Alistair’s suspicion grew by the second. Elena’s tone of voice—the way she had thanked him for proposing the sea trip—replayed in his mind in a loop. He struggled to remember the last time she had used that specific tone. It had been after his surgery; his mind was still foggy, and she was sitting by his hospital bed, refusing to look at him as if the sheer number of medical devices connected to his body was overwhelming for her. He vaguely remembered her words: "You’ve gone to great lengths."
He sat up abruptly, his ears screaming with a sudden, sharp tinnitus as he stared vacantly at the wall.
She has always been a master of deception, he thought. I have to scrutinize her every move from the last two years.
She knows.
I can’t guess how much, but she’s brewing a storm. I only wonder if she plans on sparing me when it breaks.
Would Elena surrender like the princess in her novel, or would she break hell loose, refusing to let go?
She had been outside the castle with Alistair when their parents were killed; her alibi was undeniable.
Was the knight in her story shouldering the blame instead of the princess a confession or an inspiration?
Given the circumstances, though the knight in real life deserved to die, it felt like a massive sacrifice for Elena to not be the one to kill him. Given her temper, she had already plotted a "death of a thousand cuts" for him, before the incident washed away her plans like the ocean claiming a castle of sand.
On the other side, John was enjoying a conversation with a few guests, yet his eyes never stopped scanning the surroundings.
When Elena entered, she offered a few practiced words, urging everyone to feel at ease, before retreating to a corner. Occasionally, guests would approach her for a brief word.
A man John had met at the previous gathering approached him. As they talked, the conversation shifted to Elena’s latest novel. They were discussing the "hidden secrets" buried in the prose—the possible explanation for the knight’s entanglement with the princess—when a sharp, sudden sound cut them off.
The man (who presented himself as Jonathan Maurice) rushed toward the noise. A woman was on the floor, and he quickly steadied her as Elena approached, shoving Margaret aside without a word. The woman’s light yellow dress was stained with patches of red from the knees down; the vase that had held fresh flowers only seconds ago now lay in shards on the ground.
Elena turned to John with a calm expression. "May I trouble Mr. Williams to accompany Mr. and Mrs. Maurice to the neighboring cabin to check on her? Thank you." Without waiting for a response, she turned to the couple. "If the injury is serious, I will arrange for you to be taken to a hospital immediately."
Mrs. Maurice apologized breathlessly, "I wasn’t paying attention... I ran into the vase."
Given the yacht’s extravagant décor, the guests—most of whom were "normal people" outside the elite circle—assumed even a random vase was a priceless artifact. They whispered, wondering if Elena would cast the couple out under the guise of medical treatment. It had happened once before; a guest was driven away in the middle of the night for a mysterious reason and was subsequently blacklisted. His career never recovered, left to wither in small publications unless he could find a patron more influential than Elena.
Knowing this, the invited artists focused on their best behavior, desperate to avoid a clash.
Elena smiled warmly. "It’s no big deal. It is just a vase, after all. Your safety is more important."
Jonathan retreated, his dark gaze hovering on Margaret for a cold second before he nodded quietly. Seeing Jonathan’s hostility toward Margaret, something clicked in John's mind. He took the emergency medical box from a stewardess and followed the couple to a neighboring cabin.
As the lounge returned to its previous atmosphere and the shards were cleared, Elena’s face dropped back into a resting, expressionless mask. She returned to her seat with Margaret following obediently behind.
"I didn't do a thing!" Margaret whispered hurriedly as she sat beside Elena. "She was shocked when I entered. She turned to walk away and ended up hitting the vase—she lost her balance. I tried to help, but she pushed me and fell on the shards. Why would you invite her if you were inviting me?"
Elena set her teacup down. The sharp click of porcelain on the saucer silenced Margaret instantly.
"You’re blaming me?" Elena asked quietly. "Since when do I consult anyone before doing what I want?" She gave Margaret a chilling look. "Stay out of their sight from now on. Her husband is giving me enough face by not jumping across the room to twist your head off."
John wrapped the gauze around Sierra Maurice’s leg, his mind racing to organize the fragments of information he had collected over the years. Both Mr. and Mrs. Maurice had been present at previous gatherings, and both, in one way or another, had been tangled in the invisible wires Elena used to choreograph her world.
The name "Maurice" had felt familiar the moment Jonathan introduced himself, but the fog in John’s mind only cleared when he saw the couple standing in the same frame as Margaret, with Elena acting as the cold barrier between them.
John had been collecting data on the Hudsons long before he became Alistair’s doctor. He remembered a gathering years ago where Elena had mysteriously disappeared the morning after the gala, failing even to see her guests off. Through careful snooping, John discovered that the trouble had started the night before.
Several guests—from the creative list—had later reported hearing muted screaming once the party had ended. Margaret, one of the Prominent Seven invited that year, had vanished from sight entirely. Meanwhile, Sierra had been found "resting" near Elena’s quarters by a concerned friend. When questioned, Sierra claimed she had simply dislocated her wrist and had gone to the host for help, but her eyes had told a story of terror that didn't match her calm explanation.
John had finally pieced the puzzle together. Margaret, whose predatory desires were an open secret in her circle, had drugged Sierra. When a steward reported seeing Sierra enter Margaret’s room, Elena had intervened with terrifying, calculated violence. John inferred the rest from a brief, visceral scene in one of Elena’s novels; he suspected it was less fiction and more of a confession. In the book, a woman dragged her victim to an office by her hair, smashing her face repeatedly against a mahogany desk.
When Sierra had finally drifted back to consciousness, Elena had handed her a knife, offering her a single, non-lethal strike as a debt of revenge. But Sierra, trembling and broken, had let the blade clatter to the floor.