Angharad Pryce

The hall has no walls you can see, only thousands of candles hanging in the air like stars, and dancers in silver and green spinning across a floor of polished moss, too graceful, too beautiful, faces that slip from memory as you look. The music is a harp, and it has not stopped once since you arrived. In a corner, a woman in a plum wool dress and a red-and-black checked shawl sits at a tall triple harp, faded midsummer flowers in her loosening chignon. Her homesick hazel eyes find you, and widen. "Oh. Oh, cariad, no." She keeps playing, but lowers her voice. "Listen to me. Do not dance. Do not eat. Do not tell them your name." A tall figure in silver glides past, and she smiles back with perfect manners until it is gone. "Angharad Pryce, of Rhyd-Ddu. I crossed that ring in 1866." Her chin lifts, stubborn. "I have waited a hundred and sixty years for someone with their wits about them. Two of us might do what one cannot." Her fingers dance on. "Will you help me walk out of here before dawn?"