Chapter 3 – The Gloves Game Begins.
Morning came too soon.
The courtyard bell rang at five-thirty, its bronze note rolling across the frost-covered roofs. I had been awake since the third hour past midnight (old habit from nights spent on watch). The moment the sky behind the shutters shifted from black to iron-grey, my eyes opened and swept the room: door still barred, window latch unmoved, no footprints in the dust on the sill.
I rose, dressed in silence, slid every blade into its proper place, and went to wake my lady.
Evelyn's bedchamber was still dark, the velvet curtains swallowing the dawn. She slept on her side, one hand curled beneath her cheek, black hair spilling over white linen like a battle standard dragged through snow. The proud mask she wore by day had slipped; a faint crease lingered between her brows, as if even her dreams were under siege.
I set the breakfast tray down without a sound and knelt beside the bed (proper maid posture, head bowed).
Three minutes later her breathing changed. Awake, but waiting.
I let her wait.
At minute five she opened her eyes (crimson, sharp, unreadable).
"You're early," she said, voice low and sleep-rough.
"Old habit, my lady. The enemy likes to strike at first light."
The words came out clipped, soldier-clean. I didn't bother wrapping them in silk.
Evelyn sat up. The sheet slid to her waist; the thin silk chemise had twisted in the night, baring one pale shoulder. She made no move to cover it. She was studying me the way a duellist studies an unfamiliar blade.
"Enemy," she repeated, tasting it. "Plural?"
"Right now the entire capital qualifies," I said. "Some simply bow while they slide the dagger between your ribs."
I poured her tea (bergamot, two sugars, no milk) exactly as the notebook instructed. My hands did not shake.
She accepted the cup but did not drink. "And you, Rin? Whose side do you stand on?"
I met her gaze and answered with the same calm I once used when reporting to a warlord whose name history had already forgotten.
"Yours, my lady. Only yours. Every other soul in this kingdom is a potential threat."
Silence (thick, dangerous silence).
Then Evelyn reached out and brushed the back of my left hand with two bare fingers. The skin there was smooth, unmarked, infuriatingly flawless. No powder burns, no blade scars, no callus ridges from years gripping a sword through endless campaigns. The body I wore now had never held a weapon longer than a dinner knife (at least, not officially).
But the original Rin had not been innocent either.
Evelyn's thumb traced the faint ridge along my index finger (the real callus, earned from years of secret knife practice in this very manor).
"You already knew I was more than a maid," I said quietly.
She didn't deny it. Everyone in the ducal household had whispered for years: the quiet little shadow who could make a man disappear between one bell and the next, who tasted every dish first, who stood at Evelyn's left shoulder like a drawn blade no one else could see.
Evelyn's voice dropped to a murmur meant only for me. "I have always known what you are, Rin. My father trained you himself before he died. You are the knife he left me when he could no longer wield one."
So that was the secret the notebook never wrote down.
I inclined my head (acknowledgement, not submission).
"Then you know I have twenty-three bodies on my ledger," I said, voice flat as a battlefield report. "Zero hesitation. Zero survivors who raised steel against you."
Her breath caught (sharp, audible).
We stayed like that (mistress and hidden blade, measuring each other across a porcelain teacup) until the grandfather clock struck six.
Evelyn withdrew her hand first, but slowly.
"My gloves," she said, almost steady. "The ivory kidskin. I have a salon of vipers waiting."
I rose, curtsied, and crossed to the wardrobe.
When I laid the gloves on the dressing table, I let one slip to the rug.
Deliberately.
Evelyn's gaze tracked it, then flicked to me.
I knelt, close enough that the hem of her nightgown brushed my cheek.
I did not rise at once. I stayed on my knees and looked up.
"Today," I said, low enough for only her ears, "if anyone lifts a hand against you, they lose the hand. Clear?"
Her pupils flared. A delicate flush rose along her throat.
"Perfectly clear," she answered (half command, half plea).
I stood slowly and slid the first glove onto her fingers, smoothing each one the way I once checked the edge of my favourite dagger: deliberate, reverent, lethal.
When the second glove was fastened, the air between us felt charged, like the moment before lightning splits a tree.
Evelyn flexed her fingers once.
Then she lifted my bare hand (the hand that had ended twenty-three lives for her before I ever opened my eyes in this world) and pressed her lips to the centre of my palm, exactly where the callus proved every rumour true.
"Thank you," she whispered against my skin, "for staying my knife when the whole world wants me disarmed."
My knees nearly buckled.
Outside, the academy bell began its morning toll.
Inside, the leash between mistress and assassin had just been traded for something far more dangerous.