"This will be the only headline you'll ever make." Her laughter spilled out once more, but it sounded different now, thinner, more desperate, fighting against the heavy, oppressive silence that was pressing back from the woman she had tried and failed to destroy. And across the table, across the hall, people were beginning to see it. This cruel, pathetic show was no longer amusing. It was unraveling.
Saraphina Vanderbilt didn't know it yet, but the moment she poured that champagne, she had lit a very long fuse, and the woman she was mocking was the one holding the match. The laughter spread again, though it was thinner this time, as forced and unpleasant as champagne that had gone flat. A handful of guests, the ones whose fortunes were inextricably linked to the Vanderbilts, tapped their hands against the table, eager to keep the cruel mood alive, eager to prove they stood on the side of old money and established power. Their voices rose in a shallow, pathetic chorus of agreement. "That's right," one young man, whose grandfather had been the Vanderbilt's chauffeur, barked from the far end of the table.
His gaudy cufflinks caught the light as he raised his glass. Outsiders should learn their place. His words drew a ripple of uneasy, hesitant chuckles. Another, emboldened by the first, leaned back in his chair and spoke far louder than he should have. "If she wants to play with giants, she better learn how to take a joke."
His friends laughed too loudly, a desperate performance to prove they belonged to the same exclusive circle of cruelty. Saraphina soaked it all in. She turned to them, grinning, her arms spread wide as if she were embracing the room itself. "See," she declared, her voice dripping with a satisfaction that was rapidly becoming manic. "They understand."
She basked in the dwindling attention, twirling her glass like a royal scepter. This is what happens when you forget where you came from. But cracks were forming in her carefully constructed reality. Not everyone was laughing. At the adjacent table, a woman whispered sharply to her husband, "This is ugly, Robert.
Truly ugly." He just cleared his throat and glanced away, unwilling to meet her eyes. Unwilling to challenge the power in the room. In another corner, the two investment bankers exchanged another look. This one heavy with unspoken, frantic calculations.
She's the sole private partner on the Vanguard Philanthropic Fund, isn't she? One murmured, his voice barely audible. The other gave the faintest, almost imperceptible nod. Both men fell silent, staring down at their plates, unwilling to join the farce any longer. Yet the cruel chorus kept going.
Phones hovered higher, their lenses recording every humiliating detail. One guest deliberately angled his camera to frame Aerys's drenched figure, zooming in on the streaks of champagne running down her skin. He chuckled to himself, already mentally composing the vicious captions he would post online later. "Smile!" Someone shouted from across the hall, their voice anonymous in the crowd.