He leaned toward his neighbor, a quiet murmur barely audible above the shutter clicks of a nearby phone camera. "Too far," he said, his voice flat. "That was a mistake, a big one. The phones. Oh god, the phones were everywhere.
A dozen different angles were capturing the rivulets of champagne still dripping from the ends of Aerys's hair, catching in the emerald silk of her gown. Each frame was already destined for Instagram stories, for Twitter feeds, for gossip blogs before the night was even over. Some held their screens high and proud, their faces bathed in the ghoulish blue light, a light with the thrill of witnessing someone else's humiliation. Others tried to be more discreet, pretending to check their messages while their lenses burned the image into digital memory. And then the laughter rolled back, scattered at first, then gaining momentum like a dirty tide, the group of young hedge fund heirs, emboldened by Saraphina's cruelty, clapped one another on the shoulders.
One of them, his eyes bright with a particular kind of inherited malice, leaned over to his friend. "She should be grateful," he slurred, his words thick with entitlement. That bottle of Dom cost more than her entire tacky outfit. Their laughter was loud, braying, and harsh. A deliberate attempt to fill the void left by Aerys Thornee's refusal to scream, to cry, to react.
A woman in pearls, seated near Saraphina, smirked as she delicately adjusted her napkin in her lap. "Saraphina is right. She doesn't belong here. Look at her. She can't even defend herself.
Pathetic." Saraphina, hearing these murmurs of support, lifted her empty flute once more. A conductor leading her orchestra of derision. She executed a mocking little curtsy toward the still figure in green, basking in the wave of validation from her peers. "A toast," she announced, her voice ringing with false cheer.
"To the outsiders." More laughter, more applause, the clinking of glasses. Yet beneath the cacophony, a dangerous tension was beginning to stir. Not everyone was laughing. A pair of senior investment bankers seated behind their menus whispered with concern etched onto their faces.
"She's the head of Lyra Therapeutics, isn't she?" One muttered. "The one our firm is courting for the Vanguard Partnership." The other nodded grimly, his eyes darting nervously toward the woman drenched in champagne. The very same.
Their amusement had curdled into a cold dread. They knew what was at stake. The sheer scale of the capital involved, even if the drunken Aerys in red did not. Meanwhile, Dr. Aerys Thornee remained a statue of composure. She did not wipe the liquid pooling at her collarbone.
She did not rise to her own defense. Her silence became its own kind of performance, a perfect polished mirror in which every cruel voice, every ugly laugh was forced to see its own reflection. The louder the crowd jeered, the more her quiet dignity magnified their collective ugliness. One young guest, a recent Ivy League graduate, lowered his phone. He suddenly felt a hot flush of shame.