And she drops.
Her body hits the flagstones hard enough that the women nearest her jump back, shrieking now, chairs scraping in every direction. Someone knocks over a coffee pot. Another glass shatters. The whole easy, cultivated morning tears open in an instant.
I’m already moving before anyone else at the table has fully stood.
Yuri is behind me at once. Good.
The girl on the ground is convulsing by the time I reach her, her limbs jerking hard against the stone, froth spilling from her mouth, her face already going frighteningly pale. One of the guests starts crying. Another backs away so fast she almost trips over her own chair.
“Move,” I say.
People move.
Not quickly enough for my taste, but enough.
The doctor among the guests drops to his knees beside the girl and rolls her carefully onto her side. Good again. Someone has the presence of mind to know not to shove fingers into her mouth like an idiot.
“Call an ambulance,” he snaps.
“It’s already done,” Yuri says.
Also good.
I look up once, sharply, scanning the tables, the glasses, the plates. The food stations. The champagne. The coffee service. Alina is standing now, one hand pressed to her chest. Ethan has Camille behind him, as if there is anything useful he could do with his body between her and whatever this is. Camille herself has gone sheet-white, all color drained out of her perfect morning.
Then I find Sienna.
She’s standing very still near the side station, one hand braced on the table behind her. Not panicking. Not frozen either. Watching. Thinking. Her face has gone pale, but her eyes are clear.
Our gaze meets for half a second.
Then she looks down at the glass in her hand, and my attention goes there too.
Water.
Untouched now.
Something cold moves through me. “Yuri,” I say.
He follows my line of sight at once. “Yes.”
“Get that glass.”
He’s already moving before I finish the sentence.
The doctor says something about seizure, poisoning, maybe anaphylaxis, all of it too fast and not yet useful. Staff are gathering at the edges of the lawn in stunned little clusters, waiting to be told whether to run or stay still. Someone is sobbing. Someone else is on the phone shouting the estate address twice because panic has made them forget it the first time.
I crouch beside the fallen girl just long enough to see what I need to see.
No obvious obstruction. No sign of choking. Foam, spasms, abrupt collapse.
I don’t like any of it.
The guests are starting to crowd in too close, everyone talking at once, half of them trying to be useful and the other half already turning it into a story they’ll repeat later over drinks.
“Back up,” I say.
That gets some movement. Not enough.
