The door opened, and the mont Malvoria stepped across the threshold, she knew sothing was wrong.
Not wrong wrong. No danger. No blood. No fire.
But the air was charged, and not in the thrilling, magical way that usually ant soone had summoned a minor demon or knocked over a teleportation sigil.
No. This was the thick, suspicious tension of guilty people trying very hard to look innocent.
Malvoria narrowed her eyes.
Elysia stood in the middle of the room, smiling—too widely—and the group of maids around her all snapped to attention like schoolchildren caught drawing mustaches on royal portraits.
"Tilda," Malvoria said calmly.
"Yes, Your Majesty?" Tilda answered with alarming brightness. Her hands were clasped tightly behind her back. She looked like she was vibrating.
"Why are you standing in front of that pillow like it’s hiding a state secret?"
"Am I?" she said too quickly. "No reason. Just... fluffing."
"You are not fluffing."
"I am emotionally supporting the pillow."
Malvoria blinked. "That’s not a thing."
"It is if the pillow’s been through a lot."
Malvoria’s gaze slid to Arna, who held a teacup with trembling fingers and the world’s worst poker face.
"Arna."
"Your Majesty," she said, voice high.
"Why does this room sll like burnt sugar and panic?"
Arna turned to Elysia, wide-eyed, silently begging for help.
Elysia coughed and stepped forward. "Everything is fine. The maids and I were just... bonding."
"Bonding."
"Yes. We were... girl talking."
"Girl talking," Malvoria repeated slowly, looking around the room.
The furniture was slightly askew. One of the drapes was definitely crooked. A velvet throw blanket had been shoved halfway under the bed with a suspicious lump still visible beneath it, and the faint shimr of magic clung to the air like soone had used an enchantnt in haste.
She could feel the chaos vibrating through the walls.
And Elysia—Elysia was sweating.
Not in a physical, uncomfortable way.
In a please don’t ask questions way.
Malvoria took a slow breath, letting her gaze move back to her wife. Her beautiful, wild, sohow-always-in-trouble wife, who now stood like she’d been caught summoning a second moon.
"Elysia."
"Yes?"
"Why do you look like you’ve just committed a war cri in your own chambers?"
"I do not—"
"You look like a saint who just buried a god and doesn’t want to talk about it."
"That’s dramatic."
"I am dramatic. That’s why you married ."
Elysia opened her mouth, then closed it again, visibly scrambling for a neutral topic.
"Do you want a tart?" she offered desperately. "We have... a lot of lemon ones."
"No," Malvoria said, suspicious.
"They’re really good."
"No."
"I can go get more."
"I’m not here for pastries."
Behind her, one of the maids bumped into a side table, knocking over a tiny box that slid halfway out before soone kicked it hastily back under the bed.
Malvoria didn’t blink.
Elysia coughed again. "Ignore that."
"I am struggling."
"You ca at a weird ti."
"You always have weird tis."
Malvoria folded her arms, her gaze still sweeping the room, catching every flicker of strange posture, every glance exchanged like stolen secrets.
This wasn’t ordinary mischief. This was organized nonsense.
And she was being left out of it.
Which was, frankly, insulting.
Malvoria took a long step forward, and Elysia stepped in front of her like a shield made of panicked royalty and soft robes.
"Okay," Elysia said quickly, placing both hands on Malvoria’s chest. "Let’s not get suspicious."
"I’m already suspicious."
"Then let’s not get more suspicious."
Malvoria looked down at her wife’s hands—warm, slightly trembling, and clearly ant to distract her.
"I’m going to ask a question," Malvoria said slowly. "And I want the truth."
"No riddles?"
"No riddles."
"No manipulation?"
"Minimal manipulation."
"Fine," Elysia muttered. "Ask."
Malvoria raised a brow. "Did soone try to summon sothing in here?"
"No!"
"Did soone explode sothing?"
"Not recently."
"Is soone under the bed?"
"...Define ’soone.’"
Malvoria gave her a look.
Elysia groaned. "It’s not what you think."
"It never is."
Behind her, a maid cleared her throat. "Everything is totally under control, Your Majesty."
"You just offered that information without being asked," Malvoria said. "Which is the opposite of reassuring."
Tilda whispered, "Abort. Abort."
Arna hissed, "We can’t abort!"
Linna murmured, "You could just tell her—"
"No one is telling anything," Malvoria cut in, voice now dangerously calm.
The room stilled.
Elysia stepped forward, tugging on her hand. "You ca for a reason, right?"
Malvoria blinked.
"I—yes."
"So let’s focus on that, shall we?"
There was a beat of silence as all the maids, in a sort of collective unison, nodded rapidly behind her.
Malvoria let her eyes drift down to where Elysia’s hand was still holding hers, thumb stroking the top absently—perhaps without even realizing.
"Right," Malvoria said, clearing her throat. "I just..."
The words stalled a little. Because despite the madness around her, and the alarming suspicion that sothing significant was being very poorly hidden, she was, in fact, here for a simple reason.
To see her wife.
To be with her.
To ask for sothing absurdly mundane.
"I just wanted to take a walk with my wife."
The mont the words left her mouth, the room fell into a second kind of silence—one less chaotic and far more... tender.
Elysia blinked up at her, the grip on Malvoria’s hand loosening slightly, like she hadn’t expected sothing so simple.
Behind her, the maids were frozen mid-conspiracy, as if waiting to see if this was so kind of trap. Even Tilda, who had all the subtlety of a fireball in a wine cellar, looked oddly touched.
Malvoria cleared her throat. "I an, if that’s alright with you."
It was strange, how her voice always softened around Elysia—how her spine, trained to hold the weight of command, relaxed just slightly in her presence.
Elysia stared for a beat longer, then smiled. Not the panicked, trying-to-hide-sothing smile she’d been using since Malvoria walked in, but the real one.
The one that crept in slowly, curled around the edges of her mouth, and made sothing dangerous flutter in Malvoria’s chest.
"I’d like that," Elysia said.
Malvoria nodded once, trying to ignore the way every maid in the room exhaled like they’d just been spared execution.
"I’ll just grab my shawl," Elysia added, slipping away from her to the wardrobe with a suspicious amount of speed.
Malvoria squinted after her, then turned back to the maids.
"Whatever this is," she said quietly, "clean it up before I get back."
Tilda saluted. "Yes, General Wife."
Malvoria didn’t dignify that with a response.
She waited at the door, listening to Elysia rustle through fabrics with the kind of urgency that suggested she was either hiding a body or shoving sothing magical under a pillow.
Either way, Malvoria let it slide.
She just wanted the walk. And her wife.
And maybe a few answers along the way.
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