accidentally yours | claude de alger obelia

the night the emperor fell from grace

the morning after, the entire estate felt... different.

the air was still the same - rich with the scent of dew and blooming flowers - but the warmth that had begun to settle between evie and the imperial family was gone, like a door had been slammed shut overnight.

claude was cold again.

not just distant.

frozen.

he didn't look at evie unless he had to. he spoke in clipped sentences when necessary. his eyes, when they passed over her, were sharper - cutting, dismissive.

and she felt it.

oh, she felt it.

evie kept her expression neutral as she served tea that morning, careful not to let her hands shake, careful not to let her face betray anything.

felix shot her a puzzled look. even he, sunshine that he was, seemed to sense the sudden frost in the emperor's mood.

athanasia, bless her innocent heart, just looked between them in confusion, her little brows furrowing slightly before she returned to sipping her tea.

evie smiled tightly, making herself smaller, quieter.
she cracked a joke about the tea being boiled "with a teaspoon of spite" but even that, normally enough to earn a faint smirk from claude, was met with cold silence.

it stung more than she wanted to admit.

by the time they made it down to the apothecary for athanasia's lesson, evie was running on nothing but stubbornness and pride.

"good morning," maerin greeted, not looking up from the table she was scrubbing. "glad you lot decided not to sleep in."

athanasia giggled and ran ahead to pick out herbs, eager as ever.

felix stayed back, chatting easily with maerin about the weather, while claude leaned against the far wall, arms folded, expression like carved marble.

and evie... evie hovered awkwardly by the door, suddenly unsure of her place.

"you look like someone stepped on your favorite flower," maerin muttered under her breath as she passed evie, carrying a bundle of dried roots.

evie forced a grin. "guess i'm just wilting."

maerin gave her a sideways look - sharp, knowing.

"hm," she said simply, and moved on.

the lesson began.

elias was already there, perched on a stool, explaining in surprisingly precise terms the difference between harmless foxglove and the deadly kind.

athanasia hung on his every word, her eyes wide and sparkling.

evie watched them with a faint smile, her chest aching just a little.

elias was good - better than anyone gave him credit for. he was patient with athanasia, answering her questions seriously even when they were ridiculous, and correcting her mistakes gently.

evie wanted to brag about him - about how far he'd come - but every time she opened her mouth, she caught claude's icy gaze flicker toward her.

so she stayed quiet.

biting her tongue.

pretending she didn't notice the way he refused to stand anywhere near her.

maerin noticed.

of course she noticed.

halfway through the lesson, as athanasia and elias ground herbs together in the mortar and pestle, maerin pulled evie aside under the pretense of needing help fetching more supplies.