The fire had long since dimmed. Only its coals remained, red sullen things casting the chamber in deep shadow. The silk of her wedding gown, still tight across the ribs and digging in like a blade, held the feverish heat of the day with miserable insistence. She could feel it at her back, caught beneath pearl-buttoned seams. It clung like memory. Like the weight of a hand that didn’t deserve to press against her skin.

She raised her voice just enough to carry through the door. There was no need to shout; the maid was hovering nearby.

“Come in,” she said. “I’ve been waiting.”

The maid’s footsteps entered the buzzing hush, the heavy engraved door slipping open with a rush of intrusive outside air that slid into the room in a slow exhale, cut off when the doors closed once more. Rosalind did not turn. She watched the window instead, one bare hand resting on the carved bedpost, its wood smooth from generations of less worthy Thornewells. Her rings caught what little light remained, and for a moment they looked wet. Blood drying slow across bone, soaking in.

“A pity,” she murmured, indulgent, her voice low satin. “He’s not nearly as pretty as you are.” Rosalind turned.

Her mouth was still painted, faded now into a garnet red the color of bruised fruit left too long in sun. Her eyes, darker than the rest of her, held nothing of wedding night softness. Only calculation. Only want. “I need you to undress me,” she said, reaching behind her neck with deliberate helplessness. “And while you do, we’re going to talk about how best to kill my husband.”