The nightshade went into the king's wine at exactly three minutes past the tenth bell.

I'd practiced this moment for fifteen years. The angle of my wrist as I poured. The casual turn of my body to block the view. The way my fingers closed around the vial hidden in my sleeve, the stopper coming free with a practiced twist.

Three drops. That was all it took. The deadliest poison in the Guild's arsenal, and it looked like nothing more than wine settling in a golden cup.

I set the goblet before King Malachai Blackthorn.

He didn't look up from the document he was reading. Around us, the great hall hummed with the noise of the feast, lords laughing too loudly at their own jokes, ladies whispering behind jeweled fans, servants like me weaving between tables with platters and pitchers.

I was invisible. That was the point.

"Your wine, Your Majesty."

My voice came out exactly as I'd trained it. Soft. Forgettable. The voice of someone who existed only to serve.

The king turned the page.

I stepped back to my position against the wall, my face blank, my pulse steady. Three minutes. That's how long the poison took to work. First, a tingling in the lips. Then a creeping numbness down the throat. By the time he realized something was wrong, his heart would already be slowing.

I'd watched men die from this poison before. It was almost peaceful, as deaths went.

The king reached for the goblet.

This was it. Fifteen years of training, fifteen years of preparation, fifteen years of waiting for this single moment. My birthday was thirty-seven days away. Thirty-seven days until the deadline the Guild had set when I was five years old.

Kill the king before you turn twenty-one. Or everyone dies.

His fingers wrapped around the stem.

I allowed myself one breath of relief. The mission was almost complete. I would return to the Guild with proof of the kill, and my family, what remained of them... would be safe. The other assassins would be safe. Everything I'd sacrificed would mean something.

The king lifted the cup.

And then he looked at me.

Not past me. Not through me. At me.

His gaze held the flat certainty of a man who'd already won. Whatever warmth the candlelight offered, it died before reaching him. He looked at me across the length of the great hall, across the dozens of nobles and servants between us, and he smiled.

It was a small smile. Barely a curve of the lips.

He drank.

The wine disappeared down his throat in one long swallow. He set the empty goblet back on the table, never breaking eye contact.

My feet rooted to the stone.

This was wrong. This was all wrong. He should be looking away, not at me. He should be feeling the first tingling numbness by now. He should be...

The king crooked one finger.

A summons. Unmistakable.

My feet moved before my mind caught up. Years of training. A servant doesn't hesitate when called by the king. A servant doesn't draw attention by refusing.

I crossed the hall on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else. The sounds of the feast faded to a dull roar in my ears. All I could see was him, sitting on his throne-like chair at the head of the table, watching me approach with those impossible eyes.

Three minutes. The poison should have reached his heart by now. He should be dead.

He wasn't dead.

I stopped before him and curtsied, my head bowed in the posture of proper deference. My mind raced through possibilities. Wrong dosage? Impossible. I'd measured it myself. Wrong poison? I'd checked the vial three times before entering the palace.

"Look at me."

His voice was low. Intimate. Like we were the only two people in a hall filled with hundreds.

I lifted my head.

Up close, the king was younger than the rumors suggested. Twenty-eight, according to the Guild's intelligence. The Tyrant of the Northern Reaches. The Butcher of Brennhallow. The man who'd killed his own father to claim the throne.

He looked like none of those things.

He looked like a man who'd just won a game I didn't know we were playing.

"You're new," he said. "I don't recognize you from the household staff."

"Three weeks, Your Majesty." The lie came easily. It was the truth, after all... I had been in the palace three weeks. Long enough to learn the routines. Long enough to position myself for tonight. "I serve in the kitchens, usually. They needed extra hands for the feast."

"The kitchens." He tilted his head, studying me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. "And yet you were selected to pour my wine. Interesting."

I kept my face blank. "The head servant chose me, Your Majesty. I don't question her decisions."

"No. I imagine you don't."

He gestured to the seat beside him, the seat that had been empty all evening, meant for a queen he didn't have.

"Sit."

The word landed like a blade.

Around us, conversation stuttered. I could feel eyes turning our way, nobles craning their necks to see what had captured the king's attention. A servant? Sitting at the king's table? It was unheard of.

It was a trap.

"Your Majesty, I couldn't..."

"I wasn't asking."

There it was. The steel beneath the velvet. The Tyrant the stories whispered about.

I sat.

The chair was carved from dark wood, padded with crimson velvet. It dwarfed me. I felt like a child playing dress-up in borrowed finery.

The king snapped his fingers, and another servant appeared with a fresh goblet. Wine splashed into it, the same deep red as what I'd poisoned.

He pushed it toward me.

"Drink."

My blood went cold.

He knew. He had to know. Why else would he...

"You seem nervous." That small smile again. "It's just wine. The same wine you poured for me."

I stared at the goblet. Three drops of nightshade looked like nothing. Tasted like nothing. By the time you realized you'd been poisoned, you were already dying.

My hand closed around the stem.

"Unless," the king said softly, leaning closer, "there's some reason you'd be afraid to drink it?"

Our faces were inches apart. I could see the faint scar that traced his left cheekbone, the way his pupils dilated as he watched me, the absolute stillness of a predator deciding.

He was enjoying this.

"I'm not afraid." I lifted the goblet to my lips.

The wine touched my tongue.

Nothing. No tingling. No numbness. Just wine, rich and dark and faintly sweet.

I drank the whole thing.

The king laughed. A single, low sound that rumbled through his chest. "Impressive."

"I don't understand."

"No." He took the empty goblet from my hand, his fingers brushing mine. Deliberate. "You don't. That's what makes this interesting."

He leaned back in his chair, that smile playing at the corners of his mouth. The smile of a predator who'd cornered prey and was deciding whether to kill it quickly or play with it first.

"The wine you poured for me wasn't poisoned," he said. "I had it switched before the feast began. Three drops of nightshade in your cup, and you drank it like water."

Cold slid through my gut.

"Of course," he continued, "the nightshade was also replaced. With nothing more harmful than blackberry essence. Very similar color. Very similar consistency." He paused. "I wanted to see how you'd react."

The air turned to glass in my lungs.

He knew. He'd known before I even entered the hall. He'd been waiting for me, watching me, this whole time.

"Who are you working for?" His voice was still casual. Still light. But his eyes had gone flat and cold.

"Your Majesty, I don't..."

"Don't." The word cut through my lies like a blade through silk. "I've known there was an assassin in my household for weeks. I've watched you learn the routines, map the exits, study the guards. I've watched you practice with that knife you keep strapped to your thigh."

My hand twitched toward my leg. I stopped it a second too late.

"There it is," he murmured. "I wondered when you'd give yourself away."

The great hall still hummed with noise around us, but it felt distant now. Muffled. Like we existed in a bubble that separated us from the rest of the world.

"You could call the guards." My voice was steadier than I expected. If I was going to die, I would die like an assassin. Not begging. Not crying. "Have me executed. Isn't that what kings do?"

"Kings do many things." He picked up his own goblet, a fresh one, untouched, and drank deeply. "Execution seems boring, don't you think? You've spent weeks getting close to me. I'm curious what you'd do with more time."

I blinked. "What?"

"You're promoted. Effective immediately." He set down the goblet. "You'll serve as my personal attendant. You'll bring me my meals, pour my wine, stand outside my door while I sleep." His smile sharpened. "You'll have every opportunity you could want to kill me. And I'll be watching to see if you can actually do it."

This wasn't possible. This wasn't how targets behaved. They didn't invite assassins closer. They didn't turn murder into a game.

"Why?" The question escaped before I could stop it.

The king rose from his chair. He towered over me, tall, broad, every inch the warrior the stories described. He'd killed his father with his bare hands, some whispered. Cut down a hundred men at the Battle of Brennhallow.

Looking at him now, I believed it.

He leaned down, his lips brushing my ear as he spoke.

"Because you're the most interesting thing that's happened to me in years, little assassin. And I want to see how this game ends."

He straightened, leaving me frozen in the borrowed chair.

"Welcome to the palace," he said. "I look forward to our time together."

Then he walked away, leaving me sitting at the king's table with a hundred pairs of eyes on my face and a single thought burning through my mind:

He knew.

He'd always known.

And somehow, impossibly, he'd decided to keep me alive anyway.