After the service, we file back into the palace. The air is solemn and no one dares says a word. All of the nobility and guards disperse, until it’s just my retinue, Messalina’s parents, Griffin, Evren’s mother, and I left in the dining room.

There’s a flurry of activity as servants bring out breakfast. Chairs scrape, plates clatter, and then the room is quiet again.

I sit at the head of the table, Messalina’s mother and Evren’s mother flanking me. Griffin sits next to Messalina’s mother, and Messalina’s father sits next to Evren’s mother, with Helena and Leela beside them. Nico stands behind me, keeping watch of everything going on. No one moves to eat anything, and the silence is thick and awkward and feels like a weight pressing next to me.

Evren’s mother—whose name and title I still don’t know—turns to me and says, “Your Majesty, would you care for a scone?”

And just like that, the tension is broken.

“Oh yes, thank you,” I say, not really wanting a scone, but not wanting to offend her.

She hands me the plate and I grab a scone off it before setting it back down. Messalina’s mother goes red in the face and her father coughs into his elbow. Evren’s mother just stares at me and when she finally forces her attention away, she picks up the plate of scones again.

“Your Majesty, would you like a scone,” she says, offering the plate to Messalina’s father.

“Oh no, Your Highness, you mustn’t.” He serves her a scone and then passes it around to everyone at the table. It’s not until the plate has made it around the whole table and ended up in front of him again that he takes a scone.

I want the floor to open up and swallow me whole.

The rest of the meal, no one offers me a plate of food first. Every time a dish is passed around, it feels pointed, and my desire to disappear gets stronger and stronger.

Finally, Leela rings a bell and servants bustle into the room again, ending my pain and suffering. They clear the table in record time and bring out a teapot made of glass. A mesh pouch containing tea leaves bobs inside, staining the water a rich burgundy color.

Messalina’s mother picks up the teapot and pours two sips worth of tea into each cup, then passes them out to us. Each cup has a tiny matching plate to go with it. Everyone picks up their cup and plate, and I follow along, determined not to screw things up again.

They all knock the tea back in one go. I do, too, but where I swallow—the hot tea burning down my throat—everyone else brings the small plate up to their mouth and spits the tea back into it.

Helena is the first to take notice of the empty plate in my hand.

“Your Majesty,” she asks, sounding horrified, “did you drink the palette cleanser?”

Suddenly, being swallowed by the ground seems too gentle. Instead, I need to be struck by lightning, until nothing but a smoking char stain is left behind.

“If you’ll excuse me.” I get up out of my seat so hard it almost falls over. One of the servants rushes over to catch it and I take that as my cue to bolt out of the room. I don’t even know where I’m going, just that I need to get out of there.

I hear footsteps behind me and know that it must be Nico following me, my second shadow everywhere I go in this stupid palace. There’s only one place he can’t follow me, and that’s the bathroom. I never wanted to be the type of person who hides in toilets, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Your Majesty,” Nico calls before I can launch myself at the first bathroom door I see.

I can pretend like I didn’t hear him. It’s not a foolproof plan, but it’s better than actually speaking to him.

“Your Majesty,” he calls again, louder.

And now I really don’t have an excuse, do I?

“Yes, Captain?” I try to arrange my face into a serene smile, but it feels more like fishhooks are pulling my mouth wide open.

“Are you alright?”

The concern in his voice is so genuine that for just a second, I want to close my eyes and pretend like he isn’t the beginning and end of everything going wrong in my life.

“I’m just tired,” I say. The words are well-worn, the type of catch-all excuse that used to get me out of everything in the office.

But things are different here, it seems.

Nico approaches me the way someone would approach a scared animal. He lifts a hand to my face and I flinch back, not sure what he’s going to do. Slowly, he brings it up to my forehead, the back of his palm warm against my skin. He slides it down my face, cupping my cheek.

My breath catches. I can’t remember the last time anyone touched me like this, gently and with no expectations.

Nico frowns. “You don’t have a fever.”

A bitter laugh leaves me. “Like I said, Captain, I’m just tired.”

“Allow me to escort you back to your chamber to rest, then.”

He leads the way and against my better judgement, I follow him, letting Nico walk me to my room.