Nicholas and Milly decided to start by reviewing what they already knew.
“The examination showed the poison was smeared along the rim of the teacup. And the ones seated at that table were you, Sierra Restreive, and...”
“Lizbel. Lizbel Garcia, a third-year.” The same girl who had tearfully stood up earlier to clear Milly’s name.
“What?” At the mention of her, Nicholas stiffened and shot Milly a startled look. “Lizbel Garcia? That girl asleep over there is Lady Garcia?”
“Yes. Do you know her?”
“No, her name just rang a bell, that’s all. Anyway, I heard the cups broke right as you were about to drink? Two of them, no less.”
His odd reaction caught Milly’s attention, but perhaps that was nothing unusual in the world of high society. She nodded. “Yes, the red ones. Both of their cup handles came clean off, so a maid brought us a fresh tea set.”
“I see.”
“Then Sierra insisted on taking my cup, saying she’d be in trouble if she let me drink lukewarm tea,” Milly explained. “And of course, that turned out to be the poisoned one.”
For Sierra, it had been a cruel stroke of fate. The memory of her friend’s agonized struggle weighed heavily on Milly’s heart.
“Mmm. That changes things,” Nicholas murmured. “At first, I thought the culprit wanted to poison you directly, maybe just to teach you a lesson.”
“What, am I really that hated?” Milly blurted.
“It was only a possibility. But hearing this, it feels more like someone wanted to frame you for the crime. Very much so.” His voice was softer than usual, as though he was deep in thought. “Two cups breaking by accident is too much to believe. Which means the most suspicious party is...”
“The maid,” Milly finished for him.
The two reached the same conclusion at once: the servant with the slender hands, the one who had brought the tea set to their table. She was their number one suspect.
“She’s the one who set down those cups. She deliberately placed the poisoned one before me.”
The more Milly thought back, the more the woman’s odd behavior stood out. Her jittery manner when bringing the replacement set now seemed perfectly in line with someone guilty of tampering.
“Exactly,” Nicholas agreed. “The poisoner must have known your cup could end up in someone else’s hands. After all, who would ever let the grand duke’s daughter drink cooled tea?”
“Using even someone’s own kindness against them. Vile.”
“Completely. But the method itself is transparent.” Nicholas lifted his left hand, straightening one finger. “First, whoever handled the cups—the maid—deliberately placed the poisoned one before you.” A second finger went up. “Second, by tampering with the other cups so their handles would break, she made sure the poisoned cup would get passed to someone else. Once the tea had to be poured again, no one would dare serve cooled tea to the grand duke’s daughter.”
“And if that cup ended up in another’s hands, suspicion would fall neatly on me.”
“Exactly. Whoever did this clearly wanted you cast as the culprit.”
If their reasoning held, then the servant was indeed the direct hand behind the crime. Her nervous demeanor had already stood out, and everything pointed her way.
A faint cloud of doubt lingered in Milly’s chest. Something doesn’t sit right. For one maid alone to orchestrate this feels off.
Even if she bore a grudge against the grand duke’s house, would she really go so far as to devise a plot meant to frame Milly outright? The maid was almost certainly the one who carried it out, but Milly’s instincts balked at calling her the mastermind.
“Tell me. Do you know which household supplied the original tea set?” she asked.
Nicholas blinked. “The supplier?”
“Yes. Some of the tea sets were provided by students’ families, weren’t they?”
“Well, maybe. I’d have to ask a teacher to be sure.”
“And?”
“Even if I did, I doubt they’d tell me. The staff will probably lock down every detail for the investigation.”
“I see.”
That made sense. Restricting information would keep idle speculation from spreading among the students. Sensible in theory, but not helpful here.
Milly’s thoughts went back to the moment after the cup handles had snapped. When the thin-fingered maid had brought the replacement set, Milly had directly asked who had supplied it, intending to hold the household accountable for sending shoddy goods. The maid had claimed ignorance, but anyone could see she had been lying. There had to be a reason for her dishonesty.
Nicholas frowned slightly. “Although, when I glanced at one of the recovered cups, I did notice something odd. There was a strange mark on the bottom.”
Milly’s head jerked up. “A mark?”
“Yeah. It looked like a tiara entwined with a bergamot flower. I remembered it because the design struck me as the sort of thing you’d draw.”
“I’ll decide whether or not to hit you later.”
“Wait, what?”
Milly froze Nicholas with a look as his face went pale, but then she forced her thoughts to churn.
A tiara with a bergamot flower. She’d seen that motif before. “Ah.” Rummaging through her memory, the answer snapped into place. “I’ve got it! The tiara with the bergamot!”
Nicholas blinked. “What?”
“The hair ornament. Brima’s!”
“H-Hair ornament?”
It had happened around two weeks ago.
While chatting with Lucius in the classroom, Milly had pulled out her chair and accidentally bumped into her classmate Brima Bickel as she passed. The collision had broken the hair ornament Brima was wearing, and Milly clearly remembered its design: a tiara crowned with a bergamot blossom. Lucius had said the ornament came from the general store Brima’s family ran. That must mean the shop’s emblem was the tiara-and-bergamot motif.
“The cups must have come from that same shop!” Milly exclaimed.
Nicholas’s expression soured. “Wait, are you saying Lady Bickel supplied those cups?”
“Yes, that’s what it looks like!” Even if she wasn’t the true culprit, she had to be connected somehow.
Milly leaned forward, energized by the new lead, but Nicholas only frowned, twisting his mouth in doubt. “So, what now? Are you saying Lady Bickel resents you enough to have orchestrated all of this herself?”
“That’s what the signs are pointing to, at least.”
“But Lady Bickel’s the shy, retiring sort, isn’t she? No matter how much she dislikes you, it’s hard to imagine her going this far.” Nicholas set a hand to his chin, eyes lowering behind his glasses as he considered.
He wasn’t wrong. Even back when the hair ornament broke, and again when Sierra’s hair had been cut, Brima had been terrified of Milly to an abnormal degree. Could someone who shook that badly in Milly’s presence really have done something like this?
Milly thought it over for a while, then spoke plainly. “I believe it’s worth asking her directly. At the very least, we might learn something we don’t know yet. So why don’t we go see her?”
Milly didn’t know Brima well, but she couldn’t just ignore this potential clue. Besides, time wasn’t on their side. If the faculty launched their own inquiry, everything would be out of their hands. If Brima had even the smallest connection, putting her off until later would be a mistake.