The "Midnight Model" incident had an unintended, profound effect on the palace staff. The sight of their Prince and Princess, not in formal portraits but as collaborators with glue-smudged hands, carrying their vulnerable creation to their children's sanctuary, pierced a veil. The household's perception shifted from wary observation of a political reconciliation to something closer to protective investment.
This shift was why the Head Gardener, a man of few words and deep loyalties named Bowen, felt compelled to act. He requested a private audience with Hadrian, his weathered hands clutching his cap.
"Your Highness," Bowen began, his voice a low rumble. "It's about the west terrace. The night-blooming jasmine."
Hadrian, expecting a report on frost damage or beetle blight, nodded patiently. "Yes, Bowen? Is it not thriving?"
"It's thriving too well, sir. Twisted all through the trellis. But that's not it." The gardener leaned forward, his earthy scent filling the study. "Two nights ago, well past midnight, I was checking the glasshouse heaters. I saw a light on the west terrace. A small lantern. It was Lord Berrick."
Hadrian's focus sharpened instantly. "Berrick? On the private terrace? At that hour?"
"Aye.And he wasn't alone. He was with… well, with the Nanny. Miss Elda."
The name dropped like a stone into still water. The children's nanny. The source of the "last-ditch effort" comment that had wounded Isla.
"They were talking low," Bowen continued, his face grim. "I couldn't hear much. But I heard your name. And the Princess's. And I heard 'logs' and 'buoy records.' Then the Nanny, she said, 'The girl asks too many questions now. It's harder.' And Berrick said, 'Then make yourself indispensable. Children confide in a trusted nanny. Their fears are… valuable currency.'"
A cold, clean fury, sharper than any he'd felt before, crystallized in Hadrian's veins. This wasn't just political opposition or petty gossip. This was an active campaign of espionage and psychological manipulation, using his children as weapons. The romantic void, the political battles—those had been the visible landscape. This was the poison in the well.
"You are certain, Bowen?"
"As certain as I am of root-rot,Your Highness. I've served this palace for forty years. I know a blight when I see one."
Hadrian dismissed the gardener with his heartfelt thanks and a warning of absolute silence. He then did something he had not done in a very long time: he went immediately to Seraphina, not to strategize, but because the horror required a shared bearing.
He found her in the schoolroom, helping Isla label jars for her "marsh research." He asked the tutor to take the children for an early walk.
When they were alone, he told her. He watched the color drain from her face, saw her hand fly to her mouth, her eyes wide with a mother's primal terror. Then, the terror hardened into something diamond-hard and lethal.
"He is using my children," she said, each word a chip of ice. "He is paying their nanny to spy on them, to frighten them, to mine their insecurities for ammunition against us." She stood, her body trembling with controlled rage. "I will have her dismissed. I will have her thrown from the city."
"That would tip our hand," Hadrian said, though the same violent urge roared in him. "And it would punish the tool, not the hand that wields it. Berrick would simply find another."
"Then what?" she demanded, her voice cracking. "We let a viper tend our children?"
"No,"he said, his mind working with a cold, surgical clarity. "We use the viper. We feed it exactly what we want it to carry."
He outlined his plan. It was ruthless. It was a trap built on the intimacy of their enemy's attack.
The next few days were an exercise in excruciating theater. Seraphina, following the plan, made a point of having a seemingly private, emotionally charged conversation with Hadrian in the conservatory—a space with known acoustics and a sightline from a certain servant's stair. She spoke of her "deep, lingering fear" that the opera house would be rejected, that it would prove her father right about her "sentimental folly." Hadrian, playing his part, spoke with strained reassurance about "the turbine deal with Argenthelm being shaky" and "Greymont's numbers being against them." They left looking worried.
They increased their "secret" collaborative work on the opera house model in the schoolroom, making a show of their dedication to the "failing" project in front of the children and, by extension, Miss Elda.
The bait was laid: the Princess was emotionally vulnerable and invested in a doomed project; the Prince was privately doubting their key ally.
Two nights later, Bowen again saw the lantern on the west terrace. This time, Hadrian and Seraphina were waiting in the shadowed library, its window cracked open to the cold terrace air.
They heard Berrick's smug, lowered voice first. "…the turbine deal is fragile. Argenthelm's interest is waning. My sources confirm it. The Princess is emotionally compromised. The model is a desperate gambit. The next commission vote on the wetland allocation is in a week. We push then. We question her stability to lead. We cite the frivolous model, the emotional dependence on the project. We tie it all back to the… unprofessional intimacies of the voyage. A pattern of poor judgment."
Then Miss Elda's voice, syrupy with false concern. "The little girl, Isla, she had a nightmare last night. Called out about 'the big wave.' The Princess was with the Prince in his studio, working on that model. I was the one who comforted her. She's beginning to see… who is truly there for her."
That was the line. The line that crossed from political scheming into unforgivable sin. Seraphina's hand clamped over her own mouth to stifle a sound. Hadrian felt his own breath stop.
They listened as the conspiracy solidified, as Miss Elda promised to "encourage" the children's doubts, to subtly reinforce the narrative of distracted, failing parents.
When the terrace was dark again, Hadrian and Seraphina stood in the library's gloom, not touching, bound by a shared, icy purpose.
"We have him," Hadrian said, his voice a whisper of steel.
"We have them both,"Seraphina corrected, her eyes like shards of night. "But we do not act yet. We let them prepare their vote. We let them feel secure."
For the first time, they were not on the defensive. They were hunters. The romantic void, the political battleground—all of it was secondary now. This was about the sanctity of their nest. And for that, they would show no mercy. The unmasking was complete. Now came the reckoning.