The summons arrived with no seal.
Just a slip of cream paper folded once, the ink barely dry. It was left not with a servant, not handed off in some quiet hallway—but placed directly on my breakfast plate. As if to say: We know where you sleep. We know what you eat.
Harroway read it over my shoulder. His silence told me enough.
"The Queen?"
He nodded once. "Or someone close enough to speak with her ink."
I didn’t finish my tea.
The palace had grown colder in the days since the ledger surfaced. Colder in a way that had nothing to do with winter and everything to do with eyes. The kind that didn’t blink. The kind that watched too long.
Wren walked me to the gates. She didn’t speak until we reached the second arch.
"You know she’s not calling you in to negotiate."
"Of course not."
"
