It wasn’t long before the footsteps returned with a different rhythm: harder boots, a more deliberate tempo, and in front of the door a pause that wasn’t uncertainty but a prepared presence. The king’s right hand entered first—the same dark cloak, the same unmoving yet room-commanding poise—Margot at his heels, and before either of them could speak, you could already hear from the stair the tread the house remembered: the king’s.
When the king stepped into the servants’ room, the small space seemed to draw in on itself—not because of his size, but because his gaze gathered up everything that had been scattered. He didn’t sit, didn’t ask for a chair, didn’t look around for long; he looked at me, then at Elias, and finally at Margot, and his voice had that dry, flinted tone in which anger i
