Isabelle held the older woman's face steady, her voice dropping to a near whisper now, icy and absolutely final in a way that carried more weight than any shout could have managed. "I don't know who you think you are in this room," she said quietly, "and honestly, I don't particularly care. But you should know something before you decide to lay hands on another child at this event, or any other."
She paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough for the full weight of what she was about to say to land with maximum, unavoidable clarity.
"You just touched the wrong child."
The older woman's face had gone pale, whatever remained of her earlier outrage entirely evaporated now, replaced by something closer to genuine fear as she registered the complete absence of bluff in Isabelle's low, controlled tone.
Isabelle released her grip and stepped back, adjusting Margot securely against her hip, the small girl's sobs finally quieting into soft, exhausted hiccups against her mother's shoulder. She looked once more around the silent ballroom, at the frozen guests, the abandoned champagne flutes, the string quartet that had stopped playing entirely somewhere in the last thirty seconds without anyone quite noticing.
Then, without another word, she turned and carried her daughter away from the stunned crowd, leaving behind a room full of guests who would spend the rest of the evening — and likely much longer than that — wondering exactly who Isabelle Voss really was, and precisely what consequences the older woman in green had just invited upon herself.