She shook her head.
“No, my lady.You’ve been here in your bed.
“It’s been a month since the masquerade.
“I’ve not left your side.”
A month.
The revelation punched through me, swift and unforgiving.
A whole month.
Lost to this bed.
To shadows that danced behind closed eyelids.
My breath hitched.I tried to cling to Mary’s words, to the comfort she provided.
But they slipped through me like sand.
And Amir?—
Was he truly dead?
Or had it all been a fever dream?
“Mary, the masquerade.”
The word seared my tongue like a brand, memories rising in jagged fragments.
Dread.Poison.Chaos.
But there was something else?—
A shiver crawled down my spine.
The ghost of satisfaction.
A whisper of something dark, something buried beneath the horror.
“I saw things that night.”My voice caught, the memories too vivid, too raw.“Terrible things.”
My hands trembled, my breath shallow.
“But when the poison took hold of me, I fled.”
I swallowed hard, fear and uncertainty twisting like a vice around my ribs.
“Do you know what happened after?What became of everyone?”
A pause.
A silence thick enough to smother.
And then?—
“What became of…”
