"Your Majesty—"
Evangeline didn't wait for the plea. Her hand slammed into the girl's face, her palm bruising the lips and teeth into silence. She felt the girl's hot, frantic breath against her skin—it felt like grease.
"Shh."
She leaned in close, until the girl could smell the iron on her breath. "Do you know what we do to rats who bite the hand that feeds them?" Evangeline's voice wasn't a murmur; it was a dry, ugly rasp. "You've forced me to touch you. You've put your filth on my skin. That is a debt you cannot pay back."
Evangeline didn't look away. She raised a thumb and dug the nail into the soft hollow of her own throat, dragging it across in a slow, jagged line. It wasn't a "silent sentence"—it was a threat of a messy, painful end.
The girl began to convulse, a wet, muffled sob breaking against Evangeline's hand. The Queen felt the snot and tears soaking into her palm. Disgusting.
"Guards!" Evangeline's voice tore through the room, raw and unpolished.
The doors didn't just open; they slammed against the stone walls. Two men in heavy, clanking plate armor lunged inside, their knees hitting the floor with a bone-jarring thud.
Evangeline looked down at the pathetic heap of a girl. She didn't see "carved stone"; she saw a nuisance that needed to be burned.
"Get this garbage out of my sight," she spat, wiping her damp palm on the girl's own shoulder. "I want her head on a block before the sun is fully up. Go."
The guards moved like dogs on a leash. They didn't just grab her; they snatched her, their heavy gauntlets bruising the thin skin of her arms as they jerked her upward. The girl's boots didn't just screech—they clawed at the polished marble, leaving ugly, dull streaks behind as she was hauled away.
"Your Majesty, mercy! Forgive me! Please, I have nothing!"
Her voice wasn't a "jagged noise"—it was a shrill, ear-splitting howl that echoed off the cold stone walls. Then the oak doors slammed shut. The sound didn't "cut dead"; it left a ringing, hollow ache in the ears of everyone left behind.
The silence that followed wasn't "suffocating"—it was sick. One of the maids crawled forward rather than walked, the silver basin in her hands clattering like a box of loose teeth. She didn't "offer" the water; she held it up like a shield, her eyes fixed on the floor, waiting for the blow that hadn't come yet.
Evangeline didn't wash her hands with "grace." She shoved her fingers into the water, scrubbing at her skin as if she were trying to peel the girl's touch off her. She didn't care about the scented oils; she wanted the scent of "poverty" gone.
Once her skin was raw and red, she reached for the fruit. She didn't "pick" a grape; she tore a dark, bloated one from the vine. When she bit into it, the juice didn't "burst"—it bled down her chin, dark and thick as old wine.
She didn't look at the servants like "sheep." She looked at them like vermin that had survived a cleaning.
"Get out," she spat, not bothering to wipe the juice from her lip. "Unless you want to see if the dungeon floor is softer than this marble."
"Get out," she spat. "Unless you're dying to see if the dungeon floor is as cold as they say."
The servants leave; actually they scrambled, the frantic, uneven slap of their sandals against the stone fading into a hollow echo. When the heavy iron lock finally groaned shut, the room didn't just get "colder"—it felt empty, like a tomb that had just been sealed.
When the heavy iron lock finally groaned shut, Evangeline stood still for a moment, her chest heaving as the silence began to press against her ears. The luxury of the chamber—the gold leaf, the heavy velvet—felt like a mockery. It was all just a gilded cage built on top of a graveyard.
Evangeline turned toward the mural. The carved wooden cottage looked dead, its oak forest frozen in dust. She didn't walk with "grace"; she moved with the heavy, tired step of someone who hated the walls she lived in. She held out a grape, her fingers steady but her eyes devoid of warmth.
"Come out," Evangeline rasped, her voice dropping to a low, guttural vibration. "Stop hiding in the grain."
From a split in the wooden mural, she emerged. She wasn't a creature or a beast—she was a girl, no larger than a human finger, with features so fine and sharp they looked carved from bone. She didn't move with the grace of a fairy; her movements were twitchy, almost skeletal, as she squeezed her tiny frame out of the wood.
The tiny girl scrambled toward the edge of the carving, her pale, miniature face twisting into a grin that was far too wide for her skull. She looked like a doll that had been cursed with life.
"The honor is mine, Mistress," she chirped, her voice like the dry scratching of a needle against a record.
Evangeline held out a dark grape. The tiny girl lunged for it, her spindly, human-like arms trembling as she wrestled with the massive weight of the fruit. She bit into it with a desperate, frantic hunger, the juice staining her small chin like ink.
"That maid..." the girl whispered between bites, her eyes darting around the empty room.
"She wasn't looking for your jewels, Mistress. She ignored the gold. Her fingers were only interested in the ink—she was clawing through your private documents. The necklace was just a loud distraction to keep your guards looking at her hands while she memorized your letters."
Evangeline's smile didn't falter, but her eyes went cold. Dead cold.
"I'm not a fool," she said, her voice a low hum.
"This entire palace reeks of decay. Every stone is soaked in a lie. And it seems even my desk isn't sacred anymore, isn't it my little mouse."