I know she's not the brightest, who doesn't check what drug they were given before using it on someone else ? But does she seriously believe that implying that the poison was meant for whom she believes is the prince's lover, in front of him no less, is going to improve her case ? Is she that classist that she thinks admitting that she was planning on drugging a lesser noble will make accidentally poisoning another of a higher status better?









I don't think the story, or a lot of the readers, really acknowledge the horror of what was done to the target men. Because I was ready to hate on them for being cheaters (and in one case a p*dophile) or easily influenced to cheat with a little magical push, but that is not what happened. Four months in withdrawal and the three who didn't benefitted from any intervention to their drugging (despite their families being fucking warned might I add) have to be kept isolated and routinely sedated because they will get out of control aggressive. All because someone wanted to make them easily controllable.
Their minds are in ashes, their bodies wrecked (Henry couldn't even write straight at first), their social lives annihilated, their careers destroyed (Rufus has lost his place in the succession and I doubt teach is ever getting hired as a professor again considering the romantic aspect with a student), all but one of them have been dumped by their fiancee and the remaining one resents the fuck out of him. Should they ever recover, how will they ever trust again ? I wouldn't be surprised if at least one them developed an eating disorder. Their families were warned out didn't do shit, how do they ever feel safe with them again ? 3 of them are still teenagers, and from the little we got to see of them before the drugs, good people who loved their fiancees. Yet the story simultaneously calls them victims while blaming them.