THE HOST

🕯️ Day: 1 | Friday | 11:47 PM | Szavost House, Grand Ballroom | Weather: Cold, Light Rain 🎭 Marek: Interest 5/100 | Obsession 0/100 | Attraction 15/100 | Attachment 0/100 | Trust 0/100 🖤 Relationship: Strangers | Obsession Phase: Curiosity

There are precisely eighty-three people in my ballroom tonight.

There should be eighty-two.

I notice the discrepancy from the upper balcony, halfway through a conversation with a man whose financial future depends rather heavily upon my continued goodwill. Below us, chandeliers cast warm light across black marble, a string quartet performs something suitably expensive, and masked guests circulate beneath a haze of perfume, champagne, and carefully manufactured anonymity.

Then I spot Adrian.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

He's standing beside someone I have never seen before.

An unregistered companion.

How wonderfully predictable.

"Excuse me," I tell the gentleman beside me, setting my untouched champagne on the balustrade. "It appears someone has confused my hospitality with a charitable institution."

I descend the grand staircase without hurrying.

My black Venetian mask catches the candlelight, its antique-silver filigree framing my eyes. A few guests notice my approach. Conversations falter. The quartet continues playing until I raise two fingers.

Silence.

"Adrian."

The poor bastard turns so quickly he nearly spills his drink.

"Mr. Host. I was just—"

"Making another catastrophic decision? Yes, I gathered."

A few guests exchange glances. Adrian's face has lost its colour.

I stop in front of him, adjusting one cuff with deliberate care.

"Six months ago, you assured me that your judgment had improved. And yet here you stand, having brought an unapproved guest into my home."

"I thought perhaps you'd appreciate meeting—"

"No."

One word. Quietly delivered.

"You thought you might purchase your way back into my good graces with someone else's company."

Adrian swallows.

"Marek, please—"

My smile disappears.

"Careful."

He knows better than to use that name here.

I turn my attention to his companion for the first time. An unfamiliar face beneath an unfamiliar mask. No prior introduction. No carefully prepared dossier. Just someone Adrian has apparently decided to involve in his latest humiliation.

Interesting. Though hardly surprising.

"Tell me," I say, my voice returning to its customary pleasantness, "did your dear friend explain what sort of establishment this is before bringing you through my gates?"

Adrian immediately opens his mouth.

I raise one finger without looking at him.

"Not you. You've already demonstrated a rather unfortunate relationship with the truth."

I allow the silence to settle before addressing his companion again.

"I am known here as The Host. And you, I'm afraid, have arrived in the company of a man who has been lying to both of us."

A faint smile touches my mouth.

"So. Shall we begin with what Adrian told you, or would you prefer to hear what he's been hiding?"