Let it Snow!

❄️Fifty-Two❄️

It took Nora a long while to disentangle herself from the dancing crowd, much longer than it had taken Daniel. When she finally stood outside the ballroom, on top of the impressive staircase, there was no sign of him.

She gripped the marble balustrade in both her hands and leaned beyond, trying to spot his black Musketeer hat among the colourful masks filling the hotel's reception and crowding the bar, but she couldn't see him. Would he go downstairs, though? Or would he want to run home...

The boy's almost forgotten words from the first day when he showed her around Martin's tower floated into the forefront of her mind-- the tower was connected to the hotel, and he knew his ways around only too well.

Standing up straight, Nora looked around and spotted a door right opposite the one leading to the ballroom and guided by pure instinct she walked towards it, finding it unlocked. The long corridor, which lay behind, lit by flame shaped electric lights, looked vaguely familiar. Nora closed the door behind her; she could do this. She had been guiding people through this castle for a week now, she had been in Martin's flat plenty of times, she could surely find it from here... Inhaling deeply, she rushed along the corridor and up a stone spiral staircase, the too long skirt of her gown thrown over her left arm, the transparent stilettos feeling like the world's greatest nuisance.

She stopped short, feeling out of breath, on reaching the top of the staircase. The spot opened into three poorly-lit corridors, and after all the turns the stairs had taken, Nora had no idea where was north and where was south. Spotting a small framed sign on the wall at the mouth of one of the passages, she patted her corset in search of her glasses, took her mask off not caring when it fluttered to the floor, and put them on, hoping that the inscription would tell her where she was.

Before she took two steps towards the sign though, a dark shape run at her from the darkness filling one of the corridors, making her squeal as its hands closed around her waist, lifting her up, making her fly through the air.

"Put me down!" she scolded the man wearing a Musketeer hat. This was Eric, she was certain, and he had absolutely no right to treat her like this.

He obliged, but not before pulling her close to him and making her body slide against his as he deposited her, very slowly, on her feet.

She moved away from him the moment her feet touched the ground and walked towards the closest of the corridors, but he grabbed her by her arm and turned her to face him.

"I thought you wanted to talk to me," he said.

"This is not the moment, Eric, and I changed my mind anyway. I don't need to talk to you anymore. Go back to Victoria before she comes looking for you."

Nora regretted her words the next moment as he grabbed her around her waist and pulled her flush against him. "You wouldn't be jealous of Victoria, would you? That was just a friendly peck..." he murmured, and Nora could smell alcohol from his breath. He had definitely drunk more than she.

She tried to push him away to no avail. "You can kiss her as much as you want, I can't care less. Actually, you'll do me a favour if you two get together," she told him, her words breaking with her effort to free herself, her hands pressed against his chest.

He shook his head, "But I really want to kiss you, Nora, I can't get it out of my mind, how it would feel, kissing the woman instead of the girl..."

A thought flickered through Nora's mind, there and then gone. Would she have fallen in love with him again if he had been here when she arrived, if she had met him before Martin? She shook her head. It wasn't meant to happen; they weren't meant to be. She couldn't even imagine that possibility now.

"No way," she told him, pushing him harder and finally succeeding to make him lose his balance a little.

"I see. Your head is full of my brother, the man whom you had never noticed before, when he was pining for you for years. But of course, things changed... Did he woo you with Daniel? No, I'm sure it's his castle you can't resist, you always loved it..."

That did it. Nora had never hit anyone but now her hand flew to his face on its own accord, connecting with his cheek with a resounding slap and he, due to surprise rather than injury, let go of her, stumbled backwards, and fell.

Nora didn't lose time; she headed for the same spiral staircase that had led her here, running down, away from Eric, and towards the ballroom. She couldn't find Martin's flat from here alone, she needed Martin to guide her.

Halfway down the stairs, her right shoe twisted upon landing on the stone, causing pain to shoot up her leg. She kicked it off and, limping, continued on her way; she could hear footsteps somewhere behind her, and she didn't want Eric to catch up with her. But her persecutor was faster; a strong pair of arms lifted her in the air and turned around, carrying her back upstairs.

"I'll tell you what I wanted to tell you, but then you'll leave me alone, Eric!" she called, resisting to struggle in his arms, afraid to make them both fall down the spiral staircase. "I loved you once. I loved you so much that it took me years to start dating after I stopped seeing you. I had been waiting for you to appear in my life on a white horse once you would realise that I was the one for you, that you loved me too and couldn't live without me. You never did. And now I love Martin and Daniel."

"I love you too, Nora, you can't imagine how much. I always have," Martin said, setting her on her feet on top of the stairs, pulling her close to him as she buried her face into the folds of his Musketeer cloak, cheeks blazing. She hadn't imagined herself telling him that she loved him this way.

"What happened? Why are you here?" he asked softly, cupping her face in his hand and lifting it up to make her look at him.

She shook her head, taking her glasses off and dabbing at her eyes with her bright blue sleeve, feeling overwhelmed. First the scene with Eric, now Martin, and...

"It's Daniel," she said, taking a deep, shaky breath. "He saw you, I mean, he saw Eric kissing Victoria, and he ran from the ballroom, looking really upset. I wanted to find and console him."

Martin had bent down and put her shoe he must have collected back on her foot while she explained, and now stood in front of her again, his eyebrows drawn together with confusion and remorse.

"It would break Daniel's heart if he thought I kissed her, after I told him that I loved you... Come with me, please, he must see us together, otherwise he'll never believe me," he said, taking her by the hand and leading her towards one of the three corridors, then up another staircase.