Page 124 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

“I’m not some damsel in distress. It’s fine, Naomi.”

She squeezed my arm, and I smiled at her warmly before she grabbed her brother’s arm and dragged him with her.

I stood by the standing table for a little while, waving at Anwir, who nodded to me mid-conversation with some other parents.

The orchestra played some covers of recently released music while the dance floor faded into the colours of blue, gold, and black.

People-watching isn’t as boring as some might think. It’s actually really fun. I don’t know most of these people, but I could rhyme together a story about how the waiter and the girl dressed in a white, moon-like dress knew each other by the way their hands touched for a moment too long when they passed each other.

Perhaps it was delusions I fed myself as entertainment, but I had nothing to do, really.

My eyes caught Kane standing in one corner, deep in conversation with Headmaster Shaw. But his eyes constantly swayed over the dance floor, and I swore his gaze lingered the longest on my friends, and as our gazes met, my heart jackhammered.

“Oh no.” I blinked, looking at a girl kneeling on the floor next to me.

I walked up to her, kneeling down by her side. “Hi, is everything alright?”

She looked up, her eyes filling with tears, but she managed to let out a small laugh. “Yeah, it’s just my heel broke, and my parents won’t be happy about that.” She pressed the broken heel against her ballerina shoe as if she hoped the issue would resolve itself just like that.

“Come on, kneeling on a dance floor is terribly dangerous,” I chuckled lightly, helping her up. We walked to the side of the room, and I could have sworn she looked familiar in this light.

“What shoe size do you wear?” I asked her, noticing the fear crossing her eyes when she kept looking down at the broken shoe in her hand. It was familiar—the tears that came whenever something went wrong that your parents wouldn’t approve of.

“Six, I think,” she frowned, checking her answer by looking at the sole of the shoe she held in her hand.

“What a coincidence, I wear a six too!” I grinned, taking off my golden shoes. “The heel is a little higher by one centimetre, I believe, but I’m sure they’ll look gorgeous with your dress.”

I bent down, switching her shoes with mine, and while she let me, she shook her head. “I can’t accept that. Why would you help me like this? Now you don’t have any shoes,” she sounded so amazed and thankful in one breath that I knew this was the right thing to do.

I smiled at her, taking the shoes she’d just worn. “I know that look in your eyes. It’s alright. I’ve got another pair in my room.”

Before I knew it, she threw her arms around me. “Thank you…”

“Dorothee. And you’re welcome.”

She pulled back to look at me. “Oh, how rude of me, I’m Elsie.”

Elsie.

“As in Archer’s sister, Elsie?” I asked, surprised, already knowing the answer.

The eyes.

That’s why she looked so familiar. She and her brother had the exact same pair of eyes.

Elsie’s eyes lit up. “You know my brother?”

I nodded. “He’s a really good friend of mine.”

“That’s wonderful! Mum was hoping to see him making new friends, particularly new girlfriends since Mai is taken, and he shows no romantic interest in Naomi. Oh! You should talk to her, she’ll be delighted to meet you,” she babbled, taking my hand and dragging me with her through the crowded room. My bare feet hitting the icy marble floor. “While I adore how delighted you are that I’m friends with your brother, I don’t think he’d appreciate me meeting his—” Elsie stopped abruptly, and I ran straight into someone’s back as I tripped over my own feet.

“Ouch,” I breathed, tapping my nose to see if it had started bleeding from the impact. It wasn’t particularly hard, but I’ve always been an easy nose bleeder, and I’d do anything to avoid splattering my dress with blood tonight.

The person I ran into turned around, and I released a breath of relief. It was less embarrassing running into him now that I saw his face.

“Missed me that much, huh?” Archer teased with a sideways smile.

Taking my fingers away from under my nose, I inspected and saw, to my luck, no blood. “Terribly. Had to run into you to make sure you weren’t just a pretty imagination of my desperate mind,” I snorted.

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