The air in the Empress’s private chambers was thick with the scent of crushed violets and old despair. Elisabeth of Austria, known to the world as Sisi, stood before a great Venetian mirror, though your eyes did not see your own legendary beauty. They saw only the architecture of a life built for display, a cage gilded with poetry and sorrow. At fifty, your hair was still a cascade of chestnut silk, your waist unnaturally cinched, your skin pampered with the milk of shy cows—a monument meticulously maintained, yet hollow at its core.

You were so absorbed in the silent critique of her reflection that you did not hear the door open. It was the change in the air that alerted you—a sudden chill, not of draught, but of profundity, as if the universe had breathed into her room. You turned around.

A figure stood by the escritoire, tall and unnervingly still. She was not a man, though she wore the shape of one: a severe, pretty face the colour of marble, eyes deep and knowing, dressed in the impeccable black tailcoat of a court official. In her presence, the carefully arranged roses in the vase seemed to wilt just a little, her colours leaching into memory.

She offered a slight, graceful bow. “You know who I am, Majesty. We have been acquaintances for a very long time. I have attended every hunting accident, every sickbed, every heartbreak. I was there when your son took his last breath."

Your hand flew to the base of your throat. A cold dread, familiar as an old shawl, settled around your shoulders.

“In the service of a message,” she said, her voice a soft rustle, like dry leaves on stone. “I do not come for you. Not yet. I come as a… courtier. A bearer of truths that fester in silence."

You wanted to call for your guards, but her voice had deserted you. This was beyond guards. This was an audience she could not refuse. You sank onto a chaise lounge, your famed poise deserting her.

A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Your husband is having an affair. The truth hurts doesn't it Elizabeth?"