Two weeks in, and Kairi Dauvret had become a fixture in Parliament.

  She didn’t storm the building—she seeped into it. Like perfume clinging to velvet. Like a rumor whispered too many times to be false.

  At precisely 9:03 a.m., she entered the East Wing café of the Gallian Parliament, her badge scanned, her heels echoing against the black marble floors. The brasserie-style nook was reserved for ministers and their staff—plush booths, discrete servers, and state-funded coffee strong enough to restart a heart.

  Minister Archibald Sloane was already seated, poring over a folder with the fastidiousness of a man raised on protocol. Navy suit, tie bar gleaming, cufflinks embossed with the Elythean cross. He looked up the moment she arrived, his expression softening—not into warmth, but into comfort. The kind a man reserves for someone who eases the weight on his spine.

  “You’re late,” Sloane said, but his tone lacked venom.

  Kairi slid into the booth, her notebook already open. “Three minutes. I was detained by the media liaison. Apparently, the rumour mill’s churning.”

  Sloane arched a brow. “About what?”

  She offered a pointed smile. “Us.”

  A pause.

  He looked at her fully now—long enough that the moment risked being intimate.

  Then he chuckled, low and dismissive. “People will say anything to feel important.”

  “Indeed,” she said, stirring sugar into her coffee. “Though perception often becomes policy.”

  Sloane’s expression twitched, just slightly. He tapped his pen against the table, redirecting focus. “We need to revise the brief for the Shadeborn Relocation vote. The language is too… palatable. It needs teeth.”

  Kairi’s voice was silk. “Wouldn’t want to make it sound humane.”

  The line landed like a knife set gently on the table between them. Sloane didn’t flinch. He merely flipped the page.

  From the mezzanine above, Isabelle Sloane watched.

  She stood in the observation gallery, pretending to be engaged in quiet conversation with a junior minister’s wife. Her eyes, however, never left the booth below. She watched the lean of Kairi’s posture, the quiet poise in her smile. She watched her husband nod at something Kairi said—subtly, unconsciously.

  And something in her jaw tensed.

  Kairi’s gaze flicked upward—brief, calculated. Just enough for their eyes to meet.

  She didn’t smile. She didn’t blink.

  She just looked at Isabelle.

  And then she looked away.

  Sloane pushed the file toward her. “I’ll need a new draft by evening.”

  “I’ll clear my afternoon,” Kairi said smoothly, tucking the folder into her satchel.

  She rose with unhurried grace. “Shall I book you for the 3:00 with the ethics committee, or would you prefer I handle it?”

  “Handle it,” he said, without hesitation.

  She smiled. “Of course, Minister.”

  She turned and walked away. Not fast. Not slow. Just enough sway in her hips to be noticed by everyone and remembered by no one.

  In her wake, she left silence.

  Sloane returned to his coffee.

  Isabelle remained at the balcony, fingers white-knuckled on the railing.

  And somewhere in the hollow, perfumed spaces of Parliament, doubt began to bloom.

  By brunch, the Gallian Rose Conservatory was a glass cathedral of colour and fragrance—where sunlight poured through vaulted panes to dapple the polished marble with shifting shadows of flora. The air smelled of orchids and wealth. A place where the nobility came to pretend they still appreciated beauty, even as they crushed it under heel.

  Geneviève Laurent moved through it with calculated ease.

  Hair in a perfect chignon. Cream blouse, pleated skirt—impeccable but soft. Approachable. Understated elegance was its own kind of armour. She smiled at the right people, nodded at the names that mattered, sipped champagne at a measured pace.

  Two weeks into her assignment, and already she knew the layout of Sloane’s schedule better than he did. His habits. His speech cadence. His blind spots.

  She also knew his wife had started to notice.

  “Ms. Laurent.”

  The voice was smooth as silk but carried the edge of cut glass.

  Kairi turned, a polite smile already in place.

  Isabelle Sloane was radiant in an emerald sheath dress that made her pale blue eyes near translucent. There was nothing accidental about her appearance—every lash, every curve, every line rehearsed to perfection. The kind of woman who never truly arrived anywhere, because she was always already watching.

  “Madame Sloane,” Kairi said with a courteous dip of her head. “A pleasure.”

  Isabelle’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Likewise. I’ve heard quite a bit about you. Minister Sloane speaks very highly of his new assistant.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Kairi gave a light laugh, modest, deferential. “I only hope to make myself useful.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you do.” Isabelle’s gaze dipped—just briefly—to the tailored curve of Kairi’s waist, then back up. “I’ve always found it interesting, the kind of women who choose public service roles.”

  Kairi tilted her head, feigning curiosity. “Interesting how?”

  Isabelle took a slow sip of her rosé. “Well, you know. So many of you are former academics. Or charity interns. Or... actresses. You never quite know where the truth ends and the résumé begins.”

  Kairi didn’t blink. “I imagine it’s the same with politicians’ wives.”

  There was a pause. Just enough for the tension to bloom.

  Then Isabelle laughed—a cool, high sound that made nearby guests glance over.

  “Touché,” she said, eyes narrowing in amusement. “You’re quick.”

  “I try.”

  Isabelle leaned in just slightly, voice dropping enough to feel intimate. “Tell me, Geneviève. Where did you say you were from again?”

  Kairi’s smile was unshakable. “Valelucé. A little east of Baronne.”

  “Ah. Baronne.” Isabelle nodded slowly. “A lovely place. You know, my mother had a vineyard there. What a strange little town. Everyone knows everyone, but no one knows anything.”

  Kairi’s stomach tightened—but she didn’t let it show.

  “I imagine that depends on what you’re trying to know.”

  Isabelle held her gaze for a moment too long. A silent volley. Then she broke into another smile.

  “Of course.” She took another sip, then placed her glass on a passing tray. “Do let me know if you ever need anything. I find it’s always best to make friends early... before the season turns.”

  She turned on her heel with the grace of a practiced dancer, her heels clicking softly against the mosaic floor as she drifted back into the crowd—leaving the scent of peonies and suspicion in her wake.

  Kairi stood there a moment longer, champagne glass untouched in her hand.

  So. The wife was watching.

  Good.

  Let her.

  By the time Kairi stepped back into the marbled corridors of Parliament, the perfume of orchids and freshly turned soil had faded from her hair, but the conversation with Isabelle still clung to her like a second skin.

  Her heels echoed softly across the polished floors, the sound rhythmic, deliberate. The architecture of the building felt colder after the conservatory—too symmetrical, too polished. Parliament always gave her the impression of a clock with too many gears. Moving in perfect time, but towards nothing human.

  She glanced at her timepiece.

  1:12.

  Two hours until the Ethics Oversight Committee session. Enough time to return to her office, go over the week's agenda, and scan Minister Sloane’s calendar for any... useful anomalies. He had an odd habit of leaving entire afternoons blocked with the vague term “constituency matters.” And while no one seemed to question it, Kairi made a note to dig.

  As she passed through the East Atrium, a pair of aides standing by the stained-glass archway fell silent at her approach. She didn’t turn her head, but her eyes flicked sideways, catching one of them as he leaned in to whisper:

  “Violet eyes. Never seen one of them before in this wing.”

  “Sloane’s taste’s gotten adventurous.”

  She didn’t flinch. Didn’t break stride. That was the thing about whispers—they were never meant to hurt, just to remind. Remind people like her that they were still being measured, studied, catalogued.

  But if they thought her bloodline was the most dangerous thing about her, they had no idea what kind of story they were in.

  She turned the corner toward the administrative wing, her violet eyes calm and unreadable.

  The next move belonged to her.

  Kairi’s heels clicked down the corridor as the weight of what she’d just pocketed from Sloane’s office pulsed against her ribs—Section 8. Custodial Reassignment. The kind of phrase that hid atrocities under bureaucratic language.

  She was halfway back to the elevators when her phone buzzed.

  Unknown number.

  She knew better than to ignore it.

  “Laurent,” she answered smoothly.

  There was a pause, then—

  “That’s not the name I gave you.”

  Lambert’s voice was coated in its usual blend of amusement and implied menace. Like he was savoring something rich and rotten.

  Kairi didn’t miss a step. “Just returning from lunch. You rang?”

  “I did,” he said. “Because it’s been two weeks and the good minister still hasn’t done anything improper, unethical, or naked. What’s the delay?”

  She stopped near a marble pillar, lowering her voice. “You never mentioned he was devout.”

  “He’s a man. They all bend somewhere.” A beat. “You’ve bent better.”

  Kairi’s jaw tightened. “I’m getting closer.”

  “You’ll need to get more than close. Parliament votes on the SRA soon. If this bill passes, it won’t just be the Church celebrating. The entire Realm will follow suit. And the Obsidian Court?” His voice cooled. “We lose influence. We lose leverage.”

  “I’m aware of what’s at stake.”

  “Are you? Because from where I’m standing, it seems like you’re enjoying the slow burn a little too much. This isn’t some sensual long con, Kairi. I didn’t hire you to titillate Gallian’s Ethics Committee.”

  Kairi smiled, but there was nothing warm behind it.

  “You hired me because I don’t miss,” she said softly. “Trust me, when the strike comes, he’ll never see it coming.”

  Lambert was silent for a moment.

  Then:

  “Good. Because if you fail, you don’t just walk away.”

  Another pause.

  “You don’t walk.”

  The line cut.

  Kairi lowered the phone and exhaled through her nose. Tension still thrummed in her fingers.

  She glanced at the time. 1:26 PM.

  Enough time to get her face back on.

  Then she turned and walked toward the lift.

  1:54 PM – Midday Pickup, école Saint-Jude, Leonidas

  The black sedan pulled up to the curb with surgical precision, tires whispering against the polished stone of the circular drive. The iron gates of école Saint-Jude stood open just long enough to allow its stream of drivers through—each vehicle gleaming, each chauffeur suited, each child uniformed.

  Isabelle Sloane sat with perfect posture in the back seat, her gloved hands folded neatly atop her handbag. Her hair, auburn and sculpted into soft waves, didn’t so much as stir when the door opened and her son climbed in.

  “Afternoon, darling,” she said, smiling softly.

  “Hi.”

  The boy—eight, maybe nine—mumbled it without looking at her, already sliding his tablet from his satchel. His cheeks were flushed, not from play, but from the effort of keeping himself guarded.

  Isabelle didn’t press.

  She turned her gaze back out the window as the door clicked shut and the vehicle pulled away. The car’s interior was a cocoon of soft leather and filtered air, but her thoughts drifted elsewhere—far from this silent drive, far from the boy at her side.

  “Isabelle!”

  The familiar voice rang out across the courtyard—a polished woman in heels too high for the cobblestone, her silk scarf tossed just so over her shoulder. Lydia Chen, widow of some bank magnate, mother of a girl in élodie’s class.

  Isabelle lowered the window with a practiced hand. “Lydia. You look radiant.”

  “So do you, darling,” Lydia cooed, approaching with her trademark flurry of perfume and platitudes. “You always look like you’ve just stepped out of a portrait.”

  The compliment landed as expected: on well-trained shoulders. Isabelle smiled demurely.

  Lydia leaned in slightly, lowering her voice just enough to register curiosity rather than concern. “I heard Archibald’s taken on a new assistant.”

  “Yes,” Isabelle said. “Ms. Laurent. I met her briefly earlier.”

  Lydia arched a sculpted brow. “Is she as beautiful as they say or…?” She caught herself, gave a breathy laugh. “Sorry. Awful question. Inappropriate.”

  Isabelle didn’t blink.

  “Not at all,” she said.

  Then—coolly, cleanly:

  “Yes. She is beautiful.”

  There was a pause. Lydia hesitated, eyes flitting to the boy in the backseat, then back to Isabelle.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” Lydia said, fanning herself dramatically. “If it were me, I’d be tailing my husband to work. Every day.”

  Isabelle’s smile didn’t falter. But there was a flicker in her tone, the gentlest note of steel beneath velvet.

  “I trust my husband.”

  Lydia nodded quickly, caught between admiration and envy. “Of course. Of course.”

  A beat. Then another compliment. Then a goodbye. Isabelle raised the window.

  The car resumed its quiet glide through the streets of upper Leonidas, toward the marble spine of Parliament Hill.

  In the back seat, her son hadn’t looked up once.

  Isabelle sat still. Perfect.

  But in her lap, her gloved hands had clenched—just slightly.

  Her gaze stayed on the city rushing past the window.

  Still smiling.

  Still composed.

  But something unseen had shifted.

  Something quiet.

  Something irreversible.