L’zar wouldn’t let himself finish the thought. He had to find the woman first, whoever she was—putting the magical cart in front of the flying horse wouldn’t do him any favors.
Once he made it to 16th Street, the busy street echoed with the undertones of live bands blasting from every bar, of laughter rising from open car windows and restaurant doors. A bellhop in a bright-red suit with gold buttons nodded at L’zar as the 1920s businessman stepped in front of the hotel entrance. The man pushed a luggage trolley across the sidewalk toward a car waiting at the curb.
L’zar froze. A tingling feeling yanked him sideways. Slowly, he peered at the hotel’s entrance and noticed the illuminated silver and white St. Regis Hotel sign’s marquee. Below it, a half-dozen silver balloons buffeted about in the stiff breeze blowing down 16th Street.
I’ve seen those balloons before. This is it.
L’zar made his way through the revolving doors and stopped himself from phasing through the glass partitions. D.C.’s most elegant socialites filled the lobby and beyond. They had come to welcome Y2K with a bang. The thought made the drow smirk as he scanned dozens of faces. The soothsayer hadn’t given him a name or an image or even a specific year. However, tonight felt different from all the other nights. Tonight, the call blazed like a siren.
The right place at the right time. Now I need the right…
A group of females in short, glittering dresses and beaded headbands passed by as they headed toward the event room off the bar. One woman offered him a coy smile, which the drow politely returned.
No, not her. Still…
The magic of prophecy in his veins pulled him after the women. L’zar waited as they made superficial conversation with two men standing just inside the ballroom doors. He waited until they entered the room, then went to follow. A man in a tuxedo stepped in front of him and cleared his throat “Your invitation, sir?”
The drow reached into the manufactured inside pocket of his jacket and whipped out a blank piece of cardstock. Without looking at the concierge, he snapped the fingers of his other hand, and his illusion spell did the rest.
After seeing whatever it was he wanted to see on the fake invitation, the man handed it back. “Enjoy your evening, sir.”
L’zar snatched the card and made a show of tossing it into a silver trashcan by the doors. The fake invitation disappeared in a swirl of thin white smoke, and the drow moved into the ballroom like a panther on the hunt.
A four-string quartet played in the far corner, accompanying a man in a suit very much like L’zar’s and singing a Louis Armstrong song. Silver tinsel hung from every surface, silver ornaments dangling from the ceiling. A massive banquet table lined the wall on his left, laden with caviar and finger sandwiches, cocktail shrimp, beef tartar, artisan cheese. After a quarter-century of gruel that didn’t begin to meet state prison regulations—Chateau D’rahl wasn’t state-regulated, of course—it took every bit of his will not to go to the table, shove people out of the way, and fill multiple plates.
A golden light caught his eye as it shimmered at the other end of the ballroom. The drow’s body tingled from the pull buzzing through his veins. “Where are you?” he whispered, scanning the faces. “Show yourself…”
“Champagne?” A woman in a short cocktail dress passed in front of him with a tray of full, bubbling champagne flutes.
“Thank you.” L’zar didn’t look at her as he pulled a glass off the tray by its delicate stem and headed across the ballroom. Drinking was the last thing on his mind. This thread tying him to a woman he hadn’t met yet was making him drunk enough.
“The elections turned out very much the way we expected…”
“…would be nice not to talk shop for one night, Senator, don’t you think?”
“…when the Democratic Whip knocks on your door and asks for a favor…”
L’zar moved through the crowd, weaving between milling bodies and searching for that golden glow again. Part of him wanted to shed the illusion and gain the extra foot his drow form would have afforded, but this wasn’t the place. Most people this side of the Border didn’t know what a drow was.
Two men in suits and lit cigars—one of them pointing to his monocle and chuckling—passed in front of the drow thief. L’zar huffed out a breath and flicked his finger. The monocle leapt from the man’s eye and clattered to the ground. The man bent to retrieve it, and L’zar slipped through the opening in the crowd. With small, short bursts of magic, he moved the partygoers out of his way—a woman’s beaded necklace pulling her sideways before snapping and spilling beads all over the marble floors; a stiff-backed caterer tripping over his own shoe; two cabinet members, judging by their snippets of conversation, both feeling a tug on the back of their suit jackets before turning around.
“Out of my way,” L’zar muttered.
“I’m sorry?” A long-legged redhead in a dress of copper-colored fringe turned and flashed him a surprised smile.
“I said, hell of a day, huh?” The drow met her gaze, hoping he’d found her.
“And the day will be over in half an hour.” She grinned. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m—”
The pull reignited in L’zar’s chest, and he lurched away from the woman to follow it. That’s not her. “Excuse me.”
When he reached the other side of the ballroom, he searched the same place he’d seen a flash of golden light. He stopped, clenched his jaws, and turned to study the New Year’s Eve party from a different angle. Still, he recognized no one. The woman he’d been trying to meet for centuries was nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be found.
A soft grunt conveyed L’zar’s disappointment. Then, he lifted the champagne flute to his mouth and shook his head, hoping for destiny to tug again like a fishhook pulling through his cheek.
