By the time I realized the envelope wasn’t for me, I’d already opened it.
The paper was too thick, the way rich-people paper always is, like it had never known a discount bin. The return address at the corner made my stomach dip: CROWE HOLDINGS, embossed in matte black. Even I, professional avoider of local gossip, had heard the whispers about that name.
I stood behind the bookshop counter with my thumbs smudged in ink, staring at the heavy card inside. My name was there in looping, indifferent calligraphy.
Miss Marlie Quinn,
You are cordially invited…
"That is not a flyer for a two-for-one romance sale," Nadia said, appearing at my elbow like she’d been summoned by my rising heart rate.
"It’s a mistake," I muttered. My voice sounded small in the rows of used paperbacks and crooked shelves.
She plucked the card out of my hand before I could hide it. "Masked gala. Midnight. At the Crowe estate." She whistled low. "Okay, either you’ve suddenly become interesting as hell, or someone in that family needs better data entry."
"Nadia," I hissed, glancing at the one customer in the corner. He didn’t look up from his stack of true crime. I cleared my throat. "They don’t invite book clerks."
"They invite whoever they want to own," she said, reading the rest of the text with a dramatic flourish. Her dark eyes flicked up, sharp now. "You sure you haven’t been cyberstalking any billionaires in your spare time?"
"I barely stalk my own social media," I said. My fingers worried the loose thread at the hem of my cardigan. "It’s a wrong address. It has to be. I’ll just—" I reached for the card.
She stepped back, card held high. "Or—and hear me out—you could go."
"Absolutely not."
I already knew I wouldn’t. I avoided anything with more than six people and fluorescent lighting. The idea of a mansion full of masked strangers made my lungs tighten. The Crowes made it worse. People said their parties ended in signed NDAs and sudden resignations. People also said the people who crossed them ended in obituaries no one asked too many questions about.
But the invitation sat on the counter like a dare I’d already failed by touching it.
"Midnight," Nadia said thoughtfully. "You close at nine. Plenty of time to transform you from anxious library mouse into… I don’t know, a slightly shinier anxious library mouse."
"This isn’t funny."
She sobered at the quiver in my voice. "Hey. I’m not trying to freak you out." She lowered the card. "But, Mar, this—" she waggled it "—this doesn’t happen to people like us. And if it is a mistake, you hand it back at the door, you get a story about fancy canapés and ugly rich-people art. You love stories."
I did. On pages. Where they couldn’t touch me back.
"Or," I said quietly, "something goes wrong, and I freeze. Again."
Her expression softened, and I hated that I’d said it out loud. The old memory flickered in the periphery of my mind: flashing red lights, my mother’s hand limp on the carpet, the moment my body locked while someone on the phone shouted for me to do something, anything. I’d done nothing. I’d been eight. The guilt hadn’t aged a day.
"You were a kid," Nadia said, like always. "And this is a rich-people costume ball, not a burning building."
