“I need to tell you something urgently. It's about your boss.”

Ciarán watched the coin spinning on the wooden table. He had heard Ophelia enter; heard the creak of the door as it swung shut behind, the floorboards groaning deliberately as her body swayed, impatient in her desire to speak.

But he didn't look up.

As the Queen's sole advisor, he was used to the comings and goings of others.

The constant questions.

The constant harassment.

The constant tasks that prevented him from being at the queen's side.

He watched the coin, its silver face twirling as it caught the light of the oil lamp. Whirling, flashing, Ciarán found his body lull... his mind drawn in—hypnotised—by the precious silver, indented with the Queen's regal illustration. So much so that he momentarily forgot about the young woman standing at the head of his table.

She cleared her throat. “Ciarán.”

Ciarán blinked.

The spell broke.

He slammed his hand on the wood, dousing the spinning coin with his palm. “The lamp?”

Housed in the bowels of the west wing, his shoe-box office sat directly above the stairs to the Palace vault. No windows let in daylight, and the thick stone walls kept the air cold.

The barbaric conditions of his quarters was the constant scourge of his mind. Self-doubt, anguish, burrowing further and further, twisting his thoughts, and all he knew—like he wasn't in the plush palace, safe and close to his Queen—but rather forgotten and trapped, alone in a dark, endless well, falling further and further away.

A shiver brushed Ciarán’s spine, but he disguised it by slipping the coin into the inside pocket of his blazer.

“I couldn't get it, but I have something better, it's about—”

“My boss,” Ciarán spat. “I heard you.”

Ophelia crossed her arms over her chest, the black puffed sleeves of her shirt folding around her body like the wings of a bat. She tilted her head, and a coil of black hair slipped out from behind her ear.

“But I suggest,” Ciarán counselled, angling his brow, “you show more respect when referring to your Queen.”

Ophelia rolled her eyes. “She’s still your boss, ain't she?”

“And she's still your Queen.”

“Fine. The ‘Queen’—”

“Has a threat been made on her life?” Ciarán growled. If there had, he would have known before Ophelia.

“No—”

“Are the peasants rising against her?” If they were, he would have sent the guardsman down to the village hours ago to... silence them.

“No, but—”

“Is she in any way, mentally or physically, in danger?” He knew his Queen, far better than he knew himself; she confided in him, told him things only meant for the two of them. If there were something awry, he'd see it. He’d know.

“No, but—”

“Then why, Ophelia...” Ciarán glared, “are you here?”

“Because she has magic, Ciarán!” Ophelia shouted, all composure lost. “She's a witch. She’s a lying, conniving, evil...”

Ciarán raised his fist, halting her.

“Lies,” he hissed, his voice coming out small. “I asked you to bring me a genie and their lamp—but instead, you bring me this... This blasphemous nonsense!”

Ophelia raised her chin. “It's what I heard; I wouldn't lie.”

“And so to whom, pray tell, divulged this ‘vital’ information?” As Ciarán rose, his chair ground against the floor. Flecks of stone flaked from the walls like cascading ash. Inside his chest, a dangerous flame burned, and Ciarán curled his fist around the coin in his pocket.

“He said it was a gift.”

“Who said it was a gift, Ophelia?” Whoever was spreading rumours, sinful disgusting rumours against his Queen... They had to die.

But when Ophelia spoke, she said a word Ciarán hadn't heard in a long time, a name he'd hoped he'd never hear again.

“Cosmo.”