkellin raised his glass faintly, not in toast, but as acknowledgment. "Perhaps."
She let the moment linger, her eyes glinting, before turning slightly toward the balcony doors, the sweep of her gown whispering across the marble.
And Arkellin, for reasons he didn't bother naming, found himself watching her go.
The balcony doors opened with a muted creak, the rush of cooler air cutting through the warmth of the ballroom. Mira stepped out first, her gown trailing like a river of midnight, the diamonds at her throat catching the faint light of the city beyond. She didn't look back to see if he followed. She didn't have to.
Arkellin came a moment later, leaving behind the noise of crystal and violins. The shift was immediate—inside, the air had been thick with perfume and champagne; out here, the scent was sharper, salt from the sea riding the night breeze, laced with the faint tang of smoke drifting up from the docks below.
The city stretched beneath them, endless glass and steel. Aurelia's skyline glowed in fractured colors—red neon, cold blue billboards, yellow lamps strung like arteries across the streets. Farther out, the black expanse of the sea mirrored the lights, broken only by the white scatter of ships moving slowly in the harbor.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Mira rested her hands on the cold iron railing, fingers delicate but steady. The night air pulled at her hair, tugged strands loose from their perfect arrangement. Her reflection shimmered faintly in the balcony glass behind her, but her eyes stayed fixed on the horizon.
Arkellin stood beside her, his own hands loose at his sides. He tilted his head slightly, scanning the skyline the way a hunter reads the forest—eyes narrowing on details, movements, shadows. The city pulsed like something alive, and in its heartbeat, he heard both promise and threat.
"You carry yourself like you don't belong in there," Mira said at last, her voice softer now, stripped of the formal edge she'd worn inside. "But not like an outsider either. More like… someone who's survived both sides."
Arkellin's lips curved faintly, but he didn't answer. He leaned forward instead, resting one hand lightly on the railing. The iron was cold, damp with mist, rough under his palm. His gaze remained locked on the skyline, the rise and fall of the city's towers like teeth in the mouth of a beast.
Mira turned her head, studying him in profile. The harsh ballroom lights weren't here to flatter him; only the city's glow painted his features, sharpening the line of his jaw, catching in the streak of white in his hair.
She noticed the small things others would have missed—the way his breath hitched slightly every so often, betraying the wound beneath his shirt; the way his shoulders tightened as though bracing against an ache; the subtle shift of his weight to mask the weakness.
"Pain," she said quietly, "is harder to hide than you think. Even under a suit."
Arkellin's eyes flicked to her at that, sharp, assessing. Then he let out the faintest huff of amusement, more breath than laughter. He looked back at the city, refusing to give her the satisfaction of an answer.
Mira's lips curved, not unkindly. "You don't have to tell me the story. I can already see it written in the way you stand."
Her words lingered, carried by the wind. Arkellin said nothing, but his grip on the railing tightened once before releasing, fingers flexing against the night air.
In that silence, Mira realized something she hadn't expected. He wasn't just a man with secrets. He was a man stitched together by them, walking because he refused to fall. And though she had stood in ballrooms all her life, trading smiles and lies, she hadn't often stood this close to someone who wore his scars like armor instead of shame.
She straightened slowly, her diamonds catching another flicker of light, her eyes still on him. The orchestra swelled faintly behind the doors, muffled now, a reminder of the world waiting inside. But here, on the balcony, it was different.
Here, the masks had slipped just enough for her to glimpse the man beneath.
And for Arkellin, that glimpse was dangerous.
The city hummed beneath them, a thousand lights blinking like restless eyes. Wind curled around the balcony, carrying with it the low moan of ship horns from the harbor and the faint scent of salt.
Arkellin stood with his shoulder braced against the railing, the white streak in his hair falling forward across his brow. His eyes traced the skyline without really seeing it. Mira could tell—his focus wasn't on the glass towers or the sea beyond, but on something deeper, hidden behind the steel in his stare.
She studied him openly now. The ballroom's noise was a distant blur through the closed doors; here, there was only the man before her and the weight of what he carried.
"You don't belong here," she said, her voice low, stripped of the elegance it wore inside.
Arkellin's mouth curved, faint and sharp. "Neither do you."
Mira tilted her head, intrigued. "And how do you know that?"
"Because you're not watching them," Arkellin replied, chin flicking toward the glittering ballroom. "You're watching me."
The words struck like a pebble tossed into still water. Mira's composure faltered for a breath, then settled again, her lips curling in a small, amused smile. "Observant. Dangerous, even."
Arkellin didn't answer. He turned his gaze back to the skyline, letting the silence stretch. Mira let it, though her eyes never left him.
She stepped closer, the hem of her gown brushing against his shoe, the faintest contact, deliberate. The diamonds at her throat shimmered in the night air, but her voice was softer now, almost private.
"Everyone in there," she said, nodding toward the ballroom, "thinks they know you. Or at least that they should. They'll guess, they'll whisper, they'll invent stories to fill the gaps. It's how this world survives—by making masks fit where they don't belong."
Arkellin's jaw tightened. He didn't move, but his silence was sharper than words.
Mira's gaze lingered on his profile—the scar just hidden beneath the line of his jaw, the faint stiffness in his posture betraying wounds under the fabric. He was too controlled, too still. The kind of stillness that came from holding back something dangerous.
She drew in a slow breath, the wind stirring her hair against her cheek. Then she leaned slightly forward, her eyes catching his as he finally turned to meet her stare.
"And that," she whispered, "is why I don't want their stories."
For the first time that night, Arkellin's eyes flickered—not with weakness, but with something Mira hadn't seen before. A crack. A shadow of the weight he carried pressing too close to the surface.
She held his gaze, her words deliberate, unflinching.
"I want to know you, Mr. Andy."
The night seemed to still around them. The city's hum dimmed, the wind fell quiet. Even the muffled music inside faded to nothing for a heartbeat.
Arkellin's breath caught once, subtle, nearly hidden—but not enough. His glass trembled faintly in his hand before he set it down on the railing, fingers releasing it as if the weight had suddenly grown too heavy.
He didn't speak. His silence was its own answer, its own cliff, and Mira let it stand. Her smile was faint, but her eyes were serious, locked onto his as if she'd already chosen the risk.
The moment hung between them—fragile, electric, unspoken.
And then, from inside the ballroom, applause swelled, breaking the stillness. The balcony light flickered once, as if the city itself had exhaled.
But Mira's words lingered, etched sharp in the night air.