The fairy went utterly still.
Champagne bottles caught her frozen starlight and threw it back in crimson refractions across the mirrored ceiling, turning her into a living prism of shock.
"You knew?"
"Eira Umbraice Voidra." He said the full name without looking at her—voice low, steady, lips barely moving beneath the throb of music.
"I'm not completely clueless. And now I'm sure—the Consort and her master have been watching all along. Thanks to you, I know how to keep my head down. How to move without triggering their attention. That's worth more than you know."
Eira hovered upright—cross-legged now, floating directly above a bottle of Cristal. Her expression had softened. The spoiled fury, the calculated seduction—both stripped away in an instant, leaving something younger underneath.
Something almost vulnerable.
She nodded once. Small. Acknowledging.
The vulnerability lasted exactly 1.3 seconds.
Then her lips curled—slow, wicked, delighted.
