“If anyone asks, my love, you spent three days sobbing because the bonnet ribbons didn’t match your parasol,” Vasek murmured, adjusting the silver wolf half-mask across his nose. Otylia patted her pink satin skirts, fixing her mouth into its customary empty, radiant curve. “I wept so hard I ruined two handkerchiefs, silly. Everyone knows my skull contains nothing but goose down and sugar glaze.” They pushed past the glass doors of the Crystal Salons into a fog of vaporized jasmine and dry-ice mist. Lanterns burned with blue luminescence, casting fractured diamonds across six tiers of balconies. Every grandee in Olmira was here, peacock feathers sweeping against velvet doublets. But beneath the violins, iron boots scuffed the parquet. Men in crimson cloaks—the High Tribunal's enforcers—stood by the marble pillars, checking miniature silver chronometers. “Look at the vulture,” a sharp voice rang out above the chamber orchestra. Sabina stood beside a gilded punch bowl, draped in stiff brocade that looked three months out of fashion. Her mask was gilded porcelain, cracked at the brow. Beside her, Radovan stood rigid in his dress tunic, though the gold cord on his shoulder hung loose, missing two regulation buttons. His posture lacked its old arrogance; his collar pinched his throat like a garrote. “Sister!” Sabina shouted, projecting toward the central mezzanine where Lady Marika and three duchesses sat sipping sparkling berry cider. “How generous of the guards to grant your husband bail! Tell us, did he have to sell his boots this time? Or did he pawn your wedding band to clear his tavern tabs?” Conversations halted. Glasses drifted downward from lips. Whispers rustled like dry husks. Otylia blinked rapidly, tilting her head with theatrical confusion. “Pawn? Oh, goodness, no! Vasek says pawnshops are frightfully dusty. We simply don’t care for dust.” Sabina sneered, stepping closer, smelling of sour plum wine. “Still playing the simpleton? Everyone knows he’s ruined! His creditors were hammering on the wharf gates this morning. You’re parading around a beggar in borrowed lace, Otylia. You’re drowning in debt, and when the tribunal tallies the books, you’ll be scrubbing flagstones in the workhouses!” Vasek didn’t flinch. He didn’t reach for his rapier either. Instead, he snapped his fingers. A uniformed steward scurried out from behind a silk divider, cradling a locked walnut chest with brass corners. “Proprietor Bence,” Vasek called, his baritone slicing through the dead silence. “A word.” A rotund man in a plum waistcoat emerged from the staff corridor, wiping sweat from his mustache with a linen rag. “Lord Volkov? If there’s an issue with the table reservations—” “None at all,” Vasek said smoothly. He unlatched the chest. Inside lay rows of Imperial mint ingots, each stamped with the seal of the Central Bank, gleaming like freshly poured cream. “My wife finds your ceiling frescoes delightfully quaint. How much for the deed to the franchise? The tea halls, the wine cellars, the five private gardens, and the gaming salon across the courtyard?” Bence stared. His throat bobbed. “My lord... the holding company values the estate at... seventy-five units of raw bullion. But it isn’t on the market—” “Eighty-five,” Vasek interrupted, tossing a heavy bar onto Bence’s tray. It landed with a dull, sickening thud. “Cash. Paid within three minutes, or I buy the canal authority and shut off your plumbing tomorrow morning.” Bence fell to his knees beside the chest, hands hovering over the metal as if warming them by a hearth. “The... the paperwork is already drafted in the back office. It only requires a signature.” “Bring it,” Vasek said. Then he turned his wolf mask toward Sabina. The playboy drawl was entirely gone, replaced by something dark, feral, and utterly self-assured. “And while you fetch the deed, remove Lady Vesnick from our property. Her shrill caterwauling is curdling my wife’s cream tarts.” Laughter erupted from the upper tier. A duchess actually barked with glee into her feather fan. Sabina’s pale skin flushed scarlet, the porcelain edges of her mask digging into her cheeks. Radovan pulled her back by the elbow, tendons standing stark along his hand, but she violently tore her arm away. “You cheated!” Sabina hissed, her voice cracking. “This isn't how it goes! You're supposed to be in the gutter!” “Take her outside,” Vasek ordered the floor security, who were already bowing to their new employer. Two burly guards in braided livery boxed Sabina in, escorting her toward the secondary terrace amid the open jeers of the aristocracy. Otylia maintained her sweet, vapid smile, fanning herself with painted silk. “Oh dear. Poor sister must be so warm in all that heavy velvet. I should check on the coats in the cloakroom. Perhaps she left her wrap.” She slipped away before Vasek could protest, weaving through the drifting courtiers. Her destination was not the cloakroom racks, but the private corridor behind the reception desk where couriers dropped ministerial satchels. She slid into the narrow antechamber, the door clicking softly shut behind her. The room smelled of wet wool and sealing wax. On a rosewood desk sat three leather folios left unattended while the clerk watched the spectacle in the salon. Otylia’s nimble fingers flipped open the brass bindings. They weren't just purge lists. They were balance sheets. Foreign promissory notes from the banking houses of Moravia, all underwriting the military tribunal’s campaign expenses. The military magistrates were destitute. They had gambled their operational funds on overseas futures and were using tonight's terror to liquidate domestic rivals and seize their liquid cash. “Otylia.” She whipped around, the cheerful veneer sliding over her features in a fraction of a second. “Radovan! My goodness, you startled me. Are you looking for Sabina’s fox stole? I think it had fleas, honestly.” Radovan stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. The military man looked exhausted, gray shadows bruising the skin beneath his hollow sockets. He didn't look like the destined hero she had left at the altar; he looked like a soldier waiting for a firing squad. “Stop it,” he rasped, reaching toward her wrist. “Stop playing the fool. I know what you did with the silk patents. I know who controls the northern supply lines.” Otylia skipped back a step, keeping the heavy mahogany desk between them. “I like pretty dresses! Is that a crime now?” “She forged my name, Otylia!” His voice broke, ragged and desperate. “The syndicate holds two hundred bonds against my commission. If I cannot produce forty bars before dawn, the tribunal will strip my rank and consign me to the block. You have the gold. Tell Vasek to buy out the debt. I’ll sign whatever you want. I’ll give you the command supply charters!” “She chose you, Radovan,” Otylia said softly. For half a second, the bubbly mask cracked, exposing the cold, calculating intelligence underneath. “And you chose her dowry. You let her insult me in front of the entire court.” “I didn’t know!” He lunged around the desk, his hand reaching out to grab her shoulder. “You were supposed to be mine! She promised me—” A gloved hand caught Radovan’s wrist in midair with a bone-jarring snap. Vasek stepped from the shadows behind the doorframe, wrenching the taller man's arm downward until Radovan was forced onto one knee. Vasek leaned down, his lips brushing the officer’s ear, his voice deadly quiet. “Touch my wife again,” Vasek whispered, “and I won’t just buy your debts. I’ll buy the prison cell you rot in, and I’ll pay the turnkey to forget where he put the key.” He shoved Radovan back against the coat racks. Radovan scrambled up, breathing heavily, glared at them with bitter, ruined hatred, and stumbled out into the hallway. Otylia exhaled, smoothing her skirts. But her eyes were fixed on the bottom of the open ledger on the desk. “Vasek,” she said, her voice entirely stripped of its false cheer. He turned, noting the change instantly. “What is it?” “The Purge isn’t next month.” She pointed a trembling, manicured finger at the bottom line, where a fresh scarlet stamp glistened against the parchment. “The authorization order. The date is tonight. At the strike of midnight.” From the ballroom outside, a heavy, metallic crash reverberated through the stone walls. Then came the unmistakable clatter of thick iron bars dropping into place across the grand entrance. The music stopped dead. Outside, a woman began to scream.

High Tea and High Treason