Iris closed the door to the room with one hand while holding Shawn with the other.
Iris walked to the bed and set him down carefully on the sheets, settling his head against the pillow with a slow, deliberate movement.
Shawn didn't wake up. His breathing was heavy and steady, with the specific rhythm of someone who was not going to open their eyes of their own free will for quite some time.
Iris didn't let go entirely.
She stayed seated on the edge of the bed, one hand still resting on Shawn's shoulder, watching him in silence.
'Who are you?' thought Iris, studying Shawn's sleeping face.
It was a question Iris had been asking herself ever since this girl had appeared naked in the middle of the capital.
And with every hour that passed, the answer moved further away instead of closer.
'She's not a spy,' Iris concluded, mentally replaying the events of the banquet.
She had considered it before, but now she was certain.
No spy from any kingdom would do what this girl had just done.
Not one.
A spy infiltrating a vampire queen's court would have a clear objective. Earn her trust. Gather information. Move with discretion. Go unnoticed.
What this girl had done was the exact opposite.
She had eaten with her hands in front of the entire nobility. Drunk herself to the point of intoxication. Interrupted the opening speech with a cough. Laughed in the middle of the banquet's most tense silence. Asked a noblewoman for her goblet of wine. Asked the queen for a crown. Suggested making the goblets wider as her first royal decree.
And then fallen asleep.
'No,' thought Iris. 'No spy would do that. Unless they were completely out of their mind.'
And that was the thing.
Yes, it was a fact that this girl had healed her. That wasn't in question. Iris had felt it in her own body. The relief. The calm. The reduction of the pain she had been carrying for years.
But the banquet spectacle had no strategic logic to it.
There was nothing to gain from it.
Nothing.
This girl already had her favor. She had already healed her. She already had her protection. All she had to do was sit down, eat quietly, and let the banquet run its normal course.
Instead, she had caused the most absurd scene Iris had witnessed in centuries.
And she had done it for no apparent reason.
Which left only one possible conclusion.
'She's an idiot,' thought Iris, watching Shawn's sleeping face with an expression that mixed resignation with something that almost looked like tenderness.
Under other circumstances, Iris would have kept her distance.
An unpredictable person was a dangerous person.
A person who didn't follow basic social rules was a person who could cause problems at any moment.
And a person who caused problems was a person Iris normally preferred to keep far away.
Very far away.
But then Shawn started snoring.
It was a soft snore at first. Then it got louder. Then it settled into a steady rhythm that filled the room with a sound that was not exactly elegant.
A thin trickle of drool began to slip from the corner of his mouth.
Slowly.
Sliding down his cheek to the pillow.
Iris looked at him.
She couldn't help but smile.
'I should give her a mild punishment,' thought Iris, watching the drool stain spread across the pillow. 'I need to make it clear that what she did cannot happen again. Or at least not in public.'
Iris reached out with both hands, grabbed Shawn by the shoulders, and shook him side to side without much gentleness.
Shawn's eyes flew open.
"Where am I?" he said, his voice thick and his eyes unfocused, looking around with the expression of someone who recognizes absolutely nothing in their surroundings.
"I brought you back to the room where we slept together before," replied Iris, releasing his shoulders.
Shawn looked at her and blinked several times.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Iris raised an eyebrow, extended a finger, and tapped the tip of his nose.
"You're drunk," said Iris.
"I'm not drunk," replied Shawn, moving his face away from the finger with a clumsy motion. "And this isn't my room."
Iris frowned slightly.
"What does your room look like, then?"
Shawn looked around. Then pointed at the wall in front of him with a finger that wasn't quite pointing straight.
"Over there," said Shawn, gesturing at the bare stone, "is my beautiful computer."
Iris looked at the wall.
There was nothing there.
"And over there," continued Shawn, moving his finger slightly to the right, "is my beautiful and very expensive office chair that set me back quite a bit."
A pause.
"But it's insanely comfortable," he added, nodding with half-closed eyes.
Iris looked at Shawn.
'Computer?' she thought. 'Office chair?'
Iris didn't recognize either of those words.
They weren't terms from any language she knew. They weren't names of magical objects. They weren't slang from any region of her kingdom or any neighboring one.
They were completely new words.
Iris opened her mouth to ask.
"And for the record," Shawn cut in before Iris could say anything, raising a finger with the authority of someone about to make a very important declaration, "I would never bring a girl as tiny and flat as you back to my room."
Iris closed her mouth.
"My type," continued Shawn, with half-closed eyes and a smile that had no awareness of itself, "is tall girls. With big chests." Shawn paused. "And a great ass."
Silence.
Iris looked at Shawn.
She said nothing for several seconds.
'That,' thought Iris, processing what she had just heard, 'sounded exactly like something a dirty old man would say.'
Not something a girl would say.
Not something a physician would say.
Not something anyone with a shred of common sense would say in front of a queen.
Iris filed that away.
"What kind of physician are you?" asked Iris, in a tone that was trying to steer the conversation back toward something productive.
Shawn looked to the left.
Then to the right.
Then at Iris.
"Who are you talking to?" he asked, with genuine confusion.
Iris pointed at him.
"You."
Shawn laughed.
"I'm no physician," he said, shaking his head several times. "I'm a programmer."
"A what?"
"A programmer."
"What does that mean?" asked Iris, her tone beginning to lose patience.
Shawn looked her up and down, with the kind of look only someone very drunk would consider appropriate.
"It's a complicated profession," said Shawn, in a condescending tone that any sober person would have immediately regretted. "A girl as small as you isn't going to be able to understand it."
Iris tightened her jaw.
She smiled.
It was a wide smile.
Too wide.
"Do you not know who I am?" asked Iris, in a soft voice. "Or did the alcohol make you forget?"
Shawn stared at her.
"All I see is a small girl," said Shawn, squinting at her, "flat, with red hair, cosplaying the medieval era."
A pause.
"And look, your outfit is nice," he added, nodding with approval. "I'll give you that."
Another pause.
"But it would definitely look better on a real woman."
The silence that followed was very short.
Iris launched herself at Shawn.
The movement was quick. Direct. No warning.
Shawn fell back onto the bed with Iris on top of him, the queen's hands pressing his shoulders into the mattress and her face centimeters from his.
Iris's red eyes looked straight into his.
"What you told me about the poison," said Iris, in a low, controlled voice that didn't waver at all. "Was it a lie?"