I died on a Tuesday.
The thought crystallizes in my mind before I even open my eyes, sharp and certain as the memory of poison burning down my throat. Tuesday evening, specifically. The seventh hour after noon, in the grand ballroom of the Vere estate, wearing a wedding dress that cost more than most nobles spent in a year. I remember the way the pearls felt too tight around my neck. The way Cassian's gray eyes had slid past me, bored, as I collapsed.
The way no one caught me.
But this—this softness beneath my cheek, this warmth of morning sun slanting across my face, the faint scent of roses drifting through an open window—this isn't death.
My eyes snap open.
Cream silk canopy. Gold embroidered edges I'd traced with my fingers a thousand times as a girl, counting the tiny threaded flowers when I couldn't sleep. The canvas painting on the opposite wall—my mother's portrait, the one where she's laughing in her garden, so different from the stern official paintings in the gallery.
No.
I sit up so violently the blankets tangle around my legs. My hands—I stare at my hands. Smooth. Unmarred. The calluses I'd developed from three years of embroidery to please Cassian's mother, gone. The tiny scar on my thumb from a broken teacup during our engagement party, vanished.
My heart hammers against my ribs as I lunge from the bed, nearly tripping over the ridiculous lace hem of a nightgown I haven't worn in years. The floor is cold against my bare feet. Real. Solid. I'm across the room in seconds, gripping the edge of my vanity so hard my knuckles go white.
The mirror shows me a stranger wearing my face.
Not the woman who died. Not the hollow-eyed creature who'd spent three years smiling through loneliness, growing thinner and paler as she poured herself into the shape of someone Cassian Vere might love. This girl is younger. Softer. Her amber eyes are bright with sleep rather than resignation, her black hair loose and tangled instead of pinned into the severe style his mother preferred.
Twenty years old. I look twenty years old.
"No," I whisper. Then louder: "No, no, no—"
Three sharp knocks at the door make me flinch.
"My lady?" Mina's voice, muffled through the heavy oak. "Are you well? I heard—"
"Don't come in!" The words tear from my throat harsher than I intend. I clear it, try again. "I'm fine, Mina. I just... I need a moment."
Silence. Then, uncertain: "Shall I fetch your father? Or prepare your morning tea?"
My father. God, my father. In my last memories—my other memories? my real memories?—he'd been grayer. Thinner. Worn down by the weight of watching his only daughter marry a man who treated her like an unwanted obligation. I'd seen him at the wedding breakfast, forcing smiles that didn't reach his eyes.
"Tea," I manage. "Yes. Thank you."
Her footsteps recede down the hall. I'm alone with my reflection and the impossible truth settling into my bones like winter frost.
I'm alive. I'm twenty. I'm in my childhood bedroom in the Kael estate, three years before I'm supposed to die.
My legs give out. I sink onto the cushioned bench before my vanity, pressing shaking hands to my face. The scent of roses is stronger now—I glance toward the window and see them, my mother's garden in full bloom. Early summer. The season when everything grows wild and beautiful before the heat sets in.
Early summer of my twentieth year. I know this moment. I *remember* this moment.
This is two weeks before the Imperial Summer Gala. One month before my engagement to Cassian Vere is officially announced. Three months before the contract is signed and I become shackled to a man who will never love me, never see me, never—
"Stop." I say it aloud, firm. My voice doesn't shake this time. "Stop."
I lived it once. I don't have to live it again.
The realization sweeps through me like a clean wind, scattering the panic. I know how this story ends. I've already read the last page, tasted the poison, felt my lungs stop working while nobles whispered and my betrothed stood frozen in apparent shock. Apparent. Because I'd learned, too late, that Cassian knew. Maybe not the specific poison, maybe not the exact method, but he'd known someone wanted me dead and he'd done nothing.
Political complications, Daniel had murmured at my deathbed, his face genuinely grieved. The Duke couldn't act without proof.
Couldn't. Wouldn't. What did it matter when I was already gone?
I draw a long breath, then another. My reflection watches me with those too-young eyes.
I don't have to marry him. That's the simple truth beneath all the complicated politics and family expectations. I don't have to accept the engagement. Don't have to spend three years making myself smaller and quieter and more palatable, hoping that if I just try hard enough, he'll look at me the way I'd once dreamed.
The way I'd loved him, desperately and pathetically, right up until the poison hit my system.
My hands curl into fists on my lap, nails biting crescents into my palms.
"Never again," I whisper to the girl in the mirror. She looks fragile. Breakable. But there's something else beneath the softness now, something the first version of me never had.
Knowledge. Memory. The absolute conviction of someone who has already lost everything.
I have nothing left to lose by choosing differently.
The door opens—I should have expected Mina to ignore my request for privacy. She's been my maid since I was twelve, more mother-hen than servant. She bustles in with a tea tray, her round face creased with worry.
"My lady, you're pale as death! Are you feverish? Shall I send for the physician?" She sets the tray down and reaches for my forehead.
I catch her hand. She freezes, eyes widening. I never used to do that—touch her so deliberately, meet her eyes so directly. The old Adeline was always proper. Always careful.
"I'm well, Mina. I just had a terrible dream." The lie comes easily. "About Mother."
Her expression softens immediately. "Oh, my dear. The anniversary is approaching, isn't it? No wonder she's on your mind." She squeezes my hand gently. "Your mother would be so proud of you, you know. With the Imperial Gala coming and all the preparations for—" She catches herself, suddenly flustered. "Well. I shouldn't speak of things not yet official."
The engagement. Of course. It's still a secret, at this point. Known only to my father, Cassian's family, and a few key political players. The official announcement won't come until after the Gala, where Cassian and I are meant to dance and let society draw their own conclusions.
We'd danced. I remember. He'd held me correctly, distantly, and answered my nervous attempts at conversation with polite monosyllables. I'd thought him shy. Reserved. I'd romanticized his coldness into depth.
What a fool I'd been.
"Mina," I say slowly. "What if I don't want to go to the Gala?"
She laughs, clearly thinking I'm joking. "Not want to? My lady, you've been talking about nothing else for weeks! Your dress is already being fitted, and you've practiced your dancing until—" She stops, really looking at me. "You're serious."
"What if I said I wanted to cancel my appointments today? All of them." I can see them in my mind, the endless parade of dress fittings and etiquette lessons and tea with vapid noble ladies. All of it designed to polish me into the perfect duchess. "What if I wanted to do something different?"
"Different how?"
Good question. I glance toward the window, toward the roses. In my first life, I'd stopped visiting Mother's garden after the engagement. Cassian's mother had mentioned, delicately, that I smelled too strongly of flowers. That it wasn't sophisticated. I'd scrubbed my skin raw and put away all my rose perfumes and never walked those paths again.
The memory makes something hot and acidic rise in my throat.
"I want to spend the day in the garden," I say. "And I want to write a letter."
"A letter, my lady?"
"To my father." I meet her confused gaze steadily. "About my future."
I can see her trying to puzzle this out, to reconcile it with the Adeline she knows—the dutiful, eager girl who's been floating on air about her upcoming engagement to one of the most powerful men in the Empire. That Adeline wouldn't question anything. Wouldn't want anything except what she was told to want.
That Adeline is dead. She died choking on her own blood while her husband-to-be watched.
This Adeline knows better.
"Of course, my lady," Mina finally says, though uncertainty threads her voice. "Shall I bring your writing desk to the garden?"
"Please." I stand, moving to my wardrobe. My fingers trail over silks and satins in pale, demure colors. Suddenly I hate all of it—every pastel shade chosen to make me look innocent and biddable. "And Mina? Find me something to wear in dark green. Or blue. Something with color."
"But my lady, your father always says the light shades suit your complexion—"
"Dark green," I repeat, harder this time. "Please."
She hesitates only a moment before curtsying. "As you wish."
As I wish. What a novel concept.
While she rummages through the wardrobe, I return to the window. The roses are mostly red and white—my mother's favorites. She'd spent hours in that garden, teaching me the names of each variety, showing me how to prune and tend them. After she died, I'd kept them alive. It was the one thing I did for myself, the one place that was mine.
Until I gave it up. Like I gave up everything.
The garden is still there. Still mine. And this time, I'm going to keep it.
"My lady?" Mina holds up a dress in deep emerald silk. It's from two seasons ago, slightly out of fashion, with simpler lines than the current styles. I'd worn it once and Father had gently suggested it was too bold.
"Perfect," I say.
As she helps me dress, I catalog everything I remember about this day—this specific day that I'm apparently reliving. In the original timeline, I'd spent it at the modiste's, being fitted for my Gala gown. Then tea with Isabel Park, who'd cooed over my engagement prospects and asked probing questions I'd been too naive to recognize as intelligence gathering.
Isabel. My stomach tightens. Sweet, beautiful Isabel who'd smiled to my face and poisoned the wine herself.
I know that now. Learned it too late, in the final moments when the world was going dark and I'd seen her face in the crowd. The flash of satisfaction before she'd arranged her features into horror.
She wanted Cassian. Had always wanted him. And when he'd shown no interest in her, she'd settled for eliminating his unwanted bride and positioning herself as a shoulder to grieve on.
I wonder if it worked, in the timeline that continued after I died. If Cassian eventually turned to her. If he married her and made her Duchess and never thought twice about the girl who'd loved him so desperately.
The thought should hurt. Strangely, it doesn't. There's a numbness where that love used to be, like frost-killed flesh. Dead tissue that hasn't yet been cut away.
"There," Mina says, fastening the last button. "Though I still think the lavender would have been more appropriate for—"
"It's perfect," I interrupt gently. "Thank you, Mina."
She studies me in the mirror, her brow furrowed. "You're different today, my lady."
"Am I?"
"Sadder. But somehow... stronger?"
I meet her eyes in the reflection. Mina has always seen more than she should. It's why I trust her, even now.
"Maybe I just woke up," I say softly.
She doesn't understand—how could she?—but she nods anyway. "Shall I bring breakfast to the garden as well?"
"Please. And Mina? I'll need my writing materials. The good paper. What I have to say is important."
When she leaves, I turn back to my reflection one last time. The girl in emerald looks different from the ghost in pastels. Looks like someone who might refuse an unwanted engagement. Who might choose her own path.
Who might survive.
I touch my throat where the pearls had been too tight. Where poison had burned. The skin is smooth, unblemished, alive.
"I died on a Tuesday," I whisper to my reflection. "I'm not going to do it twice."
The roses outside sway in the morning breeze, and for the first time in two lifetimes, I feel something unfurl in my chest that might be hope.
Or might just be fury.
Either way, it's enough to start with.