Chapter 176 - 175: A Friendship She Cherished

The tea party, against every chaotic prediction Eleanore had privately made over the past weeks, had actually come together rather beautifully. Sage tablecloths, delicate china, a light afternoon breeze drifting through the garden where Adena had insisted on setting everything up. It was, admittedly, lovely, and Eleanore found herself almost enjoying the quiet ordinariness of it as she took her seat.

That ease didn’t last long.

"So," Adena said, halfway through pouring a second round of tea, entirely too casual in a way that immediately raised Eleanore’s guard, "did you see the paper this morning? About the poisoning event?"

Eleanore’s hand stilled briefly around her cup, along with others.

"I did!" Said Flora.

"Wild, isn’t it? All that time everyone thought it was you, and it turns out it was someone else entirely." Adena’s tone stayed light, conversational, but her eyes flicked toward Eleanore with something just a shade too attentive to be idle curiosity. "Someone close to the family, they said. Do you have any idea who that could be?"

"No," Eleanore said carefully, watching her. "Do you?"

"Me? Why would I know anything about that?" Adena’s laugh came a beat too quickly, a half-second too high. "There was however, one similar case. Lady Barbra’s case. Do you remember, Madam?"

"Indeed, I’m sure we will soon find that there was actually something behind it too." Eleanore said, voice even, though something cold had settled low in her stomach now. "Considering I’d never even met Lady Barbra before she was found dead. They say she met a certain lady a few hours before she was found dead. Her hair get black, red eyes. I wonder who has those features." She took a sip of her tea.

Adena’s hand paused around the teapot, just slightly, just long enough for Eleanore to catch it. "Is that so," Adena repeated slowly. "That’s — an odd way to put it."

"Is it?"

Their eyes met across the table, and for a brief, charged moment, something passed between them that neither one voiced aloud. Eleanore’s suspicion sharpening into something closer to certainty, and Adena’s carefully maintained composure flickering, just once, before she smoothed it back into place with a bright, deflecting smile.

"Anyway," Adena said, reaching for the tray of sandwiches like the conversation had never happened, "these turned out well, don’t you think? I told you sage was the right call."

Eleanore didn’t push further, not yet, but she didn’t look away either, filing the exchange carefully alongside every other small, ill-fitting piece that had been accumulating around Adena for weeks now.

---

When the tea party ended, Eleanore found Flora later that same afternoon, near the front steps, a carriage already stationed for her return east. It would be difficult, this misunderstanding won’t take long to clear. Eleanore loved Flora and she didn’t want to stop trying to ease things between them. But there was something Eleanore still hadn’t said, something that had sat unspoken between them for years now, long before any tabloid article had ever existed.

"Before you go," Eleanore said, catching her just as she turned toward the waiting carriage.

Flora paused, glancing back. "Yes, Madam?"

Eleanore hesitated only a moment, the words feeling larger now that she’d finally decided to say them aloud. "I never forgot," she said quietly. "The Best Friend Contract. The one we wrote when we were young, the ridiculous one with all those clauses about never letting the other walk into a room alone at a party." A small, wistful smile tugged at her mouth. "I know it was silly. I know we were just kids. But I never forgot it, and I never stopped meaning it."

Flora went very still, something unreadable passing over her face.

"I love you," Eleanore continued, softer now, the words carrying none of her usual careful composure. "Not in spite of everything that’s happened this year. Just — as you are. As you’ve always been to me."

The silence that followed stretched long and uncertain, Flora’s expression caught somewhere between surprise and something harder to name, her eyes glistening faintly in the afternoon light. She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to, not in words but she also didn’t move closer, didn’t offer the easy reassurance Eleanore had, perhaps foolishly, hoped for.

After a long moment, Flora simply turned, climbing into the waiting carriage without a word, the door clicking shut behind her.

Eleanore stood there long after the carriage pulled away, the quiet ache in her chest settling into something heavier than before not quite rejection, not quite acceptance, just an unanswered space where she’d hoped, however briefly, for something more certain.

---

Adena’s room was, unsurprisingly, a disaster. Fabric swatches strewn across the desk, half-finished lists of tea party details littering the floor, the general chaos of someone who lived entirely in motion and never quite settled long enough to tidy up after herself. Eleanore stepped inside carefully, waiting until she was certain the hallway was empty before closing the door behind her.

She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for. She only knew that the unease from the tea party hadn’t faded, had in fact only sharpened over the following hours, until it had become impossible to ignore the small, accumulating list of things that didn’t sit right.

She started with the desk, moving methodically through drawers already half-open from Adena’s usual carelessness, sifting past ribbon samples and half-written letters to friends back home. Nothing, for a long while, gave her anything more than the confirmation that Adena truly was as scattered as she appeared.

It was tucked into the lining of an old travel case, shoved carelessly beneath a stack of forgotten stockings, that Eleanore finally found it. A small, folded slip of paper, worn soft at the creases like it had been handled many times over. She unfolded it carefully.

The date at the top made her stomach drop.

Three days after Barbra Fein’s death.

|| Chapter 1: The Woman Named Barbra

Barbra was known to be a very gentle and kind woman of the kingdom. She was always quiet and had no enemy. Until she fell for the wrong person and tried to win him over only to be trampled on completely by the queen of the social circle, Eleanore Sinclair (You)

Quest 1: Death Case Of Lady Barbra Fein

Task 1: Who killed Lady Barbra?

Do you accept the task?

Yes/No

Note: Reward: +100,000 reputationPenalty: -200,000 coins

Total Reputation: -100,000Total Coins: +90,100||