Zafira and Trafalgar returned to the main hall a moment later. The moment he stepped back inside, the noise of the gathering swallowed him again. Voices, music, laughter held behind fake smiles, the clinking of glasses, the slow movement of servants carrying trays through the crowd.
Trafalgar's eyes moved through the people in front of him immediately, then past them, searching.
She was gone.
He looked toward one side of the hall, then another. Toward the far corridors. Toward the groups gathered beneath the chandeliers. The woman he had just seen in the passage was nowhere to be found, as if the crowd had swallowed her whole the instant he looked away.
Zafira noticed quickly enough. "Are you looking for someone?"
"Yes. I think I saw someone I knew." His eyes narrowed slightly. "But I can't see her now."
