The key stuck in the rusty lock, as stubborn as her life. Elara jiggled it, her shoulder pressing against the peeling paint of the door until it finally gave with a groan. The familiar, suffocating smell hit her immediately—stale beer and hopelessness.
He was on the couch, right where she'd left him. Her father, a ghost of the man he used to be, was slumped over, an empty bottle clutched in his hand like a lifeline. The sight was a physical pain in her chest, a dull ache that never truly went away.
She was seventeen, but her eyes were decades older. She navigated the cramped, cluttered space with the weary practice of a war veteran, dropping her bag filled with textbooks on the single clean chair. She had just finished an eight-hour shift stocking shelves at the market, and the acid burn of frustration was rising in her throat.
She had a physics test tomorrow she hadn't studied for. Her second part-time job, cleaning offices, started in an hour. The rent was due in three days, and the money in the tin can under her bed wasn't going to cover it.
"Dad," she said, her voice flat.
He stirred, muttering something incoherent. His head lolled back, revealing the tear tracks that had cut through the grime on his cheeks. He'd been crying again. Thinking about her. About Mom.
A part of her, the little girl who still missed her mother too, wanted to cry with him. But that part had been buried under a mountain of bills and responsibilities. The larger part, the part that kept her feet moving when they wanted to give out, was just… angry. A hot, sharp, and terrifying anger.
Why did you get to check out? she thought, the words a venomous whisper in her mind. Why did I have to stay and fight your battles?
She didn't say it. She never did. The words would hang in the air, another ghost to haunt their shabby apartment. Instead, she turned and walked to the room she'd shared with her mother's memory. She changed out of her work clothes, the coarse fabric a reminder of her place, and pulled on her only other pair of jeans and a cleanish t-shirt for her cleaning job.
As she tied her worn-out sneakers, she looked at the faded photo on her nightstand. Her mother, smiling, vibrant, alive. Her father, with his arm around them, his eyes clear and full of love. Elara, a gap-toothed six-year-old, squished between them.
The anger melted, replaced by a grief so profound it felt like a hole in the universe. It wasn't just sadness for her mother; it was mourning for the father she lost that day, too. It was mourning for the childhood that had been stolen, for the future that felt like a distant, unreachable star.
The walls of the apartment felt like they were closing in, the weight of it all crushing her. She couldn't breathe. She needed air. She needed to get out.
"I'm going for a walk," she announced to the silent, drunken form on the couch. There was no response.
She slammed the door behind her, the sound a weak echo of the rage inside her. The evening air was cool, but it did nothing to soothe the fire in her blood. She walked, her head down, her hands shoved deep in her pockets. The city around her was a blur of indifferent lights and noise.
This can't be it, she thought, her mind a frantic, desperate spiral. This can't be my whole life. School, work, a drunk dad, debt… until what? Until I'm old and broken like him?
Tears of self-pity and fury welled in her eyes, blurring her vision. She was so tired. So unbelievably tired of fighting. The traffic light ahead was a smudge of red. She didn't really see it. She was lost in a storm of her own pain, in the overwhelming unfairness of it all.
If there is a god, or anything out there, she pleaded silently to the uncaring sky, the words a final, desperate prayer from a soul on the brink. Please. Just… give me a second chance. A real one. I'll do anything. Just don't make this be the end.
The screech of tires was the universe's only answer. A blinding impact, a shattering of glass. The world upended. A searing, white-hot pain consumed her, then just as quickly, began to recede, replaced by a shocking numbness.
Her body was broken on the cold pavement, but her mind floated, detached. The sounds of screams and sirens grew faint, as if someone was turning down the volume on the world. The last thing she tasted was the coppery tang of her own blood.
So this is it, she thought, a strange calm settling over her. A wasted life. No one to mourn me. Nothing to show for it all. The regret was a final, heavy stone in her chest.
A second chance…
Darkness swallowed her.
---
The first sensation was softness.
A profound, enveloping softness that cradled her body. It was the first thing she had ever felt that didn't ache.
Then, the smell. Not the stale odor of cheap alcohol and dust, but a delicate fragrance of lavender and polished wood.
Confusion, thick and disorienting, swamped her. Was this an afterlife? A dream?
Her eyes fluttered open.
Intricately carved mahogany canopy. Silken drapes the color of deep wine. Morning light streamed through a tall, leaded glass window, painting dancing motes of gold in the air.
Where…?
This wasn't a hospital. This was… opulence beyond anything she had ever seen.
She pushed herself up, her movements sluggish. Her hands—her hands—gripped the sheets. But they weren't her hands. They were slender, pale, and perfectly manicured, the nails buffed to a soft sheen.
A wave of panic, cold and sharp, cut through the confusion. She looked down at herself. The body beneath the silk nightgown was willowy and unfamiliar.
"My Lady! You're awake!"
A young maid, no older than Elara had been, scurried into the room, her eyes wide with a mixture of relief and fear. "You slept so late, we were getting worried. The Crown Prince's event is this afternoon."
Elara—this wasn't her name, was it?—could only stare. The words meant nothing. Crown Prince?
The maid, misinterpreting her silence as displeasure, hurried on. "Your bath is drawn, My Lady. And your emerald gown has been pressed. The Prince… he specifically requested your attendance. He, um…" The maid faltered, wringing her hands. "He emphasized that you be on your best behavior. Especially with… with that commoner girl, Clara, attending."
Clara.
The name was a key turning in a lock deep within her mind. It triggered an avalanche—not of memories, but of knowledge. The plot of a novel. A story about a kind commoner heroine and a cruel, villainous noblewoman who tormented her…
…a villainess named Lady Seraphine de Volaire.
A face appeared in her mind: stunning, with hair like spun silver and eyes of cold amethyst. Her face.
The horrifying, miraculous truth crystallized. Her prayer had been heard. She had died on that cold street, and she had been reborn. Not just anywhere, but as the villain in the very novel she'd used to escape her miserable life.
She had her second chance.
And it was a death sentence waiting to happen.
A hysterical scream built in her throat. She clamped a hand—this new, elegant, alien hand—over her mouth, stifling it into a muffled whimper. The maid flinched.
Get a grip, she commanded herself, the thought echoing with the hardened resilience of the girl who had fought for every crumb. You survived a shitty life and a bloody death. You can survive this.
She lowered her hand, forcing her new face into a mask of calm. The instincts of a thousand part-time jobs, of smiling at rude customers just to make rent, kicked in.
"My mirror," she commanded, her voice a stranger's—cool and melodic, laced with a haughtiness that didn't belong to her.
The maid rushed to fetch a hand mirror of polished silver. With a trembling hand, Seraphine raised it.
The face that stared back was devastatingly beautiful and utterly alien. High cheekbones, flawless skin, and those piercing amethyst eyes, now wide with a terror and a hard-won strength their original owner would never have understood.
This was her prison. This was her salvation. Her gilded new life, built upon the scars of the old.
The Garden Party. It was the starting point of the domino fall.
She had a few hours to learn how to walk, talk, and act like a noblewoman she despised, and to avert a disaster that was already written.
Her second chance began now.