Chapter 276

• Elysia
• The charity gala had been on Velmora's calendar for months, long before any of this began, and canceling it would have signaled exactly the kind of vulnerability I refused to hand anyone, especially now. So I stood in the center of a ballroom full of donors and press and pack dignitaries, champagne in hand, smiling at exactly the right moments, while every instinct I had stayed quietly, coldly alert.
• "You're doing the thing," Kade murmured beside me, close enough that only I could hear him. "Where you look completely relaxed and I know for a fact you're cataloguing every exit in the room."