Chapter 5: The Duke's Office – ENLARGED

A silent progression toward the Duke's study.

Two footmen hung a few paces behind us. The entire palace pretends not to notice that everyone and their second cousin is watching. Servants press into doorways; ladies froze, mid-laundry baskets.

The rain travels down the corridor with us, drumming against the high windows like impatient, questing fingers.

Mira's knees feel threatening to buckle beneath her. And who could blame her?

The Duke's study looks exactly like it's supposed to-and worse. All dark oak, leather, ink, and storm. Shelves climb impossibly high toward the ceiling, laden with volumes whose potential costs could furnish entire villages.

There's an unlit fireplace that still smells like burnt wood and time.

There's a globe that's nearly as big as me.

And right at the center of his vast, heavy desk: one perfect white lily in a simple glass vase.

Of course.

Duke Cassian closes the door with his own hand. It sounds impossibly, obnoxiously loud, and the entire room seems to hum with it-it actually makes my teeth hurt.

"Sit."

I sit.

The armchair nearly swallows me whole. My toes, dangling far from the floor, make me feel roughly twelve years old. I detest that more than almost anything in this drafty, ridiculous place.

He remains standing. He paces a path, a spreading patch of dark water radiating from his damp boots onto the ancient Persian rug. His soaked coat has already made a mark.

"Explain."

"To which part would you like to direct your ire?" I ask, aiming for a lightness that feels utterly fake considering how ice-cold my hands are.

"The tea ceremony?

The white lily?

The bloodthirsty threats scribbled onto a bit of parchment and tucked into my sleeve?"

His head whips around to me. His eyes are pure, liquid black, burning with fury and something that looks alarmingly like calculated consideration. "You've received another note."

It is not a question.

I reach inside my sleeve and pull the offending paper out. The seal is stark and black-no familiar crest, no waxy mark I can even faintly recognize. I slide it across the surface of his desk toward him.

He doesn't look at it. He reaches out and holds it carefully to the flame of his reading lamp. He watches it crumble and burn to ash. The room fills with the scent of smoke and decay.

"Forget last night ever happened," he says, quoting directly from the note he himself sent me this morning. "That position remains."

"Right," I say. I nod toward the lily that sits, smugly pristine, in the vase. "Because clearly the appropriate response to this whole arrangement is you sending me dead funeral flowers to my bed chamber at some ungodly hour. Was that to coordinate with the color of your new ink pens?"

"Lady Seraphina. Do not mock me." His voice is dangerously low.

"Then do not address me in the grave tone you might use for the condemned."

We lock eyes. The rain outside picks up its tempo, hammering against the glass.

After a moment of silence that stretches for an eternity, he sighs. It's a heavy, human sound. A sign of deep exhaustion that I never see from the Duke.

"The actual Lady Seraphina," he says, his voice softening significantly, "would have poured that tea down the Viscountess's bodice."

"That one didn't," I pointed out reasonably.

"And now the kingdom is certain that the real Lady Seraphina is completely and utterly mad." He stops his pacing altogether. "The other half of it is of the opinion that there's something far more treacherous stewing in your mind."

"Good," I say, leaning forward slightly into the oversized chair. "Let them think so. It's much safer than the alternative."

"Which is?"

"That I am not Lady Seraphina," I whisper, the words catching on my tongue. "That someone is using a book I have already read to try to murder me. That there was a lily on my pillow two nights ago and there's a lily on your desk."

His face doesn't shift-but his knuckles, resting on the arm of his chair, have turned bone-white.

"You think I don't know?" he asks.

I blink. "... What?"

"I've read the book."

The floor beneath my feet suddenly lurches; the bookshelves seem to lean precariously.

"... What did you just say?"

"I received it ten years ago," he says, sinking into his chair now with an audible creak of aged leather. He retrieves a crystal decanter and two heavy glasses. Push one to me. "It was a warning from my father, just before his death."

My hands are shaking. I lift the glass and drink anyway.

"It says I'm to marry Elara Whitlock," he says, his tone flat. "It says you die on the ball in Chapter 3. It says the empire collapses under a winter rebellion five years from now."

The water sloshes in my glass, spilling over the rim and down my fingers.

"You've known all this time?" I whisper. "And you let me walk blindly into that ballroom?"

"Someone was to be sent," he says, his dark eyes unwavering. "The book said, quite clearly, that a girl with no memory would assume her station. I never thought-or rather, I couldn't conceive-it would be someone I wouldn't be able to completely control."

Control. Of course.

"So all of this..."

I spread my hands. "...

The warning today.

The silence?

That was you testing me."

"That was me trying to keep you alive." He rubs his temples, a gesture of profound weariness. "Because our enemies see and hear everything within these walls, Lady Seraphina. And if the person who sent you the note suspects that you may have deviated from the predetermined course, that deviation will be expedited."

Expedited. At this rate, I'll end up crushed under the weight of a runaway carriage, a poisoned swan, or an avalanche. It makes me feel entirely like someone who has dropped a perfectly innocent lily into a bowl of perfectly acceptable tea.

"So then, what now?" I ask. "Do we follow the story and just... Die?"

"No." The single word is a low, solemn vow. "We burn it."

A wave of relief crashes over me so intensely I almost collapse back into my chair, gripping the armrests tightly for support.

"Then, why the little veiled instruction this morning? Keep your head down?"

"Because I needed to see if you would listen." He meets my gaze directly. "And to see if you would disobey anyway."

I did.

We sit for a moment in utter, heavy silence. The rain outside is the only audible sound, though my ears are prickling with the phantom crackle of nonexistent flames.

Then, a discreet rapping. Three precise knocks.

The footman who enters is pale; perspiration beads on his forehead despite the biting chill outside. "Your Grace. A message," he stammers, offering a small, folded note on a silver tray.

"From the estate of the Viscountess Whitlock.

It has just arrived, bearing a special post."

The Duke takes it. He tears open the seal with a single, decisive thumb. His jaw tightens as he reads.

He folds the note neatly back up and places it on his desk.

He then looks directly at me.

"Lady Elara wishes to inform you that she will be hosting a garden party in three days' time."

My stomach plummets like a lead sinker.

"If I am correct in assuming this follows the established narrative," he continues, his voice dangerously smooth, "then this will be the event in which you physically confront her. You make a scene. And less than an hour later, you will be found quite dead from poison in the punch bowl."

Three days. The study feels much, much smaller.

"So," I say slowly, "three days."

"Three days," he agrees, his gaze unwavering. "Until Chapter Six."

He stands and walks around the desk. He plucks the one, lone lily from the vase. His examination seems to imbue it with an air of personal offense.

Then, with a quick, sharp snap, he breaks the stem in half.

White petals flutter to the Persian rug.

"We have much to do, Lady Seraphina."

He looks at me then, and for the first time since I encountered him, a genuine-almost imperceptible-smile plays at the corners of his mouth. Perhaps the only smile I've ever truly seen; maybe even the first one I've ever witnessed.

It is not, exactly, warm. It is sharp. Like a honed blade.

And I, at last, move toward my future without feeling entirely blind.

---

Author's Note:

HE KNEW. HE HAD READ THE BOOK TOO. Comment "DUKE AND SERAPHINA SUPREMACY" IF YOU're screaming with me. THREE DAYS UNTIL THE GARDEN PARTY.