what I expected to be doing tonight,” I say, looking down at her masked face.
“Aren’t you the hero?” Dominic says, peering at her as I lay her down on one of the stone benches beside the lake. He fingers some of the feathers on her dress. “What do you think she’s supposed to be?”
“A swan, you idiot,” I say, peeling her mask away from her face. The moment it’s off, I stop dead.
“Holy fuck,” Dominic says when he sees her.
“No way,” I say.
Dominic pats me on the back. “Princess got out of her tower, Brother?”
“Fuck you.” I peer closer. “It’s not her. Can’t be.”
“Her doppelganger then. Let’s go back to the party.” He starts to walk away.
“We can’t just leave her out here with idiots like those two wandering around with their dicks in their hands, can we?”
“Take her inside then. She’s not your problem. Not yet.” He waggles his eyebrows like he finds this hilarious.
I shake my head. If anyone finds out she’s here, shit will hit the fan. My family will be a laughingstock, and I don’t even want to think about the consequences that will follow.
“Don’t tell me you give a fuck what happens to her,” Dominic continues.
I look at him. He’s watching me curiously. “I care that word would get out.”
He shrugs a shoulder.
I shake my head, look around at the feathers that have fallen off her dress as she begins to move, sitting up slowly. Opening her eyes.
Whiskey eyes.
I haven’t forgotten them. Hell, I still see them some nights when the image of what we did to her repeats in vivid clarity.
She stares up at me, then glances to Dominic who’s quick to adjust his mask over his face.
“I’ll see you later, Brother. I’m meeting a couple of friends upstairs. Good luck.” Just like that he walks away, washing his hands of this problem that’s not his problem at all.
“What happened?” she asks.
“You passed out.” Would she recognize me if I took my mask off? Without a doubt. You don’t forget a man who stood by and let what happened to her happen.
“Passed out?” Her eyes grow wide with panic then. “For how long?”
“Just for a minute. Don’t worry. You’re fine. Safe. How did you get out to this part of the garden?”
“What? Oh, I was in one of the bedrooms.” She turns, points to the door. “The stairs led me out here.” She sees her mask in my hand then and startles. “My mask.”
I glance down at it, having a hard time drawing my eyes away from her face. She’s beautiful, but I already knew that. It’s the fact that she’s here. In the flesh. How in hell is she here?
“Here you go.”
She takes the mask, looks at me. “Pointless to put it on now. The masquerade is lost.” An awkward moment passes. I need to stop looking at her. “Where’s the other man? Your brother, you said?”
“Inside. What were you doing out here anyway?”
“I meant to go back to the party, but the door I came out of led me here. When I saw the lake, well, it was just so beautiful in the moonlight and with all these fireflies. I thought I’d just sit here for a minute.”
I nod. I get it. It’s exactly what I was doing.
“Um…thanks for back there.” Her forehead furrows. “I don’t know what they would have done if you hadn’t—”
“They didn’t.”
She nods, looks down at the mask in her hands.
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
She shakes her head, gives me a fleeting smile.
“You should be more aware of your surroundings. You never know the kind of people you’re dealing with.”
Read: me.
Although I’m no danger to her.
Yet.
She nods, shifting her gaze down like a berated child. “What time is it exactly?” she asks a moment later.
I check my watch. “Twenty minutes to midnight.”
“Then I have twenty minutes left.”
“Twenty minutes exactly?” She’s just about twenty years old. If I remember correctly, her birthday is in a few days.
She nods. “I have to leave at midnight.”
“Or you’ll turn into a pumpkin?” I sit on the bench beside her and she straightens, stiffens a little as she tugs the skirt of her dress over to give me more space.
In the silence, I hear the soft sound of water lapping the shore. I hadn’t heard it until now, not in the time I’d been out here in my attempt to get away from all those people.
“It makes me think of The Swan Maiden,” she says, eyes out over the water, the moon casting