Zenna never made it to the boy. She tottered in her heels, unable to run. Her gloved hand slipped on the lip of the stage, her skirt tangling her legs as she tried to jump.


Rough hands grabbed her shoulders and dragged her back.


‘Get – off – me!’ she cried, kicking at the air.


‘Last chance,’ the security guard said. ‘Go back to your table and stay there or you’re out.’


By the time Zenna pulled away, nearly rolling an ankle in the crazy heels, the purple house curtain had lowered, cutting off the stage. It may as well be another dimension, another world. Zenna wasn’t getting there.


No one else showed any signs of alarm. The disco ball spun a whirlpool of light around the walls, the DJ was pumping beats, and the dance floor heaved. It wasn’t the kind of dancing Zenna had imagined for the evening.


Slow dancing with Will.


She couldn’t find Cecelia in the press of people. She couldn’t find Gabby at all. The burning boy was gone, and Zenna folded her arms across herself. The curtains had closed on the dying performer, the crowd agape but not concerned, and Zenna put her hands to her head, the velvet gloves plush against her face except for the knot of black satin around her wrist.


How had it gone so wrong? Had they saved the boy? But he’d been burning for so long before the curtain fell, and no one had pulled him out. The smell …


Something was missing, and Zenna sensed it was her. Something she’d failed to keep track of.


The door next to the stage opened. Zenna glimpsed a flash of magenta.


‘Gabby!’ She stumbled through the crowd, shoving against people, but the music was too loud.


Finally, fighting against the tide of buoyed students, she caught up to Gabby, thanking Nancy for the bright pink hue.


‘What happened to him?’ Zenna asked. ‘How did you get back there?’


Gabby smiled vaguely, her fake I’m having a good time here expression. ‘What happened to who?’


‘The boy.’


‘What boy?’


‘The guy on fire!’


Gabby fixed her eyes on Zenna. ‘What guy on fire? There was no fire.’


Okay, so the evening was weird, but it wasn’t that weird. ‘The show went wrong. There was a fire on the stage, and an acrobat landed in it.’


Gabby scanned the room, then shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’


‘And all the extra people here, they were drinking during the show. There’s something going on.’


‘There aren’t any extra people, Zenna. Is dessert out yet?’


‘No, I …’ Zenna turned to survey the crowd and realised Gabby was right. The strangers were gone. ‘They were here before. Look!’ She pointed at the balloon arch, where a swish of deep blue evening gown showed a couple leaving. ‘There they go.’


Gabby glanced up, but the couple had vanished. She gave Zenna a sympathetic smile. ‘Let’s find Cecelia.’


Gabby didn’t believe her. Zenna knew what she’d seen. She didn’t understand it, but Gabby wasn’t interested in the puzzle. A small piece of Zenna’s mind thought maybe that was part of the problem, and she opened her mouth to mention –


‘Ceel!’ Gabby exclaimed, and swept away, leaving Zenna alone. Alone in her senseless thoughts. Alone on the edge of the dance floor.


Don’t do it. Not tonight.


But standing there at the periphery of the ballroom with the curtain over the stage, the crowd an impenetrable mass and the door to the toilets the nearest escape from the chasm yawning around her, she couldn’t think of anything else. Only that she must make the churning, falling feeling stop.


She turned and slipped into the ladies, fingers closing around the tissue-wrapped razor blade she’d tucked into her dress pocket.