The banquet ended not with a bang, but with a suffocating, polite silence. The King retired early, the Empress looked like she wanted to execute the entire kitchen staff, and Bastian had spent the last hour acting the part of the "charming but tired" Prince.
I didn't wait for him. I slipped away the moment the dessert was served, scrubbed the pepper and flour off my skin until it was raw, and burned my ruined apron in the laundry furnace. By the time I made it back to the Prince's chambers, I looked like just another exhausted servant.
But my hands wouldn't stop shaking.
I sat on the cold stone floor of the receiving room, the silver needle wrapped in cloth sitting on my lap like a live grenade. In my old life, a "hit" meant a hostile takeover or a leaked memo. Here, the "hit" was a literal blade in the dark.
The heavy oak doors creaked open. Bastian stepped in, slamming the bolt shut behind him. He didn't look tired anymore. He looked electrified.
"Elara," he breathed, stripping off the blue velvet doublet and tossing it onto the bed. "The stairwell. Two of the Empress's personal 'Shadows' were found unconscious, smelling like a spice merchant's nightmare. The Head Steward is losing his mind trying to find the 'assassin' who took them down."
I looked up at him, my face pale in the candlelight. "It wasn't an assassin, Bastian. It was a girl with a marble rolling pin and a grudge."
I stood up, my legs feeling like jelly, and handed him the cloth-wrapped needle.
"They were going to 'Sting' you during the toast," I whispered. "One scratch, and you'd have been dead before the goblet hit the floor. It's a paralytic. It looks like a heart attack."
Bastian took the needle, his jaw tightening until I heard his teeth grind. He unwrapped it, staring at the lethal silver tip.
"They're getting desperate," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "The Empress realizes I'm not 'Trash' anymore. She's moving from slow poison to direct murder."
He looked at me, his gaze softening in a way that made my breath hitch. He walked closer, stopping only when he was inches away. "You saved my life tonight, Elara. Not as a maid. Not as a fixer. You put yourself in the path of the Silver Shields for me."
"I have a high stake in your success, Bastian," I said, trying to regain my corporate composure. "If you die, my contract is void. And the termination clause involves me being hanged. I'm just protecting my investment."
"Is that all this is?" he asked. He reached out, his thumb brushing a small smudge of soot I'd missed on my cheek. "An investment?"
The air in the room felt thick. For the first time, I didn't see him as a 'Project' or a 'Prince.' I saw a man who had spent his whole life alone, surrounded by enemies, suddenly realizing he had one person he could actually trust.
I stepped back, clearing my throat. "It's a very profitable investment. Now, sit down. We need to analyze the fallout. Sarah saw the guards. She knows someone interfered. She'll be looking for a maid with red eyes or pepper-stained clothes."
"Let her look," Bastian said, his eyes flashing. "Tomorrow, I'm taking this needle to the Royal Alchemist. I'll have him identify the toxin. Once we have a name for the poison, we can trace the purchase back to the Empress's accounts."
"No," I countered, my "Fixer" instincts kicking in. "Too risky. The Alchemist reports to the King, and the King is still under the Empress's thumb. If we move too early, she'll just kill the Alchemist and blame us for the theft of the needle."
"Then what do we do?"
"We wait," I said, walking to his desk and opening my notebook. "We let her stew. She knows someone is watching her. She'll start making mistakes. She'll tighten her security, which will cost her more money. She'll start firing people she doesn't trust. That's when we recruit the ones she discards."
Bastian sat in his chair, watching me with an expression that was half-amusement, half-awe. "You really are a shark, aren't you? You don't just want to survive; you want to dismantle her piece by piece."
"That's how you win a takeover, Bastian. You don't burn the building down; you buy the land underneath it until the building belongs to you by default."
I looked at him, a tired but determined smile on my face. "But for tonight... I think we both need to sleep. Tomorrow, the 'Trash Prince' needs to have a 'hangover' from the banquet. You need to look pathetic again. Just for a little while longer."
Bastian stood up and walked me to the door of the small servant's closet I called a bedroom. He paused, his hand on the frame.
"Elara?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you," he said softly. "For the hair. For the coat. And for the rolling pin."
I closed the door before he could see me blush. Focus, Elara, I told myself, leaning against the wood. You're here to get a crown, not a boyfriend.
But as I closed my eyes, all I could see were those gold eyes and the way he looked in that blue velvet.
The game was just beginning.