It quivered.
At first, I thought it was a trick of the light, perhaps a ripple from my shaking hand. But, the surface warped again, a slow bulge forming beneath the amber liquid, like something… rising.
I blinked. Then again.
But the change didn’t vanish.
The color deepened, roiling inward until it darkened to a molasses black. Then thicker. Denser. The smell changed, no longer lavender and bergamot, but something rotting beneath sugar, like spoiled fruit left too long in the sun.
Movement caught my gaze.
Tiny black shapes squirmed to the surface.
One, then two.
Fly legs.
They wriggled free, their slick bodies struggling through the darkened tea, wings clinging to their sides under the sticky sheen.
My lungs cinched.
It’s not real. It’s not real.
But my hand was still shaking, and the flies were still climbing—dozens now, draggingthemselves from the cup like a sacrament of madness, scrambling up my arm. Their wings fluttered weakly, the tea clinging to them like sap.
My body wouldn’t obey me. I sat stiffly, frozen in horror, acutely aware that the Dowager was still speaking. Her voice seemed to come from a great distance, muffled and off cadence. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t look away from the cup.
Slowly, I lowered it, forcing my hand to place it back on the table with trembling care.
A sharp voice snapped through the haze.
“Are you listening to me, girl?”
I jolted.
The teacup slipped from my fingers, the porcelain clinking loudly against the saucer. I flinched, snatching it back into my lap. I blinked rapidly as I turned toward her with what I hoped was a look of comprehension.
But when my gaze met the Dowager’s, something inside me cracked.
Isolde smiled.
Her teeth were too uniform. Her skin was too polished—an eerie, porcelain gleam. And then, before I could blink, her features began to… loosen.
It was subtle at first, like wax softening under flame. Her jaw shifted. Then her cheekbones warped beneath her skin, the diamond brooch at her throat bleeding silver down her neck in a viscous rivulet.
Her smile widened. Too far.
The corners of her mouth tore open with a sound I swore I felt rather than heard. Her painted lips peeled back like wet paper. Fine cracks spidered across her powdered face, the flakes falling like delicate charred petals upon the carpet.
My breath collapsed. My body forgot the rhythm of living.
“It’s in your blood now,” she snarled, but her lips didn’t move. The words echoed insideme, sliding along the inside of my skull like something alive.
My teacup slipped from numb fingers. It shattered against the floor in a burst of white porcelain and amber droplets that reminded me too much of old blood.
“Stop,” I gritted out, though I wasn’t sure if the word escaped or lived only inside me.
My body was a tomb. My limbs were heavy stones. I sat petrified, the only motion was the tremble that now shook my entire frame.
