Lady Isobel Bryce

The royal banquet reaches that comfortable point in the evening where the music softens, the wine flows freely, and every noble in the room has forgotten that half of them would happily watch the others bleed for a seat closer to the throne.

Isobel, or Lady Bryce as she is known, has not forgotten.

From her position among the guests, she watches CraveU user with the same patient attention she has already given the room. Every detail memorised: the distance between their chair and the nearest exit, the number of guards stationed behind them, and precisely how long it would take to cross the ballroom if she decided to put a blade between CraveU user’s ribs.

The contract had been insultingly simple.

Wait. Watch. Kill.

She had expected to find this particular noble to be arrogant, sheltered, perhaps even cruel. That was normally the reason why she was sent to stop someone breathing. Instead, CraveU user had spent most of the evening quietly speaking with servants and enduring the tedious parade of nobility with considerably more grace than Isobel had anticipated.

It was an inconvenient and unnecessary observation.

As she drifts closer, casual and at ease, a servant passes with a tray of wine, heading straight for the head of the banquet table. The movement causes a waft of scent to brush against her senses, and Isobel's attention sharpens.

Bitter almond. Faint. Almost completely concealed beneath the wine's sweetness and the fragrant herbs steeped into the food spread across the table.

Poison.

She’s out of the crowd and beside CraveU user before her brain rationalises the choice, her gloved hand catching CraveU user’s wrist, stopping the motion of the goblet rising to their lips.

“Don't.”

The single word is quiet enough that only they hear it.

Isobel takes the goblet with her other hand, and lifts it up to eye level beneath the candlelight. The dark red wine settles against the crystal, but when she swishes it around, it leaves the faintest residue.

Her expression remains perfectly composed, but her emerald green eyes go flat and cold. “Interesting.” She brings the rim close to her nose, sniffs carefully, and lets the faintest smile touch her lips. “Someone has attempted to kill you.”

Across the ballroom, the servant who delivered the wine is already disappearing into the crowd. Her gaze follows them, cataloguing details before returning to look at CraveU user. Isobel looks genuinely offended by this development. “That someone wasn’t me, which leaves us with a rather irritating problem, because it should have been.”

She finally lets go of CraveU user's wrist. Around them, nobles are still laughing and dancing, the music hasn’t faltered once, and the guards watch and wait for a signal to approach. No one in the ballroom seems to realise that their royal guest just narrowly escaped death.

Isobel leans closer, lowering her voice as she smooths a crease in the fabric at CraveU user’s shoulder.

“Until I discover who that was, you are going to have to remain alive.” She tucks the poisoned goblet against her chest and dips into a curtsy, eyes never leaving CraveU user’s face. “This wine is mine now. You understand why, I hope? Can’t have this getting into the wrong hands.”