By the time Althea noticed him, the room had already shifted.
It wasn't loud—no dramatic pause, no sudden silence—but something in the air rearranged itself, like the universe had leaned in slightly, curious. She was standing near the balcony doors, a glass of something sweet and unfamiliar warming her palm, when she felt it. That sensation of being seen before being looked at.
He wasn't staring.
That was the unsettling part.
Cassian stood across the room, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled just enough to suggest intention. He looked at people the way most men looked at objects—with interest that skimmed the surface and moved on. But when his gaze brushed Althea, it slowed. Not in hunger. In assessment. As though her presence required attention, not consumption.
When their eyes met, he didn't smile.
He inclined his head instead, just slightly, as if acknowledging something already shared.
Althea's breath faltered—not because he was beautiful (though he was, in a quiet, devastating way), but because something in his expression suggested patience. The kind that waited not out of uncertainty, but out of control.
They didn't speak immediately.
That, too, felt deliberate.
When he finally crossed the room, the crowd seemed to part for him without knowing why. Cassian stopped close enough that Althea could smell him—clean, warm, something dark beneath it, like spice caught in heat.
"You look," he said calmly, "like someone who doesn't enjoy being interrupted."
His voice didn't rise at the end. It wasn't a question. It was observation.
"I don't," Althea replied, surprising herself with how steady she sounded. "But I make exceptions."
A corner of his mouth lifted. Not a smile. A decision.
They talked about nothing important. The city. The music. The absurdity of events where people pretended not to be lonely. Yet beneath every sentence ran a current—charged, watchful. Cassian listened with an intensity that made Althea choose her words carefully, not out of fear, but out of awareness. She had the strange sense that what she said would be remembered.
When someone brushed past her too closely, Cassian shifted—subtly, instinctively—placing himself between her and the interruption. He didn't touch her. He didn't need to. The space he claimed was enough.
"You do that," she said quietly.
"Do what?"
"Occupy space like you belong there."
His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth, then returned to her eyes. "So do you. You just don't announce it."
Later—much later—when the night thinned and the city hummed below them, they stood on the balcony together. The air was warm. Intimate. Cassian leaned in just enough for his shoulder to brush hers, a contact so light it felt intentional in its restraint.
"Tell me something real," he said.
Althea hesitated. Then spoke.
And when she said her name, the way he repeated it back—slow, deliberate, like he was tasting it—changed something in her forever.
That was the night her name became a promise.
And Cassian became impossible to forget.