"Say that again," I said slowly. "But this time, maybe include the part where you're joking."
Tom shook his head, still catching his breath. "Not joking. Lady Meridian. The king's cousin. Been coming here every month like clockwork. Geoffrey saw her twice. The laundry maid saw her carriage. And get this—she always asks for the same person."
"Who?"
"Master Edwin. The duchy's chief administrator."
I pressed my palms against my eyes. Of course. Of *course* it was the chief administrator. The one person with access to everything. The one person who could authorize payments, manipulate records, and coordinate a conspiracy without raising suspicion.
"Where is Master Edwin now?"
"In the capital. Left yesterday morning. Won't be back until after the ball."
Convenient. Suspiciously convenient.
"Tom, I need you to find out everything you can about Master Edwin. How long he's worked here, where he came from, who recommended him for the position. Can you do that without alerting anyone?"
"Can I breathe air and gossip simultaneously? Yes." He headed for the door, then stopped. "Arjun? If the king's cousin is involved... this isn't just about the Duke anymore, is it?"
"No," I said quietly. "It's not."
After Tom left, I stared at my color-coded conspiracy web. Lady Meridian. The king's cousin. That changed everything.
In the game, there had been vague references to "court politics" and "royal intrigue," but nothing specific. The developers had been too busy creating kissing CGs to bother with coherent worldbuilding. But now I was living in that world, and the implications were terrifying.
If the king's own family was involved in destabilizing Duke Cassian, either:
A) The king knew and approved, which meant this was a sanctioned operation to remove a troublesome duke, or
B) The king didn't know, which meant his cousin was committing treason, or
C) The king was incompetent and being manipulated, which meant the entire kingdom was more unstable than I'd thought.
All three options led to apocalypse. Just different flavors of it.
I needed more information. I needed to understand the political landscape. I needed—
"You look like you're about to have a breakdown."
I jumped. Again. Did everyone in this manor have stealth training?
Duke Cassian stood in the doorway, holding two cups. He set one on the desk in front of me. Tea. The good kind, from the smell of it.
"Your Grace, I—"
"Drink. You've been awake for over twenty-four hours. Your eyes look like you've been crying blood."
I hadn't realized he'd been keeping track. I picked up the cup with trembling hands—when had they started shaking?—and took a sip.
Perfect temperature. Perfect steeping. Exactly like the tea I'd made him yesterday.
"Did you make this yourself, Your Grace?"
"Mrs. Blackwood is still convinced you're an assassin. I prefer my tea without potential poison." He sat in the chair opposite me, which felt surreal. The Duke. Sitting casually in his own study. Drinking tea with his butler like they were colleagues instead of master and servant.
"I found something else," I said, because there was no point in delaying. "Tom discovered that Lady Meridian has been visiting regularly. Meeting with your chief administrator."
Cassian's expression didn't change, but his grip on his teacup tightened slightly. "Lady Meridian."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"The king's cousin. His favorite cousin, in fact. Practically raised together." He set down his cup carefully. "Are you certain?"
"Multiple witnesses. Always on the fifteenth. Always asking for Master Edwin."
"Edwin." He said the name like he was tasting something bitter. "He's been with the duchy for three years. Came highly recommended from the royal accounting office. Impeccable credentials. Perfect service record."
"Planted," I said flatly.
"Almost certainly." Cassian stood, pacing to the window. "Three years ago was when I first opposed the king's expansion into the northern territories. The tribes there had been peaceful for decades. The king wanted to 'civilize' them, which meant taxation, conscription, and cultural erasure." His voice was cold. "I told him it would start a war. He told me I was being difficult."
"So he planted an administrator in your household to destabilize you from within."
"It appears so." He turned back to me. "Do you understand what this means, Arjun? If the king himself is behind this, if I accuse him publicly, I'm not just risking my position. I'm risking civil war."
"And if you don't accuse him, the conspiracy continues until you're either dead or discredited."
"Exactly." He smiled that dangerous smile. "Tell me, butler. In your vast experience with merchant accounting, how did you handle situations where your employer was being systematically destroyed by the king?"
I set down my tea. "In my experience, Your Grace, when the game is rigged, you change the rules."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning we don't accuse the king. We make him an offer he can't refuse."
Cassian raised an eyebrow. "Elaborate."
I stood, moving to the conspiracy web I'd created. "The king wants you gone because you're an obstacle to his northern expansion. Fine. Give him what he wants."
"You want me to surrender the northern territories?"
"I want you to *appear* to surrender them. Publicly announce at the ball that you've reconsidered. That you support the king's vision for the north. Make a grand speech about unity and prosperity." I tapped the ledgers. "But privately, you show him this. You show him proof that his own cousin and administrator have been embezzling funds, creating fake expenditures, systematically destabilizing his kingdom's most powerful duchy."
Cassian's eyes narrowed. "Blackmail."
"Leverage," I corrected. "You're not threatening him. You're offering him a solution. He gets your public support for the northern expansion. You get to quietly remove the traitors from your household and the king's court. Everyone wins. The conspiracy dies quietly. No civil war. No scandal."
"And if he refuses?"
"Then you have proof of treason involving his favorite cousin. You can take it to the other dukes, build a coalition, force his hand." I met his gaze. "But that's the nuclear option. Better to let him save face and clean his own house."
Cassian was quiet for a long moment, studying me with an intensity that made me want to squirm.
"You're not a butler," he said finally.
My heart stopped. "Your Grace?"
"No butler thinks like this. No merchant's clerk, either." He moved closer, and I fought the urge to step back. "You think like a strategist. Like someone who's used to complex systems and political maneuvering. Like someone who's played this game before."
I had played this game. Literally. But I couldn't tell him that.
"I read a lot, Your Grace," I said weakly.
"You've said that before. It wasn't convincing then either." He studied my face. "Who are you, really?"
"I'm your butler, Your Grace. That's all I—"
"Don't." His voice was sharp. "Don't insult my intelligence. I'm giving you access to sensitive information, asking for your counsel on matters of state. The least you can do is be honest about who I'm trusting."
He had a point. And if I wanted him to trust me—if I wanted to prevent the doom flags that led to apocalypse—I needed to give him something real.
"I'm someone who died," I said quietly. "And woke up here. In this world. With knowledge I shouldn't have."
Silence.
"You expect me to believe you're from another world," Cassian said flatly.
"I expect you to believe I'm not lying about being your ally." I met his gaze. "Your Grace, everything I've done since arriving here has been to help you. To prevent disaster. I know how this story ends if we don't change it, and it ends with everything burning. I can't tell you how I know. I can barely explain it to myself. But I know the patterns. I know the consequences. And I know that if we don't stop this conspiracy, it won't matter who's king or duke or butler. We'll all be dead."
Another long silence. His expression was unreadable.
"You're either insane or telling the truth," he said finally. "I haven't decided which. But you're right about the strategy. We'll use the ball to neutralize the threat." He turned away. "Get some sleep. You look like death warmed over."
"Your Grace—"
"That's an order, Arjun. Four hours. Minimum. Then we'll finalize the plan." He paused at the door. "And for what it's worth? If you are from another world, if you do somehow know the future... thank you for trying to change it."
He left before I could respond.
I stood alone in the study, surrounded by evidence of treason and the weight of impossible knowledge.
The door burst open. Tom again, looking panicked.
"We have a problem."
"Another one?"
"Mr. Wickham's awake. And he's asking for the Duke. Says he needs to confess something before he dies."
Oh. Oh no.
"Confess what?"
"He wouldn't tell me. But Arjun?" Tom's expression was grim. "He was crying. Like, really crying. Whatever he needs to confess, it's bad."
I grabbed my jacket. Sleep could wait. Apparently, the conspiracy had just grown another layer.
Because of course it had.
We ran through the manor toward the infirmary, and with every step, I had one thought:
I really, *really* should have read the strategy guide for this stupid game.
---
The infirmary was too quiet. Mr. Wickham lay in his bed, eyes sunken, skin gray, but conscious. The physician hovered nearby, looking worried.
"Your Grace," Wickham whispered as the Duke entered. "Forgive me. Forgive me, I didn't—"
"Breathe," Cassian commanded, his voice softer than I'd ever heard it. "Tell me what happened."
"The wine. At Baron Helmore's gathering. I drank it. I thought—" He coughed, a wet, rattling sound. "I thought it was meant for you. I was trying to protect you."
Everyone in the room went still.
"You drank poisoned wine deliberately?" I asked, unable to stop myself.
Wickham's eyes found me. "I saw Baron Helmore's servant add something to the decanter. Saw him place it on His Grace's usual seat. I switched the glasses. Drank it myself." Another cough. "But that's not... that's not what I need to confess."
"Then what?" Cassian's voice was tight.
"I've been taking bribes. From Master Edwin. For six months. He said it was just to adjust some numbers, make some expenditures look different on paper. Said it was for tax purposes. I didn't—I didn't know it was treason. I swear, Your Grace, I didn't know."
The room felt like all the air had been sucked out.
Wickham started crying again. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I tried to make it right. Tried to protect you. But I failed. I failed at everything."
Cassian's expression was carved from ice. "Did Master Edwin order the poisoning?"
"I don't know. I don't know anything except what I saw. The servant with the bottle. The poison. I just... I couldn't let you die."
"Who was the servant?"
"I don't know. Young man. Brown hair. I'd never seen him before at Baron Helmore's estate."
"Hired for the occasion," I murmured. "Professional. No connection to trace."
The Duke turned to me. "Your conspiracy just gained a confession. And a witness who deliberately drank poison to save my life." He looked back at Wickham. "Can you write? Are you strong enough?"
"I... I think so, Your Grace."
"Good. Because you're going to write down everything. Every bribe Master Edwin offered you. Every instruction he gave you. Every detail you can remember." His voice softened. "And then you're going to survive this poison out of pure spite, because I'm not losing a man who'd sacrifice himself for me."
Wickham nodded weakly. "Yes, Your Grace."
As we left the infirmary, Tom following close behind, I felt the pieces clicking into place like a particularly evil Sudoku puzzle.
"The confession changes everything," I said to the Duke. "Now we have evidence directly connecting Master Edwin to treason. We don't need to negotiate with the king. We can—"
"We can do nothing," Cassian interrupted. "Because if Master Edwin is working with Lady Meridian, and she's the king's cousin, then arresting Edwin means exposing the king's complicity. We're back to the same problem."
"Unless," Tom said quietly, "Master Edwin has an accident before he can be questioned."
We both turned to stare at him.
"What? I'm just saying. Convenient accidents happen all the time to people who know too much."
"We're not assassinating the chief administrator," I said firmly.
"Why not? He tried to assassinate the Duke."
"Because—" I stopped. Why not? In the ruthless logic of this world, it made sense. Eliminate the threat. Protect the duchy. Move on.
But I wasn't from this world. I was from a world where murder was illegal and conspiracy required evidence and trials and...
And I was trying to prevent an apocalypse. The usual rules might not apply.
"No," Cassian said, and I felt a rush of relief. "We do this correctly. We gather evidence. We present it to the king. We let him handle his own house." He looked at me. "That was the plan, wasn't it?"
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Then we stick to it. Even if it's harder. Even if it's riskier." His expression hardened. "Because if we start playing by their rules, we become exactly what they accuse us of being."
We walked back to the study in silence. The ball was tomorrow night. We had less than thirty-six hours to finalize our evidence, approach the king, and neutralize a conspiracy that reached the highest levels of the kingdom.
"Get some sleep," the Duke ordered when we reached his study. "Both of you. That's not a request."
Tom saluted lazily and left. I started to follow.
"Arjun."
I turned back.
"That thing you said. About knowing how this ends. About everything burning." He met my eyes. "Does it end that way because of me?"
In the game, yes. Duke Cassian's route ended with him going full villain, destroying the kingdom because of betrayal and isolation and the exact kind of systematic persecution we'd just uncovered.
But I couldn't tell him that.
"It ends that way," I said carefully, "because good people make understandable mistakes when they're pushed too far. You're not a villain, Your Grace. You're just surrounded by them."
He studied me for a long moment. "I hope you're right. Because after tomorrow, we'll either have saved the kingdom or started its collapse."
"No pressure then."
He almost smiled. "No pressure. Now go. Sleep. That's an order."
I went.
But as I lay in my small bed in the servants' quarters, staring at the ceiling, I couldn't stop thinking about what came next.
The Royal Ball. Every major noble in one place. The heroine would arrive soon—probably already was at the royal academy. All the capture targets would be there. All the doom flags.
And I was walking into it armed with nothing but accounting ledgers and a half-formed plan to blackmail the king.
This was fine.
This was absolutely fine.
I fell asleep trying to convince myself of that lie.
---