Another half hour went by, and Elena, waiting outside the door in her impatience, kept pressing up against it to listen for movement inside.
And this time.
From inside the room came the sound of something falling to the floor and shattering.
There it is?!
Elena snapped to attention. That sound was very obviously a teacup smashing.
Ruling out the possibility of Lilith simply losing her grip on the cup, it had to mean the drug had taken hold!
Elena felt a flush of delight. All that waiting had not been for nothing!
"Ahem..."
She cleared her throat a few times and arranged her expression; otherwise it would look far too unprofessional.
Then she pressed the handle down slowly and pushed the door open.
But the scene inside the room was nothing like what Elena had pictured. Lilith was sitting perfectly fine in her chair.
She was bent over, reaching down to deal with the shattered teacup on the floor and the tea spilled all across it.
"Eh?"
Elena froze. Wasn't this the wrong possibility she had ruled out at the very start?
How could that be what actually happened!
Was this old hag really that clumsy? How was that possible!
Her brain had crashed outright. What on earth had she been so happy about!
Before long Lilith noticed Elena had come into the room, and looked at her with an embarrassed face.
"Oh, it's Elena. Perfect timing — come and help me clean this up. I broke the teacup by accident, and there was still half a cup of tea in it. Such a shame~"
At Lilith's words Elena gradually came back to herself.
Looking at the scene in front of her, she had no choice but to accept the facts, which left her rather beside herself with rage.
"Y-you can't even keep hold of a teacup, hey!"
"Oh dear, I'm old. My attention does wander now and then~"
Lilith said it with a laugh, as though this sort of thing happened all the time, and ordered Elena about while she was at it.
"Now then, when you've cleaned up, brew me another cup. I still have work to do."
"You... tch, I know!"
Elena was too furious to know what to say, and could only obediently gather up the shattered teacup and wipe the spilled tea clean.
"Good girl~ Remember the tea~"
"Hmph!"
Elena had no desire whatsoever to deal with this woman. She turned on her heel, left the room, and headed for the ground-floor kitchen.
In the kitchen, Elena took out the packet of tea that she was supposed to have poisoned.
The leaves were still somewhat damp — clearly they had been steeped in the drug — so why had Lilith drunk it and been fine?
She picked the leaves up and brought them to her nose. Apart from the fragrance of the tea itself, there was nothing strange about the smell.
The more Elena thought, the more lost she became, and in the end she decided to brew the cup first and think later.
Before long, drawing on the tea-brewing technique she had mastered under Lilith's intensive training, she produced a perfect cup.
She looked at the liquor in front of her, no different from usual, and picked it up.
The color was fine and the smell was fine — surely the drug could not simply have stopped working?
Thinking that, and as though something had possessed her, Elena took a small sip.
But that one sip was enough to tell her something was wrong. It went down smooth, with no off taste, full of the fragrance of black tea.
And in the aftertaste there was a faint cloying sweetness, not the reek of blood.
Finding that strange, Elena followed it with a large mouthful, and that was what convinced her...
This was black tea! This was not Blood Iris at all!
She snatched the packet up at once and examined it closely. There was nothing wrong with the wrapping — only the leaves inside had been changed.
A bad feeling came over her immediately. Had Lilith known all along?
But why would she swap in a packet of ordinary black tea?
Elena's confusion was answered soon enough, though the answer was not one she reasoned out — it was one she experienced firsthand.
Her body turned feverish all at once, her belly starting to burn as though a fire had been lit inside her.
The strength drained out of her too, her legs trembling beyond her control, her heartbeat gradually quickening.
"Wh-what's happening..."
Her voice went soft without her meaning it to, her lips parting slightly as she panted lightly.
Before long she had almost no strength left. Her legs gave out and she sank onto the kitchen floor, knees folded and legs splayed out to either side.
Her skin turned sensitive; even the hem of the maid outfit brushing lightly over her thigh sent a current running through her whole body.
"Hah... haah~ The tea... was drugged..."
Only then did she understand what had happened.
The drug had been swapped the moment she dug it up. The color had been different and she simply had not paid attention.
It was far too late for regrets now; the strangeness and the heat in her body had almost robbed her of the ability to think.
And at that moment, without her noticing, a familiar figure walked up in front of her.
"Oh dear~ What's all this~? Why is my little maid sitting on the floor? That won't do. The floor is cold, and you'll catch a chill~"
Lilith came up to Elena, crouched down, and reached out with her right hand to stroke her cheek.
"My~ You're burning. I never expected it to work quite that well~"
"It was... you! When exactly did you find out..."
Elena, with no strength left to resist, could only accept the outcome of her failure — but what she wanted to know more was when she had been found out.
"When, indeed~ Around the time you were skulking about burying the drug in the storeroom, I should think~"
"Hah~ Then that's... from the very beginning, isn't it..."
"Mm-hm~"
Lilith gave a light nod, and then scooped Elena up all at once, carrying her like a princess.
"Haah~"
The sudden stimulation drew a strange sound out of Elena before she could stop it, and her arms wound around Lilith's neck before she could stop them.
"What are you... going to do..."
Her voice shook. She knew perfectly well what was waiting for her, and still the question came out on its own.
"Go and punish a disobedient little maid, of course~"
Lilith said it with a smile, and carried Elena up the stairs to the second floor.
That sense of being marched to the execution ground was agonizing for Elena. She knew it was a punishment, but she had no idea what Lilith would do to her.
Simply imagining what was about to happen left her body so rigid she could not move.
Lilith's arms were steady, but with every step Elena's heart gave an answering jolt, and her breathing came faster and faster.
Lilith carried Elena back to her own bedroom and set her down on the bed.
Elena, already drained of strength, plainly had no way to run, and her swimming head would not let her think out any detailed escape plan either.
She could only watch helplessly as Lilith smiled down at her, the way a hunter looks at its prey.
In the end all she could do was give up. She had failed, so this was the ending she deserved.
"Cut the crap... if you're going to do it... then get on with it!"
In her feeblest voice, Elena delivered her most defiant line.
"Good girl~"
The words had barely left her when Lilith's fingers brushed lightly past Elena's ear.
"Ngh..."
Fallen completely into darkness, Elena could only wait quietly for her ending to arrive.