The spoon was less than an inch from the little boy's lips when I realized the dessert was p0isoned.

I was only a waitress at that banquet, but I knew I had seconds to stop him, so I rushed forward and struck the woman's hand before the cake could reach his mouth.

The spoon flew, the boy cried out, and the elegant woman in the white gown stared at me as if I had just att@cked her son.

Then she sl@pped me so hard my head turned, and the entire ballroom watched me stand there with my hand pressed against my burning cheek.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, her face twisted with rage.

I tried to explain that I had seen something wrong with the dessert, but nobody wanted to listen to a waitress who had just interrupted one of the most important moments of the evening.

The woman pulled her son closer while guests whispered behind their hands, already deciding what kind of person I must be.

For one terrible moment, I wondered if I had made a mistake.

Then the broken plate caught my eye.

The piece of vanilla cake had landed on the marble floor, surrounded by shattered porcelain.

Beneath the soft white frosting was a thick, glossy green liquid that looked completely wrong beneath the golden ballroom lights.

A gasp moved through the crowd, followed by another, and suddenly everyone understood why I had stopped the spoon.

The woman in white went pale.

I expected her to apologize, but before she could say anything, I noticed someone else.

A woman in green had appeared near the grand entrance, and the moment her eyes fell on the p0isoned cake, her expression changed completely.

She wasn't confused like the other guests, and she wasn't asking what had happened.

She looked terrified because she already knew what she was seeing.

I pointed toward her.

"Look!"

The woman in green turned and ran.

I forgot about my aching cheek and chased her into the corridor.

She moved like someone who had been expecting this moment, and when I finally caught up with her, she looked straight into my eyes and whispered something that made my bl00d run cold.

"You should never have touched that spoon."

Why would she know about the spoon?

And why did she seem more frightened of me than of the p0ison?

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