They celebrated Lunar Night as if the estate had never learned shame.
Lanterns swung like patient moons across the Valeran veranda; their light forgot and remembered glass. Silk pennants sighed above a table that arced like a polished ocean of plates.
Conversation flowed in cushioned tones. Laughter—practiced and oily—smoothed the rooms as thoroughly as the servants smoothed the linens.
Nyx Valeran stood at the edge of that light with a glass cupped in her hand, because she had been taught, early and thoroughly, to look as if she belonged.
Her dress fit like a promise: pale, demure, pinned with a single mother-of-pearl brooch no one had asked her opinion about. The brooch pinched beneath her collar, and the small pain rooted her in the moment.
She tasted the wine and tried to swallow the irritation like a secret.
At the head of the table, Seraphine Valeran laughed in a way that made the chandeliers look dim. The house—or rather, the people who ran it—wove themselves in praise around her.
Guests toasted the family's philanthropy and Seraphine's impending marriage to Lord Thorne, whose name alone made several businessmen lean forward and count their profits.
Cassandra Valeran, flawless in a gown of calculated angles, watched the room with a smile measured to the millimeter. Victor Valeran, Nyx's father, raised his glass with the distracted courtesy of a man for whom courtesy was always a transaction.
Elara—Grandmother—sat farther back. Every fingertip a bone memory, her eyes like old glass that had seen more than the room dared.
Cassandra's whisper reached Nyx like winter.
"Smile," she said. Soft and sharp both.
"Do not stand like a ghost."
So Nyx smiled. The motion was a drill, rehearsed in the wings of the house when no one watched. It felt false against her teeth.
She had spent a lifetime learning which parts of herself the Valerans would accept—and which would be folded quietly into the laundry and hidden.
The house had trained her to be small. Tonight, that smallness cost her more than usual.
The great clock in the hall struck ten. Its tone rolled like a verdict.
Applause clipped the air between courses. Someone at the lower table made a joke, and Seraphine's laugh landed exactly where the room expected it to.
A toast to charity. A toast to family. Words spoken softly, but louder than any hearth.
Later, Nyx would remember a motion more than the music.
At the corner of Seraphine's plate, a napkin fluttered. Seraphine's hand grazed it, a courtesy to a stranger. The gesture was minimal, rehearsed.
In that instant, Nyx's fingers moved on instinct—to retrieve the napkin, to give something back, to perform gratitude. Her touch met air and fabric, and the world went on.
No one saw a thing.
The party dissolved into silver light and departing carriages. When the last wheel turned away, the estate folded inward like a lung at rest.
Portraits watched from their frames. Rugs still smelled faintly of citrus and expensive soap.
Nyx told herself the house could not conspire—it had only rooms and recipes for propriety. But houses had long memories. And people could plan.
The accident began in the kitchen.
A clumsy servant. An upended tray. Wine spreading like a bruise across linen.
Hands reached. Someone tripped. That was how the household would later describe it: a misstep, a spilled drink, a moment of unlucky haste.
But Nyx had stopped believing in accidents at the Valeran estate.
Accidents here were polished until no fingerprints remained.
She remembered fragments—the flash of a shoe, the smell of citrus oil—then the world shearing into sound.
Glass broke like a star. Voices rose in a chorus: calls for staff, a maid's cry, someone pressing cold against her temple.
The floor beneath her head was unforgiving tile, imported and polished, now stained softly red.
Her scalp burned, as if someone had rewritten her memory with a hot pen.
When she woke, the room was white with antiseptic light.
Dr. Marius Cleft hovered, his manner precise and discreet.
"An accident," he said. "Somewhat severe, but manageable."
His tone sealed the matter behind medical terms and polite concern.
"Rest," he told her, as if silence could fold over a wound like a bandage.
Nyx's fingertips brushed the new pale line at her temple—a scar that asked a question she could not yet speak.
In her memory, a single shard remained: a folded scrap slipping from Jonas' coat.
She had not seen the hand that took it away. Only gloved fingers, practiced and deliberate, removing paper from sight.
The taste in her mouth was not pain. It was the realization of intent.
The Valerans told the guests the story they wanted: an unfortunate accident.
Cassandra instructed the steward in clipped tones.
"Keep it private. We cannot let scandal leak."
Victor murmured his assent, more interested in ledgers than his daughter's skin.
Elara pressed her lips together and said nothing. A silence that carried the weight of verdict.
Jonas, trembling, palms raw, confessed as ordered:
"A tray. A slip. My fault."
He spoke like a man used to living in the valley of wrath, always trying to make himself smaller.
Nyx asked only one thing.
"What was in your pocket?"
"Only the list, Miss. Only the list."
But as he was led away, Nyx found something on the floor.
A torn scrap of paper. Its corner bore a stamped emblem—not a servant's list.
Someone had been careful.
Flowers arrived. Letters of condolence were composed. Lady Mireille murmured the right phrases.
Seraphine wore a flawless mask of worry.
"Oh, Nyx," she said sweetly enough to rot a tooth.
She kissed Nyx's forehead—too soft, too public.
That night, sleep evaded Nyx.
She lay under heavy covers, the scar pricking at her temple.
She imagined gloved fingers, a folded letter, and a ledger of names crossed out.
Her grandmother's silhouette passed by the window, cane tapping like a slow clock. Elara's eyes were stitches—sharp and watchful.
The next day brought the lawyer, Sebastian Crowe, with his thin papers and thinner smiles.
Lord Thorne sent a bouquet with a note of power.
Professor Alaric, her distant mentor, sent a book: Keep your mind like a room with one locked drawer.
And Aiden Rowe, inconveniently reliable, sent only a message: I'll be there tomorrow.
The house rehearsed its consolations.
Nyx rehearsed her questions.
Someone had carved a path for her ruin and scrubbed away the traces.
But not all. She still had the scrap—its stamped emblem proof that this was no servant's accident.
She folded it into her palm, feeling the promise take root.
She would not be the accident they announced to polite company.
She would find the hand that had inked her fate.
For now, she had only a scar, a scrap, and a suspicion.
The rest—revenge, salvation, ruin—waited in the rooms where the Valerans kept their secrets.
Somewhere in the estate, a shadow cloaked in laurel pots moved, satisfied the night had gone according to plan.
But was the plan truly finished… or only beginning?