For a moment, she thought she saw his mouth twitch—not quite a smile, but perhaps the ghost of one. The expression reminded her of evenings in Greystone’s kitchen when her sarcasm had made him laugh despite himself, when they’d found a rhythm that felt as natural as breathing.
Then his jaw tightened again, and whatever softness had flickered across his features disappeared.
“Rachel...” He started to move toward her, then stopped, as if remembering that comforting her would be another mistake in judgment. “I should not have said?—”
“Everything you said was true,” she interrupted, not looking up. “The only difference is that this time, people might actually die because of my particular brand of disaster.”
The admission hung between them like smoke from a funeral pyre. She could hear him breathing, could smell the lingering scents of their ruined feast clinging to his clothes—herbs and wine and expensive spices that now carried the taint of suspicion and death.
Something shifted in the quality of his stillness, as if her words had hit him differently than he’d expected. When he spoke again, his voice was carefully neutral—the tone of someone testing dangerous ground.
“The herbs were pure when we prepared them,” he said finally. “I watched every step. If poison found its way into the dishes, ’twas added after they left our hands.”
She finally looked up, meeting his gaze with eyes that felt swollen from unshed tears and exhaustion. The torchlight cast shadows across his face, making him look like a carved statue—beautiful and remote and utterly untouchable.
“You believe me?”
Something complicated flickered across his features—doubt warring with what might have been hope, anger fighting against something that looked suspiciously like regret. For a heartbeat, she thought she saw the man who’d taught her to balance spices by scent, who’d watched her practice knife work with patient attention, who’d kissed her in herb gardens like she was something precious.
Then the walls went back up, and his expression became guarded again.
“I believe someone wanted us to fail,” he said carefully. “Whether through your... unusual methods... or simple sabotage matters less than the result.”
It wasn’t exactly vindication, but it wasn’t complete condemnation either. Rachel felt some of the crushing weight lift from her chest, though fear still clawed at her throat like a living thing.
The moment stretched between them, fragile as spun glass. She could see him wrestling with something—an apology, maybe, or an admission that his anger had been misdirected. She found herself holding her breath, hoping against hope that some of the trust they’d built might survive this catastrophe.
Then he turned away, moving back to the far side of their cell, and the moment shattered.
“But it changes naught,” he said, his voice flat again. “Seven people lie poisoned. We are exiled. And I...” He stopped, jaw working as if the words were fighting him. “I have lost everything I thought I had reclaimed.”
The rejection hit her like a physical blow. Not just of her explanation, but of her. Of the possibility that they might find their way back to whatever they’d been building before Guy’s machinations had torn it all apart.
She pulled her knees tighter against her chest and let the cold seep deeper into her bones. Let it numb the parts of her that still hurt from losing something she’d probably never really had in the first place.
By dawn, the storm had passed, leaving behind the kind of gray morning that made everything look like a funeral waiting to happen. When guards arrived—keys jangling like wind chimes made of broken dreams—their news fell like the final nail in a very expensive coffin.
“Her Grace the Queen,” the captain announced with ceremonial precision that couldn’t quite hide his obvious relief at delivering good news instead of execution orders, “in her infinite mercy, has commuted your sentences from immediate death to banishment, provided you depart ere the sun reaches its zenith and never return upon pain of hanging.”
Banishment. The word echoed off damp walls like the death knell of every hope she’d been foolish enough to nurture. Not vindication, not even a proper trial—banishment from the only place in this impossible time where she’d begun to feel like she might actually belong.
“Merciful indeed,” Rachel muttered, though relief flooded through her so intensely it made her knees weak. Not death, then. Not fire or rope or whatever creative endings medieval justice might devise.
The palace courtyard bustled with morning activity as they emerged—blinking in gray daylight that felt harsh after hours of torch-lit stone. Servants hurried about their duties, nobles prepared for daily intrigue, the ordinary business of royal life continuing as if nothing had changed. As if seven people weren’t fighting for their lives because of a feast gone catastrophically wrong.
Their horses waited near the gates, saddled with the efficiency of people eager to see unwanted guests depart. The smell of leather and horse sweat mixed with smoke from breakfast fires, creating an atmosphere that should have been comforting but instead felt like the prelude to a very long journey to nowhere in particular.
Hugo stood beside the animals, his massive frame radiating barely contained fury that made even the warhorses dance nervously. When he spotted them, relief flickered across his scarred features before being quickly suppressed by something that looked suspiciously like paternal rage directed at the world in general.
“My lord,” he said formally, though his voice carried enough underlying wrath to make nearby courtiers suddenly discover urgent business elsewhere. “All stands ready for departure.”
But it was the figure in emerald velvet who made Rachel’s throat tighten with unexpected emotion. Isolde stood beside the horses like a pillar of controlled fury, her dark eyes blazing with an intensity that could have melted stone. Even in the gray morning light, she radiated authority and barely leashed violence that made several passing servants give her a wide berth.
Her expensive French perfume—roses and something darker, more mysterious—reached Rachel even across the courtyard, a reminder of wealth and influence that felt like another world compared to their current circumstances.
“Sister,” Tristan said quietly, his voice hoarse from hours of recrimination and fear.
“Brother.” Her tone was clipped, professional, but she caught the tremor beneath the control—the slight tightening around her eyes that spoke of someone fighting their own battles. “I bring word from Geoffrey.”
