Step 8a: When the moment is right...

Ivelle heard the wedding before she saw it. A hum of voices drifted toward her, strengthening in volume as she crept up the chapel steps, and reaching a crescendo as she arrived upon the balcony.

Gnawing furiously on her invisibility chewing gum, Ivelle edged through the crowd. She fought the urge to prod a few gaudily-dressed ladies who didn't seem to understand that walkways were for walking and not gossiping.

"Quiet!" cried a voice from down below. "If you could all please be seated. We are about to begin."

The gossipy ladies sat down, though not before one of them managed to mutter something demeaning about Castrena, Prince Eirifold, and the king of Estrella, all in the same breath.

Ivelle skirted past them. She gave her invisibility chewing gum a particularly violent chew before peering over the edge of the balcony to gaze at the front of the chapel.

Her eyes found Eirifold and Lillian at the altar, and her stomach clenched painfully.

Lillian, clad in her silver dress festooned with swirls and flowers and frills, stared ahead serenely as the priest mumbled something too far away to hear. With the distance, and the veil, it was hard to make out her expression, but her posture gave no indication that anything was amiss.

Eirifold was a different story. He looked odd in his gold and silver suit, like he was playing a role that didn't suit him. His back was half-toward her, and Ivelle couldn't see his face, but every so often he shifted and ran his fingers through his hair, as though nervous.

Ivelle had warned Eirifold not to eat or drink anything during his dinner with Lillian. She'd prepped him as much as she could about different kinds of poisons, trying to reinforce the need for caution. Still, a part of her had been terrified Lillian might find a clever way to off him during their private dinner, and it was a relief to see him alive and well. She wondered how his conversation with Lillian had gone. Had he and Lillian successfully resolved their differences?

It certainly seemed so, judging by their interlaced hands.

Ivelle's stomach gave a particularly painful lurch.

Stupid, she berated herself. After all, this was exactly what she'd wanted. She'd wanted them to resolve their differences. She'd hoped to see them at the wedding altar, looking at each other with kindness and respect, as they were doing now.

She just hadn't expected it to hurt quite this much.

Ivelle edged around the balcony, trying to catch a glimpse of Eirifold's face. She didn't know what emotion she was hoping to see there. Regret? Sorrow? Some sign he'd miss her if and when she left? She didn't want him to be feeling those things and yet, a small, selfish part of her did want it. Wanted a sign that their interactions had meant something to him – that she meant something to him.

Ivelle tore her eyes away from Eirifold and Lillian's locked hands. Her gaze landed upon the royal box, several meters away from the altar. In the front row, Princess Mariel seemed to be trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and an olive-skinned man in a red-and-gold suit. Ivelle had never seen the man before, but it was easy to surmise from the man's smug expression and fancy suit that he must be Prince Harvald of Luntz, Mariel's future husband.

Behind Mariel and the prince sat King Gorlin, flanked by his pallid wife. The king wore the most disinterested expression Ivelle had ever seen. He didn't appear to be attending to the ceremony in the slightest, but was checking out the bosoms of some befeathered women several seats down.

Creep.

Ivelle turned back to the ceremony. The priest—perhaps having noticed the king's disinterest—had ceased pontificating about love and devotion and duty, or whatever it was that priests pontificated about during royal marriage ceremonies, and was fumbling with a box at his side. As Ivelle watched, he straightened and announced, "It is time for the exchanging of the rings!"

Ivelle glanced down at Eirifold, just in time to see him slide a ring onto Lillian's finger. Ivelle couldn't see, because the prince's body was blocking her view, but she thought Lillian must have slid her own ring onto Eirifold's hand.

"Repeat after me," said the priest to Lillian. "I solemnly swear..."

"I solemnly swear..."

"... to love and to cherish..."

"... to love and to cherish..."

It was strange, Ivelle thought, how a little thing like exchanging rings and promises was enough to make two people married. Maybe the act of saying those promises in front of a churchful of bored observers was supposed to be enough to make most people keep their word, but Ivelle didn't buy it. Lord Saffron had certainly chucked all his promises straight out the window the moment said promises proved inconvenient for him. How many others, Ivelle wondered, did just the same?

If she ever remarried, Ivelle promised herself, she wouldn't bother with the church and the priest and the spectacle. She'd invite only people who wanted to be there, they'd agree upon a few heartfelt vows beforehand, and she'd make damn sure whoever she was marrying wasn't being controlled by any potions.

"I now pronounce thee man and wife!" the priest declared, jarring Ivelle from her reverie.

Lillian and Eirifold turned toward the crowd. For the first time that day, Ivelle could see Eirifold's face. He looked slightly stunned, as though he couldn't quite believe the last five minutes had just happened.

Lillian smiled placidly at the onlookers. She stood on her tiptoes and whispered something in Eirifold's ear. He shot the wedding guests a quick, perfunctory smile and began to guide Lillian through the cheering crowd.

Ivelle turned away, trying to ignore the ache in her chest.

She had half a mind to leave the palace now. After all, Lillian and Eirifold were on better terms. Her continued presence would only get in the way of them reconciling—and she could tend Ash's wounds at home just as well as she could here.

It was only Eirifold's warning—that the king and queen had been known to track down and punish jesters who fled—and her uncertainty about Ash's condition that kept her from packing her bags right this minute.

She would stay. Just a little longer. Just enough time to finish this stupid jesterly performance and get Ash back to health.

Then she would be gone.

~*~

Saffron was waiting for her when she snuck through the secret passage into Eirifold's deserted rooms. His puggish eyes speared her with a glare, and he let out a short, angry bark as she tried to fasten a leash to his harness.

"None of that," Ivelle huffed. "We have a deal, remember?"

Eirifold had promised Saffron several things in exchange for his cooperation with her jesting routine. The first was free roam about his rooms. The second was that Eirifold would summon all of Estrella's greatest mages to the castle in the coming weeks, with the intent of finding a spell to turn Saffron human. Ivelle had been less than thrilled with that part of this plan, but as Eirifold had reminded her, doggifying someone—even a heinous nobleman with a propensity for murdering mothers in cold blood—was a crime. Saffron should pay for his actions in court, like any other citizen of Estrella.

Ivelle didn't share Eirifold's rosy outlook. She was certain Saffron would manage to weasel out of any lawsuit a mere commoner like herself could bring against him. After all, he had buckets of money to his name, and people were bound to take pity on him once he told his sob story about living as a dog for three years. But Eirifold had seemed so pleased with himself for coming up with an idea to help her finish her jesting routine, she hadn't had the heart to tell him he was deluding himself.

Saffron allowed Ivelle to fasten the leash to the harness. Ivelle experienced a moment's relief, before something warm and wet soaked through her shoes.

"YOU LITTLE SHITBALL!"

She stumbled backward, frantically kicking off her pee-soaked slippers. Saffron's dark eyes gleamed at her smugly, his expression amused.

"Oh, you will PAY for that!" she snarled—but it was an empty threat, and they both knew it. "Stay right here. Don't fucking move."

Without a word, Ivelle hurried into Eirifold's bathroom. She cast around for a towel, anything to mop the mess out of her shoes, but all that met her gaze was Eirifold's toiletries—shampoos, conditioners, a few other bottles of varying sizes, and the nasal spray on his medicine cabinet.

Surely, Eirifold must own at least one towel. Surely, he didn't prance about in the nude after each bath, forcing his servants to fan him until he was dry.

Trying very hard not to think about that particular mental image, Ivelle started opening Eirifold's cabinets. As she rifled through Eirifold's belongings, something fell into the waste basket.

It was the nasal spray.

Ivelle pulled it out and then paused. The contents of the bottle looked bluer than it had looked when she'd first purchased it for Eirifold. Tentatively she spritzed some into the air.

She froze as the scent of mandragar filled the bathroom.

Heart starting to race, she pumped the spray bottle again, hoping she'd been mistaken. But the scent was unmistakable. She set the bottle back against the mirror, her mind whirling with possibilities.

Eirifold hadn't shown signs of mandragar poisoning yesterday. She knew he hadn't. He might have been drunker than a skunk when she'd snuck into his rooms, but there had been no mandragar on his breath. She should know; she'd practically been cuddling with him on the bed the night before.

And she knew he'd been using his nasal spray. The pollen this week had been awful.

Which could only mean...

Whoever had poisoned his new bottle of nasal spray had done so quite recently.

Perhaps as recently as last night.

And there was only one person (apart from Ivelle and Saffron) who had definitely been in Eirifold's rooms the night before.

Heart thundering in her chest, Ivelle ran a hand through her hair. She hadn't had time to wash it recently, and it was standing up at all sorts of odd angles.

Lillian. Lillian had been here last night, taking dinner with Eirifold while he gave her his apology. Lillian would have had ample opportunity to put the mandragar in Eirifold's nasal spray.

Perhaps she'd been doing it from the beginning.

The moment Ivelle had this thought, a memory crossed her mind. Alfred, looking confused at being asked about his twin brother, Wilfred's, whereabouts. Along with that came another memory—a memory of Lillian giving Alfred a safety potion prior to their hand-to-hand combat training sessions.

What if there never was a Wilfred to begin with? What if it the man who was pushed down the stairs had been Alfred all along? What if Eirifold had never actually pushed Alfred, but Alfred had simply pretended to fall, safe in the knowledge that a potion would protect him?

Maybe Lillian had hired the former jester, the one who had jumped out the window, and he'd been in on it too.

After all, he'd fallen into a lake. Plenty of people fell into lakes every day and didn't die.

What had Eirifold told her? They'd never found a body?

One thing was certain.

If Lillian had slipped mandragar into Eirifold's nasal spray last night—despite Eirifold's heartfelt apology—the prince definitely wasn't safe.

With newfound determination, Ivelle tossed the contaminated bottle of nasal spray back in the wastebasket. She grabbed the bathmat, scrubbed her shoes dry hurriedly, and sprinted from the bathroom.

"Let's go," she told Saffron. "We have a jest to perform."