Chapter 5 The Man Hunting Her Name

POV: Imogen

The mask felt strange against my cheekbones, thinner than I remembered, cool where it pressed against skin that hadn't worn one in years.

"Stop touching it," Otto had told me that afternoon, adjusting the strap one last time in his workshop mirror. "You'll give yourself away before you've said a single word."

I made myself keep my hands at my sides now, walking up the wide stone steps of the Camden Hall, Castryn's grandest venue, lit gold from every window like the whole building was on fire from the inside. Veil Week's opening gala. Two hundred masked guests, at minimum, judging by the line still forming behind me.

Celeste Duquesne, I reminded myself. Private security consultant. Confident. Bored, even. You've been to a hundred parties exactly like this one.

I hadn't. But Celeste had, on paper, and paper was all that mattered tonight.

Inside, the ballroom swallowed sound the way expensive rooms always did — voices dropping into a low, polished murmur instead of the chaos you'd expect from this many people crammed under one roof. Masks glittered everywhere I looked. Gold ones, silver ones, a woman near the bar wearing feathers so tall they brushed the chandelier every time she turned her head.

I found Graham Fenwick within four minutes.

He wasn't hard to find. He stood near the far wall in a charcoal suit with no mask ornamentation at all — plain black, unassuming, which somehow made him stand out more than the feathers did. People orbited him without quite approaching, the way a room organizes itself around someone important without anyone admitting that's what they're doing.

I started toward him, unhurried, a champagne glass in one hand I had no intention of drinking.

I made it eight feet before someone stepped directly into my path.

"You're new," the woman said. Sharp-cheeked, dark hair pulled back tight, a plain silver mask that did nothing to soften the flat assessment in her voice. "I don't know your face."

"That's usually the point of the mask," I said.

"Not with me." She didn't smile. "Rosalind Fairweather. Head of security, Fenwick Dynamics."

My pulse ticked up, but I kept my shoulders loose. "Celeste Duquesne."

"Duquesne." She said it like she was testing the weight of it. "I don't know that name either."

"You wouldn't. I've spent the last five years working outside the city." I sipped the champagne I didn't want, giving my hands something to do. "Private risk consulting. Personal security for people who'd rather not admit they need it."

"Which firm?"

"Harrow and Vane. Capital office." I let a small, dry smile through. "Closed eighteen months ago, before you ask. Budget cuts, not scandal, in case you were hoping for something juicier."

Something in her expression shifted — not trust, exactly, but a recalculation. She hadn't expected me to know what she'd ask next.

"And what brings Harrow and Vane's former consultant to a Fenwick Dynamics event?"

"Networking." I let the word sit there, plain and boring, exactly as Otto had coached me. "I'm between contracts. This city has more security-conscious money in one room tonight than most cities have in a year. Seemed foolish not to come."

Rosalind studied me a beat too long. I held still under it, the way you hold still under a current, letting it pass over you instead of fighting it.

"Careful who you network with tonight," she said finally. "Some of the guests here aren't what they appear to be."

"Aren't they all?" I said. "That's rather the point of the mask, isn't it?"

For the first time, something close to amusement crossed her face. "You're quicker than most of the people who try that line on me."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"You should." She glanced past my shoulder, and whatever she saw there made her posture straighten, just slightly. "Excuse me."

She stepped aside — not away, exactly, more like she was clearing a path — and I understood why a half-second before I turned around and found myself looking directly into Graham Fenwick's face.

Up close, he wasn't handsome in the loud, obvious way Marcus Whitfield had been. He was handsome the way a locked door is beautiful — clean lines, no give anywhere, nothing about him inviting you to try the handle. His mask was as plain as his suit, and behind it, his eyes moved over my face with a slow, deliberate patience that made my skin prickle.

"Rosalind tells me you're new," he said.

"Rosalind's very thorough."

"It's her job to be." A faint pause. "Celeste Duquesne."

"You have good hearing."

"I have good staff." He didn't smile, but something in his voice suggested he might, under different circumstances. "Harrow and Vane. I know the firm. Solid work, before it folded."

"You checked."

"I check everyone." He said it plainly, without apology, the way another man might mention the weather. "It's a habit that's served me well."

"I'd imagine it makes parties exhausting."

"This isn't a party for me." His eyes hadn't left my face. "It's an obligation with better lighting."

I laughed — a real laugh, surprising myself with it — and something in his expression flickered, like he hadn't expected that either.

"You're direct," I said.

"I don't have time to be anything else." He shifted his weight, and for a moment the noise of the ballroom seemed to fall away from the small space between us. "I have a company to protect and a week where half the city hides behind masks to make that harder than it needs to be."

"Sounds like a difficult job."

"It is." His gaze sharpened, and something about the shift in his voice told me the conversation had just turned into something else entirely. "I'm currently hunting a woman."

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"Are you," I said. Level. Steady. The way I'd say anything else.

"Her name is Imogen Vance." He watched me while he said it — not glancing away for even a second, not softening it into small talk the way he might have said any other name in this room. "She's wanted in connection with two crimes this week alone. I intend to find her before Veil Week ends."

The champagne glass was very cold in my hand. I made myself keep holding it steady.

"That's a bold claim," I said. "Castryn's not exactly known for making things easy to find."

"No," he agreed. "It isn't."

"Then what makes you think you'll succeed where the city's own police haven't?"

Graham's mouth curved, faint and humorless, and his eyes stayed fixed on mine with an intensity that made the room feel smaller than it had a moment ago.

"Because I have resources the police don't," he said. "And because I don't stop looking for something once I've decided I want it."

He let that sit between us, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and no reason at all to look away first.

"Whatever she's calling herself now," he added quietly, "I'll find the woman underneath it. I always do."

The room kept moving around us, laughter somewhere by the bar, glasses clinking, the low hum of two hundred masked strangers pretending not to watch the CEO speak to someone new.

I smiled, cool and practiced, and said something forgettable in return.

But underneath the mask, underneath ten years of careful stillness, my heart was slamming against my ribs hard enough that I was almost certain he could hear it.

Because Graham Fenwick wasn't looking anywhere else in that ballroom while he made his promise.

He was looking directly at me.