At the touch on her shoulder, Mischa sighed and opened her eyes. Slowly, she blinked past the cobweb of candlelight and ballgowns, of royal marble, and mistletoe. Her eyes were uncharacteristically vague, the lines of her face mellow and unfocused. Between the tumble-loose hair and the snowy nightgown, she looked like a holiday card.
"Cam," she said. Fingers clumsy and still cold from the weather outside, touched his chin, cheek, slid a thumb across the bone of his eyebrow, before settling drowsily at the corner of his mouth.
"Where were you?" Inside Mischa's head, the waltz slowed, the chandeliers flickered. "I looked for you. In the garden and the water, and the...the rooms. I looked." She seemed to be, bonelessly, struggling towards a realization. "I looked for--you. But nobody was there. Everything was beautiful, but nobody was there."
"Don't go," she breathed, fingertips pushing lightly at the exast spot of skin where upper and lower lip joined. "Everything...everything is so stupidly complicated lately. Hana. Legra. Venice. Work. Kami. Why can't things be...still? It's hard to trust anything." Again, the slow, steady blink. "Except...je crois toi. Pourquoi, vous savez?*"