Mama managed to talk Winthrop down, delaying the dungeon dive until I was five. It was a reprieve of two more years. Hopefully, they could keep the dungeon contained until then.

  I followed Mama’s advice and tried to just be a kid, though within limits, of course. I couldn’t be as wild as I was during my earlier lifetimes as Joan in the village, that would reflect badly on Mama, but I did force myself to stop focusing on what was ahead, and instead slow down and enjoy my time as a child.

  As Joan, I had always started at around sixteen, a year before I was to set out and join the war. Some time to enjoy being a kid, but the life of a poor village teenager wasn’t the same as a noble’s daughter.

  In some ways, I’m lucky this time around.

  I still did my morning exercises, but it was more a relaxing run over the dawn-touched fields, my legs stepping over the eddies of steam rising from the pre-dawn dew. I did a few light reps, and then flopped onto the wild flowers, staring up at the sky as it shifted from orange to yellow to blue.

  Of course, I still practiced spells, since that was fun. I would cast [Dazzle] on the animals around me, and the squirrels or rabbits would pop their heads up over the grass to stare at me, their eyes bulging so wide that it made me laugh.

  I felt like some cartoon princess, maybe a rather sinister one.

  Though [Virtuous] or not, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything to the animals in that state, [Drain Touch] or otherwise. They were too cute, and it was too easy.

  [Seduce] wasn’t that hard to pick up from that book in the locked section of the House Library. The spiral structure of the spell’s flow of magic was quite similar to [Dazzle], so it came naturally to me.

  Only problem was finding a target.

  Unlike [Dazzle], [Seduce] required some level of intelligence from the target. Squirrels and rabbits didn’t seem to cut it, since they just scurried or hopped away. I did manage to cast the spell on a giant cat that pounced on me in the woods. Its claws were just a hair’s breadth away from slicing up my sun-dress when I spun away, and I cast [Seduce] on reflex.

  Unfortunately, while it was smart, it wasn’t smart enough to understand my commands, so I had to spend half the day shooing it away. I was sure neither Mama nor Beatrice would tolerate me bringing a cat bigger than me back as a pet. From time to time, though, a dead bird or small animal would appear on my balcony as an offering, earning me suspicious looks from Beatrice.

  On the way back, I waved at the farmhands working the fields, and they’d wave back.

  “Good morning to you, little lady!” the old farmer leaning against his hoe shouted.

  “Morning, good sir,” I answered warmly. He didn’t use the appropriate greeting, but that was fine. Keeping my routine a secret now felt like such a silly, pointless thing. My father couldn’t care less, and Mama already knew.

  I found a pond out in the woods behind the House, and couldn’t help hitching up my dress and splashed around in it, chasing after fish in the shallow end.

  Like old times.

  A couple of village boys caught me doing this, but they were more scared of me than anything else. They stuttered, seemingly unable to form a coherent sentence until I spied two wooden poles near their sacks on the shore.

  “Oh, were you two fishing?”

  “No, definitely not. We wouldn’t dare, My Lady!” the taller one protested.

  I laughed and splashed over to the poles.

  “Let me try! I used to be pretty good,” I lied. I never had the patience as Joan to catch fish, either with my hands or a fishing pole.

  But the two boys, Hans and Forn helped me bait the hook and eventually, we did catch a fish. We cooked it under a makeshift fire, and then I fell asleep under the bright summer sun as they told me about life in the village, their words warming my chest with nostalgia.

  A maid who was sunning laundry caught us, loudly chewing out the boys for fishing in the Duke’s pond. Before I could intervene, Beatrice had me by the arm, dragging me back to the House and giving me an earful the entire way.

  Definitely, not the way a lady should act.

  —

  Where I used to just explore through my [Shadow Fingers], I now had the free run of the House. I led the younger maids in games of tag and hide and seek, unfair as that may be. We scurried and wove from the garden to the foyer, to the large unoccupied rooms all through the house, the dignified chapel and the stuffy study. We’d filled every nook and cranny of the dusty, hollow spaces with our care-free laughter and giggles.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Ben and I would sneak into the dance hall at night for adventures under the tablecloth in the light of a stolen candle. It was easy for an impostor to pretend. I would be the damsel in distress, and he’d be the prince coming to the rescue. His toy soldiers were his knights, and the stuffed bear that looked too much like “Donny,” the evil villain. It was our story to make, however whimsical we wished to be.

  Of course, I avoided the west wing of the House where my father was. And whenever I spied Elise coming through my network of [Shadow Fingers], I would shush the maids and keep a lower profile or go the other way altogether. By now, we had established an unspoken truce where we simply kept out of each other's way. I don’t think we had uttered a single word to each other besides simple greetings since that first day.

  Seeing the way maids chit-chatted and worked around me made me a little envious, and so I borrowed an outfit from one of my playmates that was close to my size—I was still taller than Ben, but only slightly now. I used shadows to darken my hair and dulled the steel-iridescence of my pale skin, and kept my eyes downcast so that others wouldn’t recognize me. Then I joined in their chores.

  I helped with the dusting and sweeping and joined the girls in their sewing sessions where they mostly complained about their lazy husbands or children. They sometimes talked about who was "fine looking" and who were good matches. A few times, the older women would look directly at me and ask who I found good looking, followed by a burst of laughter when I just blinked back in confusion.

  Sometimes, I snuck in to help with the kitchen, trying to scratch the old itch of finally cooking something edible for once. I started with simple tasks—peeling potatoes, collecting herbs, cutting vegetables—and quietly observed the different stations. After getting familiar with the ingredients and the flow of the work, I began helping out wherever an extra hand was needed. The staff playfully called me the “little helper mouse.”

  Once, I made a pot of soup, all by myself from start to finish, and it tasted not bad! But before I could celebrate, one of the short-handed maids shouted at me to bring it out to the dining room.

  I pushed the cart out, and a giant chandelier was cascading light down over a long table. At the head of it sat my father with his signature head of dark blue hair. His wire-rimmed glasses were directed down at an unfurled scroll. Ben sat beside him, looking pensively down at the table. Opposite him was Elise with her flaming red hair and green eyes, sitting elegantly in wait.

  I ladled the soup into a bowl and served Father first. He didn’t even look up from his scroll as he picked up his spoon. My fingers slid the soup in front of Ben, who didn’t look up either before digging in. I was practically invisible, which was a bit of a relief.

  I actually like being in the kitchen.

  Elise, however, did a double-take when I pushed the bowl in front of her. Our eyes met, and hers were wide with shock.

  “Mmm… this vegetable soup,” Father’s voice spoke up from the head of the table. He raised another spoonful to his lips. “It is really good. The cream and herbs are exotic, and yet harmonious. My compliments to Chef Borin. Seconds please.”

  I blinked, feeling numb as I pushed the cart over to Father, completely forgetting about Elise. I ladled him another bowl, a twinge of tightness in my chest. Papa had never complimented my cooking, but once, after forcing down my lumpy soup, his weathered face had given me a tired smile lined by crooked teeth.

  I wish he was here instead.

  Elise’s eyes followed me for a while with a complex expression that I couldn’t quite read. But she didn’t sell me out.

  After she finished her own soup, she waited for everyone to finish before announcing serenely, “My lord husband… My son.” She dipped her head toward each of them in turn. “There is something I’d like to announce.” Her hand then settled down over her stomach and slowly rubbed it. “The healers had told me that I am with child.”

  Sometime later, after I had taken off my disguise and removed the shadows from my hair and face, Mama came up to me. Wordlessly, she reached down and hugged me. I wanted to tell her nothing was wrong, but instead I asked her to stay the night with me.

  Four wasn’t too old for that, was it?

  —

  The soft yellow light from the afternoon sun slanted over Mama and me as we sat in our respective seats, each with a book in hand and a cup of tea beside us. I soaked up the warm light and turned to her with a smile.

  “That’s perfect! Now just hold that for a moment while I capture it.” The mustached man moved his hands in a circular motion in front of his face. “Great! I think I have more than enough now.”

  I tilted my head at him. “Master Carav, what did you do there?”

  The man was a painter and yet, he had no easel, or canvas, or paint. Not even a notepad or anything to draw on. He was just in a nice, tidy velvet jacket and pants.

  That’s it.

  “My Lady, I use a spell to capture you and your mother’s lovely figures and record it into my memory stone.” He tapped at a small uncut quartz hanging off a chain around his neck.

  “Then you will use a spell to draw it?”

  Carav humphed. “No… no… then I would bring to life onto canvas what I see in that memory. Nothing comes between me and the paint.”

  I had gotten the idea to ask for a portrait of us when one of the maids mentioned how perfect we looked, reading beside one another in our afternoon tea sessions.

  Mama took it as meaning that I wanted a painting of us, which I didn’t at all refute.

  The result stunned me. The forceful brush strokes, the swirling texture of paint—it captured not just my unsettling aesthetics, but also the emotions in my eyes as I looked at Mama. It captured my soul. And Mama, staring at me out of the painting, held the same stern and yet comforting gaze, the lines on her face, the light in her eyes. I sensed her in there.

  I took a copy of the painting to my private room, and set it right beside the painting I had made of my mother here and the child that she should have had, that other me within.

  I didn’t obsess over it this time, but I did stare, letting the two images sink into me.

  On the other corner, were another set of paintings, Maman, Papa, my brothers and sister. In front was a painting of me as Joan. But I looked so out of place. Instead of the grit and the harsh wrinkles of everyday life, here was this doll with glossy blonde hair and delicate untouched features. As if she was from a completely different world. A blatant reminder that I was a game character and not them.

  What must they have truly thought of me?

  Then there was the pile of paintings with fewer details, colors smeared, outlines fuzzy. Paintings of my barely remembered original family, and in front, the black blob that was the original me.

  I closed the door and left the room.