Ariel POV:

I followed Agnes at a distance, my soft slippers making no sound on the gravel path. The Nightingale Pavilion glowed ahead, a jewel box of glass and wrought iron nestled among the weeping willows.

Inside, the air was thick with the cloying scent of night-blooming jasmine, an incense designed to heighten emotions and dull the senses. The warmth of the room, combined with the drug, was a potent cocktail. Agnes swayed on her feet, her eyes glazing over. She took two stumbling steps towards the opulent chaise lounge in the center of the room before her knees buckled and she collapsed onto the plush rug.

I moved quickly, checking her pulse. She was in a deep, dreamless sleep.

With a strength I didn't know I possessed, I dragged her onto the chaise. There was no pity in my heart, only the cold precision of a surgeon. I unfastened the top buttons of her drab servant's uniform, pulling the fabric askew to create a look of dishevelment, of a struggle that never happened.

For the final touch, I reached for the hem of my own lavender gown. My fingers closed on a delicate lace appliqué. With a sharp tug, I ripped it free. The sound of the tearing fabric was a declaration of war.

I pressed the scrap of lavender lace into Agnes's limp hand, a piece of manufactured evidence for April and her audience to find.

Then I heard it. Heavy, urgent footsteps approaching outside.

Hamilton.

He was right on schedule, no doubt plied with the same drugged wine by April to ensure his inhibitions were gone.

I darted behind a heavy velvet curtain that covered one of the glass walls, my heart a steady, rhythmic drum against my ribs. I held my breath.

The door swung open with a crash. Hamilton filled the doorway, his eyes clouded with lust and alcohol. He didn't even seem to notice the face of the woman on the bed. He saw only a vulnerable female form, a prize for the taking.

He let out a low, guttural growl and lunged.

I didn't watch. I listened. The sound of tearing fabric, a muffled groan from the unconscious Agnes. It was enough.

I didn't wait to hear more. I slipped behind the curtain, my hand finding the hidden latch of a small service door I'd discovered in my past life. It opened with a faint click.

I was out. Free. The cool night air felt like a baptism, washing away the filth of the scene I'd just orchestrated. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs, and smoothed my dress, erasing any sign of my escape.

The jasmine incense still clung to my gown, cloying and sweet. I knew its effects well—a slow-acting sedative, harmless in the open garden, but potent in the enclosed pavilion. Anyone who lingered too long in that room would be unconscious within minutes. April had chosen it deliberately, no doubt, to ensure I wouldn't struggle when Hamilton arrived.

Now, for Aniyah.

My memory served me well. In my past life, April had played a double game—publicly telling me she would send Aniyah to the Nightingale Pavilion, while secretly dispatching her own attendant, Autumn, to intercept Aniyah halfway. Autumn would claim there had been a change of plans, that I had moved to the east rose garden instead. A secluded spot, far from the main festivities, far from any witness. There, they would dose her with Moonpetal—a herb that induced deep sleep and erased the last hour of memory. Aniyah would wake confused, remembering nothing, unable to testify to where I had truly been.

April's strategy was elegant, in its own vicious way: isolate my only ally, then destroy me in the pavilion with no one left to speak for me.

I moved through the labyrinthine gardens with a purpose that belied my supposed ignorance of the estate.

Anxiety gnawed at me. Aniyah was the only person who had shown me genuine kindness in that suffocating Sullivan household. I would not let her suffer for her loyalty. Not in this life.

The east rose garden revealed itself gradually—first the trellis arches draped in climbing roses, then the stone benches tucked between the hedges. I rounded the final corner and stopped.

A figure was slumped on the far bench, half-hidden by a cascade of white roses. I couldn't see the face from this distance—just the outline of a woman's body, unnaturally still, one arm dangling limp over the edge of the seat.

My stomach dropped. I quickened my pace, gravel crunching beneath my slippers, my breath coming in short, shallow bursts. Ten steps. Five. Three.

Then I saw the uniform. The muted grey wool. The white apron with its fraying hem—the one Aniyah had mended three times rather than ask the Sullivans for a replacement. And on the bench beside her, a shawl I recognized as her own, carelessly tossed aside by whoever had dragged her here.

It was Aniyah.

I broke into a run, my heart pounding with a different kind of fear now. I dropped to my knees on the cool grass beside her, pressing shaking fingers to her throat. Her pulse was slow—too slow—steady but faint, like the heartbeat of someone in a drugged sleep rather than natural rest. Her skin was cool and clammy. I cupped her face and gently patted her cheek. Nothing. Not a twitch. Not a murmur.

I leaned closer, watching the shallow rise and fall of her chest. Each breath was so faint I had to hold my own to detect it. I pulled her upright against the bench back, arranging her so she could breathe easily, and chafed her cold hands between mine, trying to warm them.

A chill that had nothing to do with the night air crawled down my spine. I remembered the Moonpetal from my past life—how its victims looked exactly like this: peaceful, motionless, utterly unreachable. No herb, no antidote, no ally I could call without exposing everything. I was alone, with nothing.

I sat back on my heels, still gripping Aniyah's hands, my mind racing through a dozen half-formed plans. None of them worked. I needed something I didn't have.

Then a shadow fell across the moonlit path behind me. I felt it before I saw it—a presence, heavy and watchful, the kind of stillness that didn't belong to gardens or statues.

I turned my head.

A tall, powerful silhouette stood on the far side of the clearing, cloaked in the deep shadows cast by the moonlight. He was utterly still, a predator at rest.

He turned and walked toward me, his movement slow and deliberate, carrying none of the hesitation one would expect from a man leaning on a cane. Each step was measured, controlled—the gait of someone who had learned to turn weakness into a weapon. The silver handle of his cane caught the moonlight with a soft, cold gleam, and the slight drag of his left leg was the only concession to the limp everyone whispered about.

He stopped a few paces from me, close enough that I could feel the weight of his presence—a quiet, suffocating pressure against my skin, like standing at the edge of a deep lake.

The moonlight caught his face, and my blood ran cold.

It wasn't Hamilton. It wasn't Brody.

A pair of piercing amber eyes met mine, calm and assessing. The sharp line of his jaw, the shadowed hollows beneath his cheekbones, the faint scar that traced the edge of his left temple—details I remembered from another life, from whispered court gossip and distant glimpses across crowded throne rooms. But standing this close, those details coalesced into something far more immediate. He was taller than I remembered. Broader. The air around him seemed to tighten, as though the night itself was holding its breath.

My breath caught in my throat. I knew him.

Alpha Damon Blackwood. The forgotten prince. The so-called "crippled" Alpha who had been exiled to the borders, only to return and burn his brothers' kingdoms to the ground.

What was he doing here? My perfectly laid plan had just collided with the one variable I hadn't accounted for.

"Ariel Sullivan." His voice was low, smooth as aged whiskey. "Out for a midnight stroll?"