"Drink the wine, it won't make you feel better but enough will make you care less," she encouraged. His carmine eye didn't look less hungover despite originating as a Relic, it was as bloodshot as his natural hazel orb , and yet Damien drank the wine as directed. And only because she wouldn't see him for the rest of the week, Emberlee chased the wine off his lips with a kiss. "You better be in shape to marry me; if you fail me I'll call Aerig in as backup to end rule one," she threatened only half heartedly. 
"Is that supposed to encourage me to be good or bad?" Aerig demanded and Damien shot him a rude hand gesture even as he kissed Emberlee in acknowledgement. 
"Focus on coordinating Titania's punishment from Méabh," Damien growled. "You did promise it as a wedding present," he reminded, more ambulatory despite the hangover making him green. 
Now Aerig lost his easy humour; he'd received confirmation that Titania had been behind the Stetor Assassins. Emberlee didn't know the details due to her feminine isolation the day before, but if Damien was mentioning it now, that meant they'd already confirmed and requested Méabh's involvement. "We're all getting what we wanted," Aerig sounded a little regretful. "Titania used some of the world's best killers, so she wanted you dead. But she did nothing to hide that she was the one behind it." He drank the wine originally intended for her, "Titania is older than me, more clever than me, a better political player than me, and far more dangerous." 
"But no where near as pretty," Damien's compliment elicited a weak smile from their friend. 
"For her to not bother hiding her actors tells me she accepted her fate regardless of the outcome," Aerig was struggling with his once fellow spouse's actions; even if she wasn't dead yet, it'd be inevitable. 
"She wanted Méabh's entire focus on her for once," Emberlee wasn't even mad at the Adaban spell caster. "Be it her love or her rage; Titania wanted it all to herself and this was the only way to do that."
"It's almost elegant," Damien seemed less battered as he drank the wine Aerig brought, "if I ignore that she almost killed you I can appreciate the effectiveness of her plan. If the assassin had succeeded, we'd all have thought it was Clara unless Aerig spoke up otherwise." 
"With Emberlee dead, if I'd found Titania was the culprit I could have kept silent and been brought back as Oberon the Pretty again,"  Aerig confirmed. "With me back and Emberlee gone, Titania would be fully set as Méabh's only female interest. Right now she has to worry that Méabh may select a new Titania to replace me instead of another Oberon." 
"So really my surviving has gained her the most favourable outcome for her," Emberlee wasn't trying to be callous despite her words. "She's going to die, but until that moment she's the most important person to Méabh.'' she tilted her head to the side, "Oberon the Monolith will gain the most out of this though. After the guillotine falls, he'll have Méabh and her grief all to himself."
"Now you're thinking like an Adaban," Aerig complimented. 
"I'm marrying a sociopath and will be making her the Empress one day," Damien teased, "gods help us all." 
"I have the current Empress to kill first, and to do that I need to get ready," she implied the dismissal, knowing Lady Nimue would be knocking soon to start getting her ready. 
"She already has imperious behaviours down," Damien remarked to Aerig, going to the door connecting her room to his, "I look forwards to seeing you on our wedding day, my malevolent Fairy." 
"Don't keep me waiting, dragon, five days is long enough," she bade farewell back. 
While Méabh would dispatch Titania for her and call off the Stetor assassins, she was still at risk until then. Today she was going to provoke Clara into an attack and in the aftermath she'd be the most vulnerable to a second assailant; especially since she still couldn't summon Need as a sword, it and she were both still recovering. Thankfully, when Lady Nimue arrived to help Emberlee prepare for the pageantry of her bachelorette party her handmaid smartly brought her a practical dirk to hide in her gown. She would be as ready physically as she could be, the plot long laid by now.