The water is fitful in the chaos, and reflections are scattered fragments of light. What Clarisse sees of herself is merely shadow, and the glance of light off the dagger in her hand, which she turns again as she remembers herself saying,

"Just go," you say, low and soft and urging, none of a whisper's carrying sharpness. The woman stares at you, wide-eyed. Her lace-edged cap is a little too small and her apron too, the cuff of her dress where she's extended an arm toward the bell pull. It makes her look even younger than she is, like a child after a growth spurt. She must be new, a wrong turn into the study instead of the parlor where the coal bucket at her feet would be needed. She's staring fixed at the knife in your hand, as a drop of her new-and-already-former master's blood drips off the tip to the floor. At least she smothers her sound of horror with the hand pressed over her mouth.

"You didn't see anything," you say again, willing her to listen as you step carefully around the corpse, blocking her view of it and closing the distance between you to a single stride. You lift your empty hand, palm out, try to draw her eyes off the knife. "This is nothing to do with you." Please just go, please please go is a wishful litany in the back of your mind, looping beneath the quicker, colder calculation of what to do if she doesn't: you can see the bell pull's one of those heavy brocaded things, twined with metallic thread, too thick for a thrown blade to sever. It wouldn't take much to put her unconscious, but she's seen your face, someone could recognize your description from the party. Only two outcomes here, then. Every second you spend hovering between them increases the chance of discovery.

"Go back to your room," you try again, "No one need know you were here. I won't—" Her grip has barely closed when it falls open again, dropping from the cord as your fist meets her chest, blade punched between ribs. It pushes the breath from her in a sigh that covers your own. Her eyes go even wider as her blood wells up around the hilt. You pull the blade free and ease her to the floor. Light lead you safely, is a silent prayer as you shut her eyes. You stand over her for a moment, regret like a physical weight on your shoulders, the back of your neck, behind your eyes. Then you set it aside, wipe your blade on your own pants, and move quickly and silently toward the window.

The feeling of the knife rasping against the side of her thigh pulls back to the weight of the ceremonial dagger now in her hand, and the smell of thick water, the shouting voices, yanks her back to the present.