As he continues few others acknowledge him but people seem to know he is there. They move out of the
way as he passes. The frequency of people increases as he walks and then he realizes where they are going.
Another turn brings him to the wide stair that leads down to the ballroom. The stairs are festooned with lanterns and garlands of paper dipped in gold. Confetti cascades in gilded waves over the stone steps. It clings to the hems of gowns and cuffs of trousers, drifting and swirling as the crowd descends.
Zachary follows, swept up in the tide of partygoers. The ballroom they enter is both familiar and completely unexpected.
The space he knows as hollow and empty is teeming with people. All of the chandeliers are lit, casting dancing light over the hall. The ceiling is littered with metallic balloons. Long glimmering ribbons hang from them and as Zachary gets closer he sees they are weighted with pearls. Everything is undulating, shimmering, and golden. It smells like honey and incense, musk and sweat and wine.
Virtual reality isn’t all that real if it doesn’t smell like anything, a voice remarks in his head.
The curtains of balloons are mazelike, the enormous space divided and fragmented by almost transparent walls. One space becomes many: improvised rooms, alcoves, small vignettes of chairs, carpets in rich jewel tones covering the stone floor, and tables draped in silks of darkest night-sky blue dotted with stars, covered in brass bowls and vases, piled with wine and fruit and cheese.
Beside him is a woman with her hair tied up in a scarf wearing acolyte robes holding a large bowl filled with golden liquid. As he watches, guests dip their hands into the bowl, removing them again covered in shimmering gold. It drips down arms and on sleeves and Zachary spies golden fingerprints behind ears and down the backs of necks, suggestive traces over necklines and below waists.
Closer to the center of the ballroom the ribbon curtains open, allowing the room to expand into its full scope. A dance floor occupies most of the space, stretching out to the archways on the far side.
Zachary moves around the edge. Dancers twirl so close that gowns brush against his legs. He reaches the looming fireplace and finds it covered in candles, piled in the hearth and lined along the mantel, dripping wax into pools on the stone. In between the candles there are bottles filled with gold sand and water containing small white fish with fanned tails glowing like flames in the light. Above the flames and the fish there are painted sigils. A full moon flanked by crescents, waxing and waning.
A motion near Zachary’s hand draws his attention and when he looks down he finds that someone has pressed a folded piece of paper into his palm. He glances at the partygoers around him but they are all absorbed in their own world.
He unfolds the paper. It is covered in handwritten text scrawled in gold ink.
The moon had never asked a boon of Death or Time but there was something that she wished, that she wanted, that she desired more than she had ever desired anything before.
A place had become precious to her, and a person within it more so.
The moon returned to this place as often as she could, in stolen moments of borrowed time.
She had found an impossible love.
She resolved to find a way to keep it.
Zachary looks up at the sea of people surrounding him, dancing and drinking and laughing. He cannot see Dorian anywhere but he must have written this so he must be nearby. Zachary refolds the paper and tucks the fragment of story in his pocket and continues through the ballroom.
Beyond the fireplace there are tables covered in bottles. A woman wearing a suit stands behind them, pouring and mixing liquids and handing them out to passersby in delicate glasses. Zachary watches as she works, combining liquids that smoke and foam and change color from clear to gold to red to black to clear again.
He hears the mixologist wish someone a blessed lunar new year as she hands them a coupe glass covered in a layer of gold leaf that would have to be broken in order for the drink to be consumed. Zachary walks on before the surface is disturbed.
In a quiet corner a man pours sand on the floor in tones of black and grey and gold and ivory in intricate patterns, mandala-like circles depicting dancing figures and balloons and a large fire, with an outer circle of cats and a far outer circle of bees. He carves the details into the sand with the edge of a feather. Zachary moves closer to get a better view but as soon as it is complete the man brushes it all away and begins again.
Nearby, a woman dressed in ribbons and nothing else lounges on a settee. The ribbons have poems on them, circling her throat and her waist and curling down between her legs. She has many admirers reading her but she reminds Zachary too much of the bodies in the crypt and he starts to turn away when one of the lines of text catches his eye.
First the moon went to speak with Death.
Zachary moves closer to read the story as it continues down the woman’s arm and around her wrist.
She asked if Death might spare a single soul.
Death would have granted the moon any wish within her power for Death is nothing if not generous. This was a simple gift, easily given.
The ribbon ends there, curling around the woman’s ring finger. Zachary reads other ribbons but there is nothing more about the moon.
Zachary walks on to find another part of the ballroom with hundreds of books suspended from the ceiling, spines flung open and hovering. He reaches up to touch one of the books just above his head and its pages flutter in response. The entire flock of books rearranges itself, changing formation like geese.
He thinks he sees Dorian on the other side of the dance floor and tries to make his way in that direction. He moves with the crowd. There are so many people. No one does more than glance at him though he feels less like a ghost, the space and the people around him seeming more solid. He almost feels the fingers that graze his.
“There you are,” a voice says next to him but it is not Dorian, it is the ginger-haired young man from before. He has lost his jacket and his arms are covered in gold down to his fingertips. Zachary thinks he has misheard and the man is addressing someone else but he is looking directly at him. “When are you?” the man asks.