Rowei would have strangled Acina's investigation in its cradle—if she'd had hands to do it.
But here, now, she had nothing. No name that mattered. No coin. Not even a single soul who'd lift a finger if she vanished tomorrow. She was less than a ghost; she was driftwood on a receding tide, stranded where the world could see her rot.
Who did Acina send? And what bones will they dig up from that ash-filled grave I used to call home?
The waiting gnawed at her. It was a new kind of terror—passive, patient, like standing beneath a blade you can't see but know is falling. She forced herself into Acina's mind: If I were hunting an impostor, where would I start?
Only one place made sense: the enrollment form. That flimsy sheet of parchment with its lies dressed as facts.
A bitter laugh almost escaped her. Thank the gods Sirea Academy wore "equality" like cheap perfume—strong enough to mask the stench of privilege, but thin enough to see through. They hadn't asked for titles or ancestral estates. Just a birthplace.
And the girl—the original, the dead one—had scrawled only: Northern coast of the Sea of Bei.
Foolish? No. Clever, in a desperate way.
The Sea of Bei stretched for leagues, a ragged scar of cliffs and drowned villages. Even if Acina's hounds sailed every inlet, they'd find nothing. The pirates hadn't just burned the hamlet—they'd salted the earth. Every soul gone. Every roof collapsed into charcoal. There were no witnesses. Only silence, and the wind howling through ribs of stone.
Good.
Let them search. Let them drown in futility.
But then—the knights.
The ones who pulled her half-dead from the surf. The ones who vouched for her with ink and gold.
They remember.
And memory was the one thing fire couldn't erase.
—
Class ended with Professor Phile's voice droning like a distant bell: "Blend a fragrance from today's spices. Submit it next lesson."
Rowei nearly laughed aloud. Fragrance? With cooking herbs?
In her old world, these were things you tossed into stewpots, not pressed to wrists. But around her, students nodded as if he'd spoken gospel. One girl already crushed sage between her fingers, inhaling like it was sacred incense.
She packed her herbs in silence, the dried leaves brittle as old bones.
In the corridor, voices buzzed like flies over carrion.
"Rose, what'll you make?"
"Black pepper, sage, a pinch of tobacco—snuff for my box."
Peppery snuff? Rowei's stomach turned. You'll sneeze your brains out.
"Too slow. I'm making incense."
"And you, Jack?"
"I'm boiling the lot into paste! Rub it on my skin daily!"
"Phile'll have you scrubbing cauldrons for a month."
"Or buried before winter," someone added dryly.
Their laughter faded. Rowei stopped.
A cold clarity struck her: Spices weren't for food. Not here. Not ever, not really.
Three thousand years ago, Egyptians smeared them on corpses to cheat decay. Frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon—these were funeral oils, god-scent, the breath of the dead. Europeans only started sprinkling them on meat centuries later, long after the rest of the world had turned sacred resin into seasoning.
No wonder they stared like I'd pissed on an altar.
To them, calling frankincense a "spice" wasn't ignorance—it was sacrilege.
She exhaled slowly. This world wears medieval Europe's face, but its soul is older, stranger. One wrong word, and they'll burn me as a heretic.
She turned to leave—
"Commoner! Don't you walk away from me!"
The voice was shrill, spoiled, familiar. Vena Wesleigh stood ten paces back, cheeks flushed, eyes glittering with the joy of cruelty.
Rowei didn't stop. She walked faster.
"Rowei!" Vena shrieked, boots clattering on stone. "I said halt! Are you deaf, or just insolent?"
Rowei turned. "Vena. What do you want?"
"Want?" Vena tossed her head, curls bouncing like gilded springs. "To watch you squirm. 'Eating spices'—as if you've ever tasted anything finer than turnip stew!"
Rowei said nothing. She'd learned long ago: silence infuriates fools more than insults.
"You think naming herbs makes you noble?" Vena stepped closer, voice dropping to a hiss. "I saw you the moment you stepped through those gates. You reek of fish markets and fear."
Her finger jabbed toward Rowei's underdress—coarse wool, slightly frayed at the cuff. "Only peasants wear rags like that."
Rowei studied her. Not with anger. With pity.
Then she spoke, low and clear, each word a shard of ice:
"You mistake noise for nobility, Vena. A true lady doesn't shriek in hallways. She doesn't point like a street vendor. And she certainly doesn't let jealousy twist her face into something so… grotesque."
She stepped forward. Vena flinched.
"Your speech is coarse. Your manners, borrowed. Your soul? Unclean—not because you're angry, but because you enjoy another's pain."
Rowei's voice dropped to a whisper only Vena could hear. "Go home. Retake your lessons. Or better yet—stay silent. At least then, you'll resemble a lady."
Vena's mouth opened, closed, opened again. Tears welled—less from shame than from the shock of being seen. With a choked sob, she whirled and fled.
Rowei felt no triumph. Only exhaustion.
In the original girl's memories, Vena had stood in the crowd during the parade, screaming that her fine dress was bought with whoredom, urging boys to throw dung. She'd laughed as chains bit into raw wrists.
Lying deserved punishment. But not that. Never that.
"She'll tell her father," a smooth voice murmured from the shadow of a pillar. "The Wesleighs don't forgive humiliation."
Acina stepped into the light. Golden hair, blue eyes sharp as shattered glass, posture flawless as a statue of justice.
Wesleigh. The name clicked. Baron Wesleigh of Borren. If his daughter was Acina's lapdog… what was Acina?
Rowei met her gaze. "If you use Vena so openly, aren't you afraid she'll betray you?"
Acina smiled faintly. "She lacks the wit. And even if she didn't—I wouldn't care."
"Then why assume I would?"
A pause. Then a laugh, light as frost. "Perhaps I gave you too much credit."
She tilted her head. "Tomorrow is Glyphcraft. I do hope the… unlettered… won't embarrass themselves too thoroughly. I hear some can't even multiply. How will they manage geometry?"
Glyphcraft needs geometry? Rowei's mind snagged. That's mathematics, not magic.
Her confusion lasted only a heartbeat—but it was enough. Acina's eyes narrowed, satisfied.
"Fortunately," she added, sweet as poisoned honey, "the library stocks arithmetic primers. For those who… fell behind."
She paused, letting the insult hang. "Wouldn't you agree, Rowei?"
"Perhaps," Rowei said mildly. Inside, her pulse quickened.
The original girl's memories were shards—useless without context. She needed histories, maps, treaties. She needed to understand who held power, and how they broke those who didn't.
And now, thanks to Acina's "kindness," she remembered the library.
Trap or not—it was a door. And Rowei had spent too long behind walls.
"I should go," she said, shifting her bundle of herbs. "I have work to do."
She walked past Acina without another word.
"Rude creature," Acina murmured, watching her go. Then she turned toward the sunlit lawn, where three noble boys lounged, reciting verses to impress no one.
"Gentlemen," she called, voice honeyed, "fancy a trip to the library?"
They grinned. "Ah, our princess plots again?"
Acina's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Don't call me that."
"As you wish. Who's earned your wrath this time?"
"That commoner who thinks wool makes her noble." Her voice turned glacial. "Her eyes offended me. Teach her respect."
"One of ours might be watching—"
"She's no noble," Acina cut in, certain as death. "I mentioned arithmetic books. She went straight for the library."
A cold smile curled her lips.
"Only peasants need to learn what we're born knowing."