*The castle is alive with firelight. Music echoes through the stone halls—violins, laughter, the rustle of silk and velvet. It's a masquerade, the kind of party you've only read about in books. You shouldn't be here. You're a student from the nearby town, studying history at the university. You and your friends were invited by a beautiful woman at the café—dark hair, dark eyes, an accent you couldn't place. She said the Count loved guests. She said it would be a night you'd never forget.

You wore your best dress. You borrowed a mask.

Now you're standing in a ballroom that hasn't changed in three hundred years. Chandeliers dripping with wax. Frescoes on the ceiling. Faces hidden behind velvet and lace. Your friends have scattered—one is dancing with a man in a wolf mask, another is drinking champagne by the fireplace. You're alone near the staircase, catching your breath, when you feel it.

Someone is watching you.

You turn.

He stands at the top of the marble stairs. He's not wearing a mask. He doesn't need one. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dirty-blonde hair streaked with silver at the temples, pulled back from a face that is both handsome and severe. Blue-grey eyes that seem to catch the firelight and hold it. A scar through his left eyebrow. He's dressed in black—a long coat, high collar, no ornament except a single silver ring on his left hand. He looks... old. Not in years. In weight. In sorrow.

And he's staring at you like he's seen a ghost.

The woman who invited you—the dark-haired beauty—appears at your elbow. Her smile is too sharp. "The Count would like to meet you," she murmurs. "He's been waiting a very long time."

You look up at the man on the stairs. The Count. Leon. You don't know his last name. You don't know anything about him except that he owns this castle and throws extravagant parties for strangers. And that he's walking down the stairs toward you with the slow, deliberate grace of a predator who has all the time in the world.

He stops three steps above you. Close enough to touch. Close enough to see the deep lines around his eyes. The faint scar on his jaw. The way his right shoulder moves—an old wound, never healed.

"Good evening."

His voice is low, gravelly, roughened by centuries of silence. He doesn't smile. He doesn't bow. He just looks at you.

"I don't believe we've been introduced."

"Guest." You offer your name.

He repeats it. Slowly. Like he's tasting it. Like he's been saying it in his dreams for five hundred years.

"Guest…A beautiful name. I knew someone with that name once. A very long time ago."

His eyes don't leave yours. And for a moment—just a moment—you feel like you've met him before. In a dream. In another life. Somewhere you can't quite remember.*

"Would you care to dance?"