Irina’s POV

I woke up reaching for him before I was fully conscious.

My hand found empty sheets.

Cool. Still warm in the middle where he’d been. He hadn’t been gone long.

I lay there with my hand pressed flat against that warm spot and stared at the ceiling and let myself feel it. That strange, fluttering thing in my chest that I’d been trying to name since yesterday morning.

*Heart flutter.*

Was that what this was? This pulling, swooping, completely irrational thing that happened when I thought about the way he’d kissed me? Soft. Unhurried. Like he wasn’t trying to take anything from me, just—offering. Just letting me have it if I wanted it.

I pressed my free hand over my face.

I was twenty-two days into living in this man’s palace. He’d dragged me out of one nightmare and dropped me into another one, marked me in public without asking, made me terrified of every room I walked into.

And now I was lying in his bed pressing my palm against the warm spot he’d left behind.

Something was deeply wrong with me.

I sat up.

The morning light was thin and pale through the curtains. Early. The kind of early where the palace hadn’t fully woken up yet, where the hallways would be half-quiet and the kitchens would just be starting to rattle.

My eyes went to the pillow.

The vial was still there. I could see the small bulge of it. Barely anything. Almost nothing.

But it was there.

I reached under the pillow and pulled it out.

Held it up. Looked at it in the gray morning light.

Pale powder. Still. Quiet. Impossible.

I thought about Sofia’s hands wrapped around mine, desperate and warm.

I thought about Nicolas’s voice, dropped low in the dark: *I can promise you no more wars.*

Simple. Like it wasn’t even hard.

I set the vial on the nightstand.

Got up.

I got dressed quickly. Didn’t look at myself in the mirror. Didn’t let myself think too hard about what I was about to do, because if I thought about it I’d start second-guessing myself and I’d been second-guessing myself for long enough.

I picked up the vial.

Tucked it into my pocket.

Went to find her.

---

She wasn’t in my room. Obviously.

I checked the corridor first. Empty. The pale gold light was just starting to come in from the east-facing window at the end, turning the carpet amber and warm.

I went to the servants’ area.

The small morning bustle was already underway. Two maids I didn’t know well were moving between rooms with fresh linens. A kitchen boy disappeared around a corner with a tray. The smell of coffee drifted from somewhere deeper in the building.

No Sofia.

I stopped a girl I vaguely recognized—young, maybe sixteen, quick eyes.

"Have you seen Sofia this morning?"

She shook her head. "Not since last night. Her room was empty when I checked."

"Empty?"

"I was supposed to wake her for the morning shift." She looked slightly harassed, slightly apologetic. "She wasn’t there. I don’t know where she—"

"It’s fine," I said. "Thank you."

I kept moving.

Checked the laundry room. The small sitting area where the house staff took their breaks. The supply corridor near the east wing.

Nothing.

My footsteps got faster and I told myself it was just the cold floors.

*She wouldn’t have done anything last night. She couldn’t have. She doesn’t have a way in.*

But that thought didn’t sit still. It kept shifting, kept producing new angles. She’d said she couldn’t get close to him directly. That she didn’t pour his drinks, didn’t bring his food—

But what about the staff who did?

What if she’d found someone else? What if I’d been her last resort and when I’d said *I don’t know* she’d gone back and found another way?

I stopped in the middle of the hallway.

Pressed my fingers against the vial through the fabric of my pocket.

The maid who found me was small and nervous-looking, with a tight braid and ink-stained fingers.

"Miss Irina?"

I turned.

She was hovering at the edge of the corridor, trying not to look like she was hovering. Not Sofia’s light, easy presence. Somebody new.

"The alpha is asking for you," she said.

My stomach dropped.

"Now?"

She nodded. Quickly. Like she was trying to get the message delivered and get out before whatever happened next happened near her.

"He said—" She hesitated. "He said to come to his office."

She disappeared back around the corner before I could ask anything else.

I stood there for a second.

My hand was in my pocket. Fingers wrapped around the vial.

*Okay.*

I started walking.

---

I stopped outside his door.

The wood was solid and dark. No sound from inside.

My fingers tightened on the vial.

I thought: *I should have a plan. I should know exactly what I’m going to say, what order I’m going to say it in, how I’m going to explain any of this without—*

I knocked.

"Come in."

I opened the door.

The office was exactly as I’d seen it before. Large. Dark. Every surface precise and purposeful. The morning light came in at an angle through the tall windows, cutting across the desk in pale gold strips.

Nicolas was behind the desk.

He looked up when I came in. Something moved across his face—not his usual flat expression. Something more complicated than that. His eyes tracked over me once. Quick. Assessing.

"Close the door," he said.

I closed it.

My eyes adjusted. Moved across the room the way they always did when I walked into a space—automatically, instinctively, cataloguing exits and distances.

And then I stopped.

On the floor, to the left of the desk.

Between the desk and the far wall.

There was a person.

Hands bound behind their back. Wrists tied with something dark. Head bowed, hair falling forward over their face.

Small frame. Familiar uniform.