“You wouldn’t believe how many people have asked who I’m supposed to be,” she says, with a clear hint of disappointment.
“They should read more,” Zachary responds, echoing her tone.
“You are yourself with a mask on, aren’t you?” the woman asks, dropping her voice.
“More or less,” Zachary answers.
The king of the wild things who might possibly be wearing a wig smiles at him. A real smile this time.
“More, I think,” she says after considering him. “What brings you here this evening, beyond fondness for literature and cocktails? You seem like you’re looking for someone.”
“Sort of,” Zachary admits. He’d almost forgotten. “But I don’t think they’re here.”
He pulls her into a turn mostly to avoid bumping into another couple but the flutter of her gown makes the move look so impressive that several people nearby pause to watch them.
“That’s a shame,” the woman says. “They have deprived themselves of a lovely party and lovely company, I think.”
“Also I was looking for the cat,” Zachary adds. The woman’s smile brightens.
“Ah, I saw Matilda earlier in the evening but I don’t know where she went off to. It is some
times more effective to let her find you, in my experience.” She pauses but then adds, in a wistful whisper: “How lovely to be a hotel cat. We should all be so lucky.”
“What brings you here tonight?” Zachary asks her. The music has changed and he loses his footing momentarily and thankfully recovers without stepping on her feet.
But before the woman can answer, something beyond Zachary’s right shoulder catches her eye. She stiffens, a shift he can feel more than see, and he thinks perhaps this is a woman who is good at wearing many different kinds of masks.
“Excuse me for a moment,” she says. She rests a hand on Zachary’s lapel and someone to the side snaps a photograph. The woman starts to turn away but then stops and bows at Zachary first, or something between a curtsey and a bow that seems at once formal and silly, especially since she is the one with the crown. Zachary returns the gesture as best he can and as she disappears into the crowd someone nearby applauds, as if they were part of a performance.
The photographer comes up and asks him for their names. Zachary decides to request that they simply be listed as guests if the photos are posted anywhere and the photographer reluctantly agrees.
Zachary wanders the lobby again, more slowly due to the tighter crowd, a growing disappointment tugging at him. He looks again for jewelry, for bees or keys or swords. For a sign. He should have worn them himself, or drawn them on his hand or found a bee-patterned pocket square. He does not know why he ever thought he could find a single stranger in a room filled with them.
Zachary looks for anyone he has talked to already, thinking perhaps he could inquire nonchalantly about…he’s not sure what anymore. He can’t even find his Max in the crowd. He encounters a particularly dense knot of partygoers (one in impressive green silk pajamas holding a rose in a glass cloche) and ducks behind a column, moving closer to the wall to get around them, but as he does someone in the crowd grabs his hand and pulls him through a doorway.
The door closes behind them, muffling the party chatter and cutting off the light.
Someone else is in the darkness with him, the hand that pulled him in has released him but someone is standing close by. Taller, maybe. Breathing softly. Smelling of lemon and leather and something that Zachary can’t identify but finds extremely appealing.
Then a voice whispers in his ear.
“Once, very long ago, Time fell in love with Fate.”
A male voice. The tone deep but the cadence light, a storyteller voice. Zachary freezes, waiting. Listening.
“This, as you might imagine, proved problematic,” the voice continues. “Their romance disrupted the flow of time. It tangled the strings of fortune into knots.”
A hand on his back pushes him gently forward and Zachary takes a tentative step into the darkness, and then another. The storyteller continues, the volume of his voice now loud enough to fill the space.
“The stars watched from the heavens nervously, worrying what might occur. What might happen to the days and nights were Time to suffer a broken heart? What catastrophes might result if the same fate awaited Fate itself?”
They continue walking down a dark hall.
“The stars conspired and separated the two. For a while they breathed easier in the heavens. Time continued to flow as it always had, or perhaps imperceptibly slower. Fate wove together the paths that were meant to intertwine, though perhaps a string was missed here and there.”
Now a turn, as Zachary is guided in a different direction through the darkness. In the pause he can hear the band and the party, the sound muffled and distant.
“But eventually,” the storyteller continues, “Fate and Time found each other again.”