Bailey’s POV
The garden was supposed to be mine. Every angle, every whisper, every pawn carefully placed. Yet Phantom’s devotion to Maryelle had turned my strategy into an epic failure. Lola’s humiliation still clung to the air, her desperate tug at her dress echoing in my mind like a slap. I had told her to distract him, to make Maryelle feel invisible. Instead, she had made herself look foolish—and worse, laughable.
I couldn’t breathe in the palace corridors after that. The walls pressed in, the whispers of servants carried judgment I couldn’t bear. So I slipped away, down the hidden stairwell that led beneath the east wing, where shadows gathered and secrets thrived.
The stairwell was thick with shadow, the air heavy with the scent of damp stone and secrecy. My favorite rogue and g
