Every instinct Adele had was telling her to leave.

  The maid had assured her there was nothing harmful here, nothing threatening her life — and yet her stomach had been churning since the moment she stepped inside. The landscape of this place, the wrongness of it, the way it existed too perfectly and felt like nothing at all—

  This is insane.

  A variable had appeared. One that had never shown up in any of her plans.

  And it had everything to do with her sister.

  Josephine—!

  Adele sat in the living room, deep in thought, not knowing what to do. Which was its own problem, because not knowing what to do was not something that happened to her.

  She was furious.

  And beneath the fury — she was afraid.

  Josephine had always been predictable. Always. Adele had spent her entire regression mapping out every move her sister would make, every reaction, every desperate scramble for dignity that would ultimately go nowhere. She'd known the script by heart.

  And then a few months ago, at the debutante, something shifted.

  That was the cue. That was the source of everything that had been quietly unraveling in Adele's plans since.

  If Josephine wasn't following the script — if someone was helping her — then everything was different.

  But Adele knew better than anyone that Josephine had no allies.

  Because Adele had made sure of it.

  She'd plotted everything from the very beginning. She'd cultivated her image, built her political standing, made herself indispensable to the empire while Josephine rotted away in a spare mansion on the edge of the estate. Everyone hated Josephine. That wasn't an accident.

  And yet.

  Inside this mansion, Adele couldn't even hold her own against the maid.

  She was just sitting here, eating butter cookies and drinking chamomile tea.

  Because apparently that was all they had.

  Adele couldn't even argue. The maid had been entirely correct about why.

  It was Adele's scheme — she oversaw the duchy's budget allocations. She had cut the spare mansion down to almost nothing, deliberately, methodically.

  So she endured the shame of it quietly. It was her fault. The maid had made that very clear in the opening minutes of their conversation.

  "The lady has never done anything to you," Jane had said, leading her into the living room, voice even, expression blank — but those eyes glowing faintly purple. "And yet you still find ways to make her life as miserable as possible."

  She'd gestured around the room. No decorations. No expensive vases or complicated architecture. Just clean, spare, elegant.

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  "This mansion is self-sufficient. Everything is managed by my lady herself. No money comes from the main mansion. She pays my salary personally."

  Then, almost as an afterthought — "That's simply the design my lady prefers. Even when we have budget, she doesn't change it."

  A small cough. Like she was gently correcting someone who wasn't in the room.

  This maid.

  She knew exactly what Adele was thinking without being told. Every assumption, every calculation, laid out and quietly corrected before Adele could voice them.

  "You assume my lady is someone who flaunts wealth. You're mistaken. She simply wants to live a simple life where she is loved."

  Adele had said nothing to that.

  The maid had gone quiet too, and the silence sat between them like something with weight.

  Adele snapped back to the present.

  She couldn't call Oberon. Something in this domain was blocking her — she'd tried twice already.

  But she had a theory.

  A god had taken interest in Josephine. Oberon had confirmed it. And domains were the power of those at the absolute peak — monsters, legends, and gods. Josephine had no peak. She'd been a 3rd-tier mage at best before her exile.

  Which left one explanation.

  Has she sold her soul?

  Dark magic was the only thing that made sense. No one would have helped Josephine — not after everything Adele had done to ensure that. Not the political sphere, not the underground organizations. Adele had her fingers in all of it.

  Unless it wasn't help. Unless it was a transaction.

  One look would tell her. Dark magic always left a mark — a taint you couldn't hide if you knew what to look for.

  But Jane wasn't letting her anywhere near Josephine's room.

  Privacy, she'd said.

  Adele hadn't argued. Her status as a Konrow meant nothing to someone who pledged loyalty to a person rather than a house. And when she'd tried to slip away with an invisibility spell—

  Jane had already been standing in the hallway. Watching her. Waiting.

  ...Terrifying.

  So Adele resigned herself to the chamomile tea. Which was, admittedly, very good chamomile tea.

  But then the maid had been gone for over thirty minutes.

  Just getting something from the kitchen, she'd said.

  Thirty minutes was not a kitchen errand.

  Adele weighed her options. She wasn't going to waste a chance just because pulling rank felt awkward. This was enemy territory. She needed information.

  She left the living room on silent feet. No magic this time — just the quiet, measured steps she'd learned growing up as a Konrow, trained to move through a household full of political vipers without making a sound.

  Old-fashioned. Effective.

  The voices reached her before she reached the kitchen.

  "You're wasting food! My lady won't wake up anytime soon and you know that!"

  A pause.

  Then nothing.

  Adele pressed herself against the wall beside the slightly open door and looked through the gap.

  Jane — glaring, radiating an intensity that made the air feel tight — was staring down someone on the other side of the kitchen counter.

  And that someone was wearing a chef's hat and apron.

  …

  Peter Edencrown.

  Who was currently surrounded by what appeared to be a frankly unreasonable quantity of elaborate cooking, also radiating that same concentrated aura right back at Jane like this was a completely normal thing to be doing.

  Adele stared.

  …Peter?

  Right. He'd disappeared a few months ago. Everyone had been looking for him. Six months, the papers said. No trace.

  And here he was.

  In Josephine's kitchen.

  Wearing an apron.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  She moved before she thought about it.

  "PETER!"

  The door swung open. Jane startled — just barely — then went quiet.

  Adele crossed the kitchen in four steps and threw her arms around him.

  "It's been so long—"

  Peter stepped to the side.

  Cleanly. Deliberately. Like avoiding something in his path.

  "Hey."

  Adele's arms closed around nothing.

  She stared at him.

  "…Why are you avoiding me?" Her voice came out smaller than she intended. "Why aren't you saying anything?"

  Peter said nothing. Didn't look at her. His attention drifted back to whatever he'd been making on the counter, expression unchanged.

  "Look at me, Peter."

  Nothing.

  "I said look at me—!"

  She grabbed him. Started shaking him, hands fisted in his apron, voice cracking open in a way she hadn't let it crack in years.

  "Peter, please—"

  Her knees hit the floor.

  She was still holding him, or trying to, both hands clutching at whatever she could reach. Her breath had gone ragged. Tears were coming and she couldn't stop them, which she hated, which she absolutely hated.

  If she lost Peter now, her plans hit a wall.

  And worse —

  Her trauma came back.

  "Hey, Peter…" She hated how small her voice sounded. "Please…"

  Jane stood quietly in the corner.

  And Peter—

  Showed no remorse.