As I turned to walk back toward my corner, he sped up, and he did not merely stumble into me — he clipped my shoulder and, in the same motion, turned his wrists over, and the tray went with them.

The glasses fell.

For a strange, stretched second I watched them drop, and then the cold hit me — a wave of dark red wine breaking over my shoulders and chest, soaking through the platinum silk in an instant, running down my skin.

My gown, that quiet, exquisite thing, was ruined between one breath and the next.

The whole room pulled its breath in at once.

The music stopped mid-phrase.