When she opened her eyes, the world had changed again.

Not the cold corridor. Not the firelight or shadow. Music swelled, threaded with laughter sharp enough to cut. Her cheek pressed against marble veined with gold. She pushed herself upright and found herself standing in the masquerade hall, though she had no memory of walking there.

Every mask glittered like a mirror shard. Every candle flared too bright. Her skin still throbbed from the spiral token’s burn, but now its heat pulsed with the music, as though dragging her into the next loop.

The masquerade. Again.

Only this time, she already knew how it ended.

Velvet masks, jeweled wings, silks rustling in currents of perfume. Candles dripped golden light down mirrored walls until every noble face fractured into dozens. Music lilted, a silver thread stretched taut over tension. Myrren stood at the edge of it all, the spiral’s echo pulsing in her chest. She had been here before. She remembered shame dripping like wine from mocking tongues. She remembered Thane’s hand shielding her from a circle of sneers.

But tonight, the air smelled wrong. Too sweet. Powder thick enough to choke. And when she turned, there was no Thane at her side. No golden shield.

Only eyes. Masked, merciless.

“Look at the little perfumer,” Lady Aurelia’s voice chimed, sharp beneath her feathered mask. “Lowborn hands mixing poisons by day, daring to wear silk by night.” Her perfume was cloying with violets drowned in vinegar. “Tell me, Mistress Vale, did you stitch that gown with the same hands that mixed aconite?”

Laughter rippled, brittle as glass.

Myrren stiffened. The gown was borrowed, plain compared to their jeweled excess, but the weight of their scrutiny burned hotter than gold. She inhaled sharply. Beneath perfume and candle smoke, she caught it, the faint bitter trace of frostmint infusion. A masking agent. Poison disguised in wine.

Her gift sharpened the dread. Someone was playing with toxins again.

And she was the target.

Her fingers itched to name it, but to speak would be to bare her throat. The spiral’s echo clawed inside her, she had stood here once, she had faltered once. Tonight, the loop pressed harder, as though the court itself demanded she bleed again.

“Perhaps she believes her prince will save her again,” Aurelia murmured. “But where is he? Where is Eirden’s golden devotion now?”

The words struck sharper than blades. Myrren’s pulse lurched. She turned instinctively, seeking Thane’s flame, or even Corven’s silent shadow. But neither figure stood in the hall.

For the first time, she was utterly alone.

A noble hand darted, plucking her mask. Silk ties snapped. Gasps rose as her face was laid bare to the hall.

“She doesn’t even belong among us.”

Her chest tightened, shame flooding like it had before, yet this time, another voice cut clean through the laughter.

“Enough.”

Lady Seliora stepped from the crowd, silver mask gleaming, eyes sharp as cut glass. She placed herself between Myrren and the jeering nobles, her tone a blade of polished steel.

“Mock her if you dare,” Seliora said softly. “But courts have long memories. What you do tonight will echo in every chamber tomorrow..”

The music faltered. Whispers hissed like snakes.

Myrren’s breath caught. The spiral loop had bent, but into what?

The Queen’s silence fell heavier than laughter.

From her dais, Aelira rose with the elegance of a blade being unsheathed. Every noble still. Even the musicians faltered, bows trembling over strings. The Queen rarely spoke at masquerades; her presence alone was law enough. Tonight, her voice cut like frost across the hall.

“Lady Seliora defends you, Mistress Vale.” Her tone wrapped Myrren’s name in velvet—and thorns. “But one voice cannot cleanse suspicion. You have already drawn poison from goblets, plucked secrets from the air like thorns from roses. Tell me..” Her head tilted, mask glinting in candlelight. “How many deaths sit on your tongue tonight?”

The hall rippled with gasps. Nobles leaned forward, hungry. Some with fear, some with venom.

Myrren’s breath caught. To answer was to risk her own noose. To stay silent was to invite theirs.

Seliora’s hand brushed hers, steady, almost protective, but her whisper was sharp as any command. “Choose your words. The Queen means to set you against them.”

Myrren forced her gaze up. Beneath perfume and candle smoke, the air stank of frostmint infusion. She could name it, expose it. Yet if she did, the poisoner would not fall but the blame would circle back to her.

Her chest ached. Thane would once have spoken here, golden fire blazing against their mockery. Corven would have watched, silent but unshakable, a tether in her bones. Both were gone. And the Queen had arranged it.

“Answer.” The Queen’s voice was silk over steel.

Myrren swallowed. “I smell… deception.” The word slipped before she could stop it. “Perfumes meant to smother the truth. Wines laced to hide bitter edges. Someone has poisoned this hall again.”

A hiss swept the nobles like wind through glass. Some clutched cups tighter, others shoved them away.

Aurelia’s laugh rose above them, bright and cruel. “Convenient. If death strikes tonight, the perfumer has already named herself innocent.”

Seliora cut across, her silver voice measured, calculated. “Or perhaps only a fool would speak the truth so plainly. Deception, yes. And you, Aurelia, reek of vinegar. Hardly subtle.”

Laughter broke, this time aimed elsewhere. Aurelia flushed beneath her mask.

But the Queen’s gaze never left Myrren. Cold. Calculating. She had forced her to speak, then left her to the wolves.

Seliora’s hand tightened briefly on her wrist. It was protection, but also a claim. As though to say: if you survive this, you survive by me, not by princes.

The realization twisted inside her. Seliora’s defense was not devotion. It was a strategy.

The spiral’s echo throbbed in her pocket, hot against her thigh. She remembered this hall before, humiliation, rescue, Thane’s vow. Now the scene had bent. Seliora’s shield instead of Thane’s hand. A Queen’s blade instead of silence.

The loop was not repeating. It was rewriting.

And as Myrren stood beneath the Queen’s stare, she felt the floor tilt again. Somewhere in the crowd, faces blurred. Voices stuttered. For a heartbeat, she was certain half the room had vanished, gone between one breath and the next.

Her pulse faltered.

What if the spiral wasn’t only twisting her?

What if it was erasing them?

The masquerade blurred again. Music swelled, fractured, then lurched into silence. Myrren blinked and the crowd shifted.

Masks she had seen only moments ago were gone. Whole clusters of nobles had vanished, leaving pockets of empty space where laughter had been. She turned sharply, searching, Lady Frostmint’s pale feathers, Kael’s ever-watchful gaze, even Ori’s bright eyes among the servants. But they were not there.

Her pulse thundered.

She hadn’t imagined them. She had spoken to Kael at the banquet. She had smelled Frostmint’s sharp mint oil clinging to velvet. She had seen Ori, smiling too bravely. Now the scents were gone, scrubbed from the air as if they had never existed.

The spiral was not only repeating, it was consuming.

“Myrren.” Seliora’s voice cut close, a whisper against her ear. Her hand still gripped her wrist, elegant but firm. “Do not falter. That is what they want. If you fall, you prove them right.”

But Seliora’s eyes were wrong. Too calm. As if she had seen these vanishings before.

The Queen’s gaze swept the thinning hall, impassive. If she noticed half her court had disappeared, she gave no sign. She only sipped her wine, lips brushing the rim with deliberate slowness, as though daring Myrren to speak.

The poison scent grew stronger, frostmint thick as breath against her tongue.

Her knees trembled. She wanted Thane’s golden steadiness, and Corven’s shadowed tether. But one had abandoned her to crown, the other had vanished with the spiral. Seliora’s grip was the only anchor, and even that felt like chains.

Another noble flickered. For a heartbeat, Aurelia’s violet mask glared at her, then blinked out, leaving nothing but candle smoke drifting in the air.

Myrren’s stomach dropped.

The spiral wasn’t just replaying mistakes. It was devouring reality.

She staggered forward, hand brushing a goblet. The wine rippled. Beneath the sweet veneer, the bitter frostbit tang screamed warning. If she spoke it, she would damn herself. If she stayed silent, she would let them drink oblivion until there was no one left.

“Speak,” the Queen murmured, as though she could hear the war inside her. “Or vanish with the rest.”

The hall spun. The spiral token seared through her pocket, pulsing like a second heart. Myrren’s gaze swept the vanishing faces, the thinning crowd, Seliora’s sharp grip.

And the terror struck cold:

This time, the spiral is not only taking choices from me.

Her breath caught, torn between scream and silence.

It is taking people.