The ballroom had not recovered from the silence.
It hung in the air like a held breath, thick and suffocating, pressing down on everyone who stood within those golden walls.
The chandeliers still sparkled, the mana-lamps still drifted lazily above the crowd, and the Emperor still stood on his dais with his glass raised and his mouth slightly open, but no one was looking at him anymore.
No one was looking at anything except the young man with the white hair and the ocean-blue eyes who had just walked through the doors and destroyed the rhythm of the evening without even realizing it.
Amelia also could not look away from him.
She stood beside Arthur near the center of the ballroom, her hand still resting on his arm, her silver-violet eyes fixed on the figure in the doorway with an intensity that surprised even her. Her mind was racing, tumbling over itself, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
That's him? That's really him?
She had heard the rumors, of course.
