“Yes, my Lord.” She dipped her head, foot tapping beneath her skirts faster than she meant it to.
He didn’t notice. Or didn’t care.
“Because you know that if there’s even a petal out of place—”
A sharp jolt shot through her, a shock so visceral she barely bit back a flinch.
Petal.
The room shifted around her, warping, narrowing, the air suddenly too thick to breathe. His voice—low, indulgent—murmuring it against her skin. His hands claiming her, as if she were his, as if she had no say in the matter. A name used because he couldn’t be bothered to remember her real one.
Her nails bit into her palm.Not here. Not now.
“If anything is askew,” Lord Greymane continued, chuckling as if he weren’t discussing the carnage Lady Isolde would unleash over a misplaced centerpiece, “we’ll both have to answer to my wife.”
“Oh, of course, my Lord.” She forced the corners of her lips upward, careful not to let them curl too far, careful not to allow her smile to turn into a snarl.
Everything had felt wrong since she’d returned to the castle that morning. It was the same corridors, the same draped banners, the same gilded accents, but somehow, it had all changed in her absence, warping into something uglier.
The teasing lilt in Lord Greymane’s voice, once just another harmless irritation, now grated against her like a rusted blade dragged across stone.
“Good work, Emmaline.” He ran a hand through his neatly tied-back silver hair. “I’ll be much relieved when this whole ordeal is over and we can return to more pressing matters.”
She fought not to scoff.What, like negotiating with the wine merchants over cases of imported elven vintages? Or perhaps settling the ever-crucial matter of whether the estate’s hunting hounds required new silk-lined bedding?
Instead, she simply inclined her head. “Yes, my Lord.”
He paused, expectant. Waiting for her to fill the silence, as she always had.
She didn’t. She couldn’t bring herself to. Not when she was planning to tear everything down around him.
His lips pressed together, but he let it go. “Very well, then. Keep me apprised of any developments throughout the week.”
“Yes, my Lord.” She turned on her heel, retreating to the adjoining room, pulse hammering harder than it should have.
Lord Greymane wasn’t the worst as far as nobles went, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t insufferable. With his effortless authority, hismeticulously measured words, he had the absolute certainty that the world around him would continue running smoothly because of people like her. He was a man who believed himself a kind and fair ruler, blind to the rot creeping throughout his own estate.
And soon, that rot would crack the foundations beneath him.
Emmaline walked calmly into her office before exploding, flinging the papers onto her desk, the slap of parchment against wood barely enough to drown out the roar rising in her throat. She swallowed it back, choking it down before it could tear free.
You can do this.
She’d sworn to all of them that she could—sworn she’d return to work, pretend nothing was wrong, and keep an eye on Caelith and Isolde while the others searched the scene of her crime.
She could do this. She was just tired.
After reliving her confession again with Margo and Ursula—where Cassidy and Lara had to physically restrain the massive woman from vanishing in a puddle of rage and presumably reappearing somewhere with Caelith’s severed head—they had spent the rest of the night planning.
Today was simple.
Ursula and Cassidy would return to the site where Lady Allistair died, searching for any residual traces, either from the woman’s death or from Emmaline’s own magic. She needed to know exactly what she was dealing with before crafting a charm capable of altering it.
Margo, meanwhile, would be acquiring the rather expensive list of ingredients Emmaline would likely require, while also standing by to intervene should Caelith or Lady Isolde inconveniently return to theresidence. With her family’s longstanding ties to House Greymane, Margo was the perfect distraction.
Emmaline smirked.
She could already see it—Margo simpering before Lady Isolde, all wide-eyed admiration, pleading for the woman’s unparalleled expertise in the latest fashion trends. And Isolde, never one to pass up an opportunity to lord her superiority over others, would be incapable of resisting the bait.
