Until then, Ulrich had kept forcing his attention outward, scanning the hall, the movement of servants, the flow of guests, the shifting positions of guards, searching for anything misplaced enough to suggest a demon hiding beneath another face.
Now his attention had changed completely.
It rested on the three sisters.
Airam, Hermione, and Esther stood apart from everyone else, isolated so plainly that it had become impossible not to notice. They already drew the eye by nature. Their beauty alone would have done that much. But now the way the crowd curved around them made them stand out even more. A clear space had formed around the three of them, a strip of floor no one crossed, as if some silent warning had been laid there. No boys approached. No young men stepped forward out of courtesy. No one even made the pretense of kindness by asking one of them for a dance.
They had been set aside.
