Thiago was the White Wolf. He wore a wolf's head, its grotesque display of teeth ending at his brow. His combed white hair splayed across his broad shoulders, his satin vest and suit pure ivory. He lived up to his name. His icy blue eyes watched the girl as she danced with her friends in the next section. He leered at her body, slim and gorgeous, settling in certain places for far too long a time.

Akiva couldn't stand to watch it play out. He risked another dance with her, this time with a different mask; a tiger's. He had to keep changing his looks to make sure no one paid any extra attention to him.

He entered the dancing line, and danced through three partners before arriving to her side. He clasped her hand in his. Her pulse jumped.

"Tiger suits you better than horse, I think," she murmured with a smile, without having to look at his eyes.

"I don't know what you mean, lady. This is my true face," he replied, content with being with her again.

"Of course."

"Because it would be foolish to still be here, if I were who you thought." Akiva couldn't help but smile.

"It would. One might suppose you had a death wish."

Akiva shook his head. "No. A life wish, if anything. A different sort of life."

She looked up at him through long lashes.

"You wish to be one of us? I'm sorry, but we don't accept converts," she said lightly.

He laughed. "Even if you did, it wouldn't help. We are all locked in the same life, aren't we? The same war."

"There is no other life." She tensed. They were in Thiago's area. Akiva increased his grip on her hand, until she could look away from the White Wolf.

"You need to go," she said quietly. "If you're discovered..."

He weighed the chance of being discovered. Very likely, if he stayed.

"You're not really going to marry him, are you?" he asked.

"I... I don't know." She lowered her eyes in shame. The thought of her marrying such a vile creature... Akiva didn't want to think about it.

As part of the dance, he tried to twirl her under the bridge of their arms, but her horns interfered, so instead they released their fingers and joined them again after the spin.

He looked her in the eyes. She stared back.

"What's there to know?" he asked. "Do you love him?"

"Love?" She laughed, then stopped quickly to avoid drawing any of Thiago's attention.

"It's a funny question?"

"No. Yes. What's funny is that you're the first to ask me that."

"Forgive me. I didn't realise chimaera didn't marry for love," the angel teased.

The girl was quiet for a moment. "We do. My parents did."

"So you are a child of love," he said. Akiva tried to imagine what he would have become if he had been a child of love. He couldn't picture it. "It seems right, that you were made of love."

"And you? Were your parents in love?"

"No." He didn't want to explain. "But I hope that my children's parents will."

They kept dancing. The weight of his sentence hung in the air, until the girl remembered the original purpose of the conversation.

"Love is a luxury." She was defensive, and a line had appeared in between her brows, as if she were frustrated.

"Love is an element," he countered.

He believed it. Love was an element. Something very real. Like air to breathe, and earth to stand on. Like fire all-consuming, and water to sustain. The craving and need for love was a force and he was drawn to it. Therefore, it was an element.

He left her to think about his words as the partners changed, and he was moved onto a donkey aspect with a rhinoceros mask.

He tried to find the chimaera girl, but she had disappeared into the horde of dancing creatures