There is always a ball in the Gallery. No one remembers how it began or knows when it will end—least of all me—though many speculate. But that’s all that happens at parties like these, isn’t it? Speculation.

The Gallery flirts with space and time. Its hallways weave together to create an ever-shifting tapestry of crimson and sin. The walls are mahogany paneled, or upholstered with crushed blood-red velvet, or draped in curtains that reveal hints of mirrors behind the heavy swaths of burgundy. All the windows are tucked away behind drapes. Only once have I pulled back the fabric to peer through shards of stained glass, and I was met with an endless spread of stars. The passages double back on themselves—lace together like the back of a corset—and act as veins between ballrooms and vestibules and antechambers where couples dance and drink and whisper. Yet, I’m never really sure if the room I’m in is one I’ve seen before. Chandeliers overflowing with candles and dripping with rubies, amber, and diamonds light the space, their rippling glow leaving just enough darkness in the corners to foster forbidden deeds.

Though, only one thing is forbidden. Every partygoer wears a mask, and every hour, the mask changes. One must never remove it. The command is written in blood on a stone arch in the main hall.

Hours are a fluid thing, subject to the whims of the Gallery. If there ever was a host of this lavish masquerade, they forgot it was them three glasses of wine ago. But there is a grandfather clock in the central amphitheater—an ornately carved fortress of stately walnut and brass clockwork behind single-paned glass. Every time the minute hand hits twelve—which can be what feels like minutes or days apart—the Gallery plunges into the same darkness that floats beyond the windows. When the candles flicker back to life, every guest has donned a new raiment, their identity tucked safely behind a new guise. A deck of cards reshuffled.

It’s a slow hour right now, and I wait. My features are concealed behind a golden dragonfly that perches on the bridge of my nose. It spreads out past the sides of my face, and I watch the world through the latticework of its ardent wings. Around me, a faceless crowd rustles like a horse stamping its feet in a too small stall before a race. We stand before a shoulder-height platform, its edges bedazzled with rhinestones and bleeding black lace. I’m in the second row of onlookers.

I’ve been loitering in this room for several hours, nursing a Grenache and filling an empty stage with my imaginings. At the top of the hour a voice piped through tinny speakers informed us that a show would be starting soon, but for now I can fill the blank canvas of the stage with anything I want. A metal skeleton suspends halogen lights over the stage, and finally now that the room is full, they dim.

The murmurs settle, coaxed to bed like a child tucked beneath a blanket by the shifting hues. We hang in collective anticipation for another few heartbeats, then the lights flare back to life with a resonant click, bathing the stage in a red and orange glow.

The Performer saunters onto the stage from the midnight curtains of the right wings. They wear a well-tailored black blazer with jutting shoulder pads and nothing but a crisscrossing strand of pearls beneath it, and matching bellbottoms with slits up to their knees studded with unlaced silver rivets. Their blond hair is in a braid like barbed wire, perching high on their scalp and slithering down their back as they walk. They strut to the condenser microphone, their platform heels clapping against the wooden floorboards. The lights hit their mask, making stars flash in my vision. It’s made of interlacing silver thorny vines, allowing only the slightest hint of their eyes to peek through and extending down past their nose, but leaving their cherry-red-stained lips free to taunt the crowd with a wide grin.

As the Performer caresses the microphone with long fingers tipped with nail polish like pomegranate seeds, an unseen piano strikes up a sultry tune, and they begin to sing. Their voice is deep and rough around the edges as they spin a ballad of roses and deceit, cloaking the crowd in their presence.

Our eyes connect as they start a new verse, and the faintest glint of recognition flashes behind the briars entangling their face. A hungry kind of knowing curls their lips as they look at me. And it’s all part of the show, but I might as well have taken a swig of scalding cider the way their umber gaze hits my stomach. This is exactly what I have been looking for. They’re what I’ve been looking for.

Their eyes flit away, leaving a sweet taste lingering on my craving tongue, making me aware of the empty space between my ribs. But their attention is elsewhere, and the hour is almost up. The Performer belts the final notes of their song, then drops into a bow, blows a few kisses, and bounds off stage, braid trailing behind them like a whip. I’m already moving toward the exit, hoping to catch them as they leave the backstage area, but I’m caught in the muddle of the crowd, and as I push my way into the corridor, a declarative GONG plunges the Gallery into the abyss.

I’m lounging on a velvet sofa and the person feeding me honey-cakes is wearing a dress that looks like the space between the stars was painted directly onto their skin. Everyone in the Gallery forgot their names long ago—if we ever had them in the first place—so I think of them as the Wolf. Their polished platinum mask is carved into a canine head that covers their whole face, the Sirius of their night sky. Their eyes are concealed behind a black veil that fills the wolf’s eye sockets.

We’re tucked away in an alcove off one of the Gallery’s intimate dining chambers, a pilfered plate of pastries resting on the expensive fabric between us. We never exchanged words. I simply felt a hand around my wrist, turned to find an offered platter, and let them lead me to a corner. A layer of ruby-colored tulle half-conceals us from the eyes of passersby, and we all pretend it does more.

I take another bite through the crisp outer layer of the cake in their delicate fingers. The cake is dense and crumbly and its nutty, spiced sweetness coats the inside of my cheeks as I chew. Its tangy, buttery scent fills my bronze serpent mask. Fangs hang down from beneath my eyes, and when I chew, they dig slightly into my cheeks. Crumbs speckle the white silk of my dress, embroidered with black vines that crawl down my waist. The Wolf’s fingers follow the line of the thread to brush the crumbs away. They leave yellow-tinged grease stains on the fabric, but it hardly matters. At the end of the hour I’ll be cloaked in a new garment, a shell that never knew the Wolf’s touch.

There’s something in the way they move that snags at my memory like the anxious habit of someone pulling a thread loose from their sleeve. It’s the angle of their collarbone as they hold their arm out to offer another bite of cake, the ripple of their stomach as they shift their weight. But I can’t place it.

“Do you …” I begin, but I’m losing my nerve two words in. I don’t know the question I’m trying to form.

And then they cock their head in just the right way, and I can imagine the smile beneath the metallic snarl.

“Wait—” The grandfather clock strikes the hour, and I’m reeling like I’ve been hit upside the back of the head with a brick as the Gallery tumbles into darkness.

When the candles flicker back to life, I’m alone in a clean pinstriped suit, an unfamiliar weight on my face, around my neck, and in my heart.

I’ve been watching the Monarch for the better part of an hour. They’re in a cream ballgown with layered skirts that brush the floor like a nitpicky nanny running a finger down a banister that’s been cleaned twice to inspect for dust. Beaded rubies bleed from the waistline of their dress like a firework sending its trailing sparks to earth. They hide behind a mask with protruding horns, the gold filigree inlaid with garnets. Similar jewels are twisted into their short brown curls.

They’ve waltzed with nearly every person in the packed ballroom. While the masses blur together, waterboarding me with glimmering silk and empty eyes, I can pick out the confidence of their steps from across the room. Certainty occurs to me, but it’s a fleeting thing that dissipates as the line of their jaw breaks the illusion. Then, they vanish into the swarm, someone else in their arms.

I lean against a pillar and fiddle with the diamond studded collar around my neck. It’s the width of my fingers, with jewels the size of my nails fastened in floral patterns that lay heavy and cool on my bare skin. My plunging dress is the color of the cushioned burgundy walls, and with how the Monarch was looking at everyone else, I might as well be part of them.

“Evening,” says a rich voice from behind my ear.

I jump, and there they are. Their choice of words catches me. Evening. Like it’s something worth greeting. Like we could ever have something else.

“Evening,” I say for lack of a better response.

“You’re not going to ask for a dance?” Their voice curls up in my ear like a cat exposing its belly to tempt a hand into braving its claws. The sound of it summons up vestiges of memories lost to the endless churn of a clock’s gears. I want to know them. I’m almost sure I do.

“Is this you trying to ask for one?”

They gesture with their chin toward the elevated platform in the corner of the room. “We may have missed our chance.” The string quartet is packing their instruments back into cases made of black leather that matches their masks.

“I want to find you again,” I whisper.

I unclasp the choker from my neck and drape it over their shoulders. My fingertips brush the tiny hairs on the back of their neck as I fasten it. I do this like it matters. As if I will last.

All I get in response is a flash of white teeth in the night as the clock chimes once more.

I stalk through the corridors. The softness of their skin lingers on the pads of my fingers, carrying me forward like a compass needle redirected by a magnet.

Empty ivory masks leer at me from brackets on the walls, and I see no difference from the ones tied around faces of my fellow partygoers. No difference from mine, caged behind fresh steel. Violins cry out from open doorways and clash over me as I wander the center passage, determined to find them again. To find an answer to who they are. To who I am to them.

Diamonds twinkle at the end of the hall like a North Star. They hook me, dragging me along, around a corner.

“Wait!” I call as I slip through a fluttering curtain that hangs over a doorway.

On the other side, my reflection rises to meet me, and then severs itself as I stumble into a mirror maze. Music echoes around me, adding to the disorientation. Transparent brick-red silk gathers around the ceiling and in the corners between the panes of milky glass. I rush my way through a few crossroads, teased onward by cashmere-like laughter without a visible source.

“Fuck.” I stumble to a halt and lay my hand on a pane of polished glass, reaching for myself. I’m locked in the center of an army of gorgons with expressionless features, snakes twirling around the forehead and cheeks. Beneath the mask, my head is completely covered by black lace that extends down my neck, all the way beneath the waistline of my black slacks. I stretch on forever, but it doesn’t give me any clarity.

I can only take so much silent judgment from these monsters trapped behind glass, so I slide to the floor, kicking off my heels as I link my wrists on top of my knees and bury my face in my forearms.

“Is it really as bad as all that?”

I look up because I want it to be a voice that I know. But there’re no diamonds waiting for me. The Angel is draped in heavy swaths of blackberry velvet, features tucked away behind a feathered mask that looks like interlocking birds’ wings.

They brush their finger beneath my chin. “You okay, love?”

“Fine.” The fabric covering my eyes is damp and clings to my lashes. “I’m in your way, aren’t I?”

“A little bit, yes.”

I stand and slip my feet back into my stilettos. “Sorry. I was looking for someone. Got separated.”

“Well, I hope you find them. Best of luck.”

They smile and I think maybe the strawberry red that glistens on their lips is familiar, but every other figure in this damned maze wears it, too.

They’re already walking away.

The darkness fades with the resonance of the grandfather clock, and I find myself swirling in the center of the main dance floor. Cast iron tongues of flame guard my face. A massive candle-filled crystal chandelier drips red wax onto the dancers below like blood from a knife wound. We revel in each pinprick of heat that finds its mark on skin.

Death wears a lacy scarlet corset and once-white pants that look like a crime scene. Their bare shoulders are crusted with wax. Their face is covered by a paper-white skull that’s missing its lower jaw.

The wave of the crowd pushes us together, and I offer them my hands. The claw-shaped rings that tip their fingers guide my hands around the back of their neck, pricking my skin like spider legs. Death pulls me against themself by the waist and I melt like the liquid divot at the base of a lit wick. My hands float over their shoulders as we sway in time to the music. I dig my nails into the speckles of wax and crack their outer shell. It leaves crimson crescents where there should be white. Their skin feels foreign from the residue. Tacky.

“I’m glad to share this moment with you,” they say.

There’s a lick of finality to the way they say “you” that makes me think they recognize me. I hope they do. I’ve nearly given up on finding whoever it is I’m looking for. I can only keep up my search for so long before despair chokes hope out. I want to let myself slip back into the mindless waves of the crowd, to lose myself in the revelry. But there’s something familiar to the slant of their hips against mine, the pallor of their skin beneath oppressively warm light. I look for green-flecked hazel in the hollows of a skull but find only shadow. Maybe I can trust their tone if I can’t trust myself.

We enjoy this time. They enjoy this time. The question that lingers, ringing in my mind like the faint tone of a wind chime, is who do they think I am?

Our lips are both free, so we take advantage of this new hour. The Gallery obliges us with an empty room—a snug speakeasy-type space with wide maroon stained-leather booths and tiny circular tables sporting drink rings.

They’re a flitting Nymph encased in a polished wooden mask carved with leafy vines. We take up one of the couches, and I straddle their lap. I comb their short blond hair back from their face as we kiss with enough teeth to leave our lips blooming like rose hips in each other’s wake.

We’ve met before. I know the tension of their waist beneath my palms, the dimple of their shoulder. But whether their fingers cradled a microphone or brushed my lips as they fed me sweets, or led me in a dance, or belong to someone from hours that have long since faded from my memory, I don’t know. It could be all of them, or some of them, or maybe if I’m drunker than I think I am, none of them.

“May I?” they whisper, fingers looped in the ribbons above my chest.

What I do know is that right now, their fingers are the ones unlacing my bodice and so they must be the one I’m looking for. Drenched in time and longing, their voice is exactly the one I want to be hearing.

“Yes.”

I want to know if I’m in love. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I was blindfolded instead of masked. Then all the silk-gloved hands that touch me could be one, and if they weren’t I would have no way of knowing. I wonder if that’s the kind of thing you can decide. Can we control who we trust? All I can do now is watch.

I’m leaning against a bar, head bowed from the weight of solid metal that slumbers on my brow. Quiet chatter rustles the intimate room. The walnut paneled walls are bedecked with swirling floral patterns brushed with gold leaf and accented with gathered curtains in the corner that break up the darkness like raspberry jelly in the center of a chocolate. Expensive bottles fill shelves behind the bartender, who wears a mask with curling antlers that rise from the temples.

I rotate an amber glass of scotch on its damp coaster, then carry it to the Dragon at the other end of the bar. They’re doused in a beaded flapper-style dress that disintegrates into separated threads that swish around their thighs like they’re walking through flame. They’re crowned with a gleaming scaled helm.

I pass them the glass. “I love you.”

They accept the drink, downing half of it in one swig, and inspect me with a twisting mouth.

“You promise?” they ask.

I nod.

“Then I’ll keep finding you.”

The darkness of changing times is welcome.

The undercroft of the Gallery breeds secrets. Follow a spiraling wrought iron staircase into the underbelly of this lavish nest, and you find stone vaults with buttresses like the inside of a ribcage. The Lover leads me deeper into the network of pillars by the hand. I know it’s them. I know the texture of the lines of their palm, the sway of their gait when they walk in heels, the way they shift their weight. Their mask feels fitting—it’s a three-faced thing, a charlatan from a stage-play. The central pale face grins with high arching brows, while the side profiles that curve around their cheeks and over their ears grimace.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” I decide.

They untie their mask. They have high cheekbones, a delicate brow above hazel eyes.

Their features bounce right off me. I don’t know them. I don’t know why I expected to. I see flashes of familiarity and think maybe, but I can’t be sure. And maybe we’d done this before, but I can’t trust that I would know.

I wonder where we go from here. The only directive we’ve ever been given is to never show ourselves, and here we are breaking that. But the Gallery doesn’t burst into flames. The party doesn’t screech to a halt. Voices still chatter upstairs, unaware of what lies beneath the surface. The grandfather clock will rip us from this place soon enough, of that, I’m sure. And I wonder how many cycles it will take until the texture of their pores blurs in my memory. Until it fades entirely.

The Lover slides the mask back into place, and for the remainder of the hour, we hold each other.

Because that’s all we can ever offer each other. A moment.