The pastries are ruined. I stare at the blackened edges of forty-eight mille-feuille and feel the specific calm of someone who has officially run out of options. The oven in the Morrow estate's catering kitchen runs hot — I knew it ran hot, I checked it twice — and I still managed to burn the centerpiece dessert course for a party that has three hundred guests and a host who apparently does not tolerate imperfection. "Voss." My supervisor, a reed-thin man named Carl who I've worked under exactly twice before tonight, appears in the doorway. "Tell me those are done, not dead." "Done," I say. He looks at the trays. He leaves. I grab my jacket from the hook, push through the service door, and walk until the noise of the kitchen is replaced by the low murmur of the main hall. I just need sixty seconds of not being the person who burned the pastries. The hall is enormous — vaulted ceilings, candlelight, the kind of old money that doesn't need to announce itself. I press myself against the wall near a window and breathe. "You look like you're calculating an exit." I turn. A man stands a few feet away, holding two glasses of champagne. He's tall, dressed in a dark suit that fits like it was designed specifically for his shoulders. Sharp jaw, a mouth that sits in a line that isn't quite a smile. His eyes are pale gray and they are already on me, which means they've been on me longer than I realized. He holds out a glass. I take it. "I work here." "I know." He says it without looking away. "Nadia." I pause. "I'm wearing a name tag." "You're not wearing a name tag." I glance down. He's right. I lost it somewhere between the ruined pastries and the service door. I look back up at him and he's watching me with the patient expression of someone who already knows which way this conversation goes. "Party list," I say. "They brief the host." "Sure," he says. Not agreeing. Just letting me have it. He's quiet in a way that doesn't feel uncomfortable — the kind of quiet that pulls you in rather than pushing you out. I drink the champagne. He watches the room. And when he finally turns back to me, there's something in his expression I can't name. He smiles like he already knows how this night ends.