Zarek's lips curled into a wild grin, the kind that stretched too wide and showed too many teeth.
"Well, well, Dame Rose of Drakemore," he drawled, his voice dripping with mockery. The man before her was a shadow of the polished official she had encountered in the palace, the one who usually wore the dignified attire befitting his station regardless of how dishevelled his hair or his face was. Now, he stood before her ragged and untidy through and through, his clothes were mismatched and stained with dust, his hair was even more unkempt than usual, and his eyes gleamed with a madness she hadn't seen before.
