Irina’s POV

I left the dining room and didn’t remember doing it.

One moment I was sitting at that table, Nicolas’s voice still hanging in the air—*I’m going to take their heads and hang them from the city walls*—and then I was in the hallway, walking, my feet moving without me telling them to.

The carpet swallowed my footsteps.

Everything felt muffled. Distant.

*What do you think?*

He’d said it like he was asking about the weather. Casual. Easy. Like the answer didn’t matter, or like he already knew what it was. His green eyes watching me over the rim of his coffee cup.

I hadn’t answered.

I’d pushed my chair back. Stood up. Heard myself say something polite and meaningless—*thank you for breakfast, excuse me*—and walked out. Steady. Controlled. Like I wasn’t shaking somewhere underneath my skin.

I was shaking now.

I pressed my bandaged hand flat against my thigh as I walked. Counted the pressure. Tried to use it to focus.

*Iron Thorn first. Then whoever’s stupid enough to stand beside them.*

I hated them.

That was the thing. I *hated* Iron Thorn. Hated every hallway in that pack house. Hated the smell of it, the sounds of it, the weight of every single day I’d spent there after Katerina left and Maxim decided I was the next best thing to punish.

I’d wanted them to suffer. I’d wanted—

*He’s going to kill them.*

Not just Maxim. Everyone. The pack. The territory. He was going to take a wrecking ball to the entire thing and leave nothing standing.

And I’d sat there and listened and my brain had produced this single, stupid image: the pack house, burning. Bodies in the courtyard. And in the middle of all of it, my father.

Standing there with his hands at his sides.

Watching it happen the same way he’d watched everything else happen.

My chest pulled in a direction that made no sense.

He’d let it happen. All of it. He’d looked the other way and told himself stories about it and kept his head down and let Maxim do whatever he wanted because the alternative was uncomfortable. Because standing up for me would’ve cost him something.

I knew all that.

But he was still my father.

I pressed the heel of my palm against my sternum. Hard. Trying to push the feeling back down.

*Stop. Don’t. It doesn’t matter.*

It didn’t matter. None of them mattered. They’d made their choices.

Nicolas was going to make his.

And I was—

What was I?

I stopped walking.

Blinked.

I was in my corridor. I didn’t remember turning. Didn’t remember the last thirty seconds of walking at all.

The hallway was quiet. Pale morning light coming in through the window at the far end. Empty except for me.

My head felt like it was packed with cotton.

I started forward again. My room was close. I just needed to get to my room. Close the door. Sit somewhere quiet and wait for my brain to catch up to the rest of me.

My foot caught on something.

It rolled. A small, sharp click against the marble.

I stumbled. Caught myself against the wall with my good hand. Stood there for a second, blinking.

Something had rolled up against the baseboard.

A small glass vial. Dark. No bigger than my thumb. Sealed with a cork stopper, and the cork was slightly loose—it had popped when it hit the floor.

I stood there and looked at it.

Then I crouched down and picked it up.

It was light. Almost nothing. The glass was old. Not something from the palace—the palace used clean modern lines, everything uniform and expensive. This was something else. The kind of bottle you found in an old apothecary, or in someone’s pocket.

I turned it over in my fingers.

Powder inside. Off-white. Fine.

The cork was loose enough that when I tilted it, a tiny trace of the powder escaped onto my fingertip. I brought it close. Sniffed.

Sharp. Chemical. Something acrid underneath the surface that hit the back of my throat and made my eyes water.

I straightened up.

Stared at the vial.

"Oh! Miss!"

I spun around.

Sophia was halfway down the corridor, moving fast. Too fast. Almost running, and then clearly realizing she was running and slowing herself down, but not quite managing it. Her skirt rustled. Her face—

Her face was wrong.

She stopped a few feet away. Drew herself up. Tried to look normal and didn’t quite manage it.

"That’s mine," she said. "I’m so sorry, miss. I must have dropped it—so careless of me—if you could just—"

She reached for the vial.

I stepped back.

She froze.

We looked at each other.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Just—" She laughed. Too high. "It’s nothing. Just something for—for my nerves. A remedy. Old family recipe." Another laugh. "You know how it is."

I looked down at the vial in my hand.

The powder shifted. Faint. Pale.

I brought it up. Sniffed again.

No. That smell wasn’t anything you’d put in your mouth voluntarily. That smell wasn’t a remedy for nerves.

"What’s in it?" I said.

"Miss, if you could just—" Her hand extended again. Fingers slightly trembling.

I kept the vial at my side.

"Sophia." I looked at her. Held her gaze. "What’s in the vial? Either you tell me right now, or I take this to the alpha."

She flinched.

I turned. Started walking back toward the dining room.

"Wait—"

I kept walking.

"Miss. *Wait.*"

Footsteps behind me. Fast.

Her hand caught my arm.

Something moved through her face. Something complicated and desperate and afraid. Her eyes went to the vial. Back to me. Down the hallway, both directions, checking.

Nobody.

Just us.

Her shoulders caved.

Her legs bent.

She went down.

And through her tears, with her voice barely a sound, she said:

"It’s poison."