The night air washed over him, and Julius let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. While it had been instinctive, to offer his assistance, it had also put him very much in the center of things, a position Julius did his best to avoid give his family's magnetism for scandal. Leaving the ballroom freed him from this renewed scrutiny, leaving the wizard feeling quite relieved.

"Any gentleman worth the title would have done as much," he dismissed her thanks, a verbal shrug. "No thanks are needed, Miss Fawley—though I trust you are not too bruised by the ordeal?"