The world compressed into a single, crystalline point of action. The clatter of Kaelen's overturned cup was a gunshot in the delicate air of the pavilion. The servant flinched, her eyes darting to the rolling porcelain. The poisoned cup in her hand wavered, suspended an inch above the tablecloth—an inch from my destiny.
Kaelen's signal was a silent shout in my blood: Now.
Time didn't slow. It became hyper-efficient, every fraction of a second a vessel for a necessary motion. My body moved with a fluid grace that was part Rosalind's muscle memory, part Selene's battle-honed precision.
"Oh, how clumsy of me!" I exclaimed, my voice pitched to a light, self-deprecating tremor that was utterly foreign to my true self. It was the voice of the old Rosalind, the flustered girl. As I spoke, my elbow "accidentally" swept my silver teaspoon from the table's edge. It tinkled as it hit the stone floor, spinning away under the table.
A perfect, secondary distraction. The servant's gaze, already fractured by Kaelen's crash, followed the spoon for a critical half-second.
"Allow me, my lady," the servant began, starting to bend, her primary duty to retrieve the fallen utensil, the poisoned cup still held awkwardly in her other hand.
"No, please, don't trouble yourself!" I said quickly, already rising from my chair. This was the moment. The tablecloth, a heavy damask linen, draped almost to the ground on my side, creating a shielded alcove. My full, grey-blue skirts belled out around me as I bent at the waist, one hand reaching gracefully for the spoon.
My other hand, hidden by the fall of my hair and the curtain of the tablecloth, moved.
This was the gamble. The cup is meant for Crown Prince Cassian. In the original, cursed timeline, he had been served first from this very tray, his cup placed to his right before the servant continued her rounds. But Kaelen's sudden presence, his refusal of tea, had altered the serving order. I had watched with desperate focus. The stern-faced servant had served Cassian, then others, before approaching us. The Prince's cup—the one to my right on the table, now half-drunk and forgotten as he held court—was it the one originally next to him? Or had a different server cleared it and brought a fresh one?
It didn't matter. The principle of the switch was what I had to execute. The cup to my immediate right was the target. It was Cassian's in spirit, if not in absolute certainty.
As my fingers closed around the cold silver of the teaspoon on the floor, my left hand snaked up. I didn't grab the poisoned cup from the servant's faltering grip—that would be insanity. Instead, I palmed the clean, gold-rimmed cup from the spot to my right. It was still a third full of lukewarm tea. In one smooth, continuous motion, I swept it down and out of sight beneath the table, the liquid sloshing silently against the porcelain.
Simultaneously, with the spoon now in my right hand, I straightened—but not fully. I rose just enough to place the clean, stolen cup from my left hand onto the tablecloth exactly where the servant's poisoned cup was about to land. I set it down with a barely audible tap.
The servant, having straightened after her aborted attempt to get the spoon, blinked. She saw a cup already on the table before my seat. Her brain, frazzled by the duke's disruption and the lady's clumsiness, short-circuited. Protocol screamed that she must place the cup in her hand on the table. But there was already a cup there. A pristine, gold-rimmed cup, identical to all the others.
For a terrible, stretched second, she froze, her eyes wide with confusion. The poisoned cup hovered in her hand.
Kaelen spoke, his voice a bored, grumbling stone that broke the deadlock. "Are you serving the lady or performing a tableau?" The insult was delivered with such casual disdain it jump-started her training.
"M-my apologies, Your Grace!" she stammered. Her eyes darted from the cup on the table to the cup in her hand. The simplest solution to end this humiliating attention was to remove the duplicate. Thinking she was correcting an earlier server's error, she reached down, took the clean cup I had just placed—the one that had been Cassian's—and placed it back on her now-empty tray. In its place, with a final, decisive motion, she set down the poisoned cup directly in front of me.
The switch was complete.
It had taken less than three seconds. A symphony of misdirection: Kaelen's crash, my dropped spoon, the servant's confusion, and his abrasive prompt. The clean cup was now on her tray, destined to be washed away with the other discards. The poisoned cup sat before me, steaming innocently, its golden rim glinting in the sun.
My heart was a wild drum against my ribs, so loud I was sure the entire pavilion could hear it. A cold sweat traced my spine beneath the layers of silk. I could see it—the faint, telltale milkiness swirling in the depths of the amber liquid. White Veil. The instrument of my ruin now sat an arm's length from my doom.
I sank gracefully back into my chair, arranging my skirts, the retrieved teaspoon held loosely in my fingers. My face was a masterpiece of serene composure. I even managed a small, apologetic smile at the flustered servant. "Thank you."
She bowed jerkily and fled, the tray with the evidence of my crime—the switched cup—held tightly against her chest.
Only then did I dare to look at Kaelen. He was studying his own hands, his expression as impassive as carved granite. But I saw the minute tension in the line of his jaw and the slight flare of his nostrils. He had seen everything. He may not have understood the full stakes, but he had witnessed my sleight of hand, the calculated risk. His foot was no longer on my hem. The space under the table felt cavernous and empty.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Seraphina. She had watched the entire awkward exchange. A faint line appeared between her perfectly shaped brows. Something was off. Her plan had been interrupted, then resumed, but the rhythm was broken. Her gaze lingered on the cup in front of me, then flicked to the servant disappearing with the tray. A sliver of doubt, cold and sharp, entered her eyes. But the cup was where it should be. The Lady Thorne was about to drink from it. The script, though roughed up, was still running.
Prince Cassian's voice cut through my frantic thoughts. "Is everything quite alright over there, Lady Rosalind? Duke Frost? No harm done, I hope?" His tone was laced with amused condescension, as if watching children play with breakables.
I turned to him and raised my voice just enough to make myself heard clearly. "A mere mishap with a spoon, Your Highness. All is well. The tea smells exquisite." I wrapped my fingers around the warm, poisoned porcelain of the cup in front of me, lifting it slightly in a mock toast. The gesture made Seraphina's shoulders relax minutely.
But I did not drink. I held it, feeling the heat seep into my skin, a tactile reminder of the violence within.
"You play a dangerous game," Kaelen murmured, so low that the words were almost lost in the murmur of the fountain. He still did not look at me.
"The only game being played here," I whispered back, my lips barely moving, my smile still fixed for the crowd. "And I was not issued the rules. I am merely changing the player."
"To whom did you redirect the danger?" His question was a blade, precise and unavoidable.
I hesitated. To admit it was to make him complicit in treason. However, his presence and assistance had already made him complicit. He deserved the truth. "The source," I breathed. "The cup that was here is now there." My eyes flicked, for an imperceptible instant, towards the high table, towards Cassian.
Kaelen went very, very still. I felt the temperature around us drop by a degree. My action—attempting to poison a Crown Prince, even with his own weapon—struck him with its true magnitude. His jaw clenched so tight I heard the muscle pop. "You risk a fate worse than whatever they planned for you."
"I risk nothing that is not already forfeit," I said, the words hollow with the truth of two lifetimes. "This is the only move that checkmates the queen."
He was silent. The seconds stretched. On her tray, the servant with my switched cup was nearing the western service entrance. The scullery would wash it away in moments. The proof would be gone.
At the high table, a different server, a young man, was refreshing drinks. He picked up the tray from the stern-faced woman. My eyes tracked him with desperate intensity. He moved to Cassian's side, inclined his head, and reached for the Prince's cup—the half-full one that had been to my right. Would he tally it up? Or replace it?
The Prince, laughing at a joke, waved a dismissive hand without looking. The servant took the gesture as assent for a refill. He lifted the cup—my cup, the clean one—and poured fresh, steaming tea into it, diluting the old. He set it back at the prince's right hand.
My breath caught. It was still there. The switched cup was now full, fresh, and directly before the Crown Prince. The trap was reset, its jaws now pointing at its creator.
Observing the prince receiving a fresh serving, Seraphina appeared to reach a decision. The script demanded the climax. She rose, her smile radiant. "Your Highness!" she called, her voice sweet as spun sugar. "A toast! To the spring, to new beginnings, and to the wisdom of our future!"
It was the cue. This was the moment when everyone would raise their cups. The moment I would be compelled to drink.
Cassian, pleased by the flattery, smiled magnanimously. He reached for his cup—the refreshed, switched cup. "A lovely sentiment, Lady Vale. To new beginnings!"
All around the pavilion, nobles raised their cups. Elara, at her table, held hers aloft, her eyes on me, filled with fearful hope.
My fingers tightened on the warm, poisoned china in my hand. I lifted it, mirroring the gesture. The milky haze within swirled, sinister and final.
Across the sea of smiling faces, Seraphina's eyes locked with mine. Her toast was a toast to my destruction. She brought her own clean cup to her lips, her gaze promising unbearable victory.
Prince Cassian, the hero of the hour and the center of all adoration, raised his cup high.
"To new beginnings!" he declared.
And he drank deeply.
For a second, nothing happened. He lowered the cup, still smiling. Then, a tiny, almost graceful shudder passed through him. His brilliant blue eyes lost focus, staring past the crowd at something none of us could see. The smile on his face froze, then twisted into a grotesque parody of itself as the first violent tremor locked the muscles of his jaw.