Sia had only wanted to ruin the chance of Laureline being chosen by the queen. She had only come down because in this second life she didn’t intend to let chances pass her by or do as her family desired. She remembered how it had gone the first time. The days after the royal visit had been ones of celebration in the manor. The queen had been charmed by Laureline, and Lord Kaldor was satisfied. The royal family had given him the rank of a Viscount and Laureline had become friends with Evana, the princess.

She had only wanted to destroy their happiness, and instead had stolen it for herself. The queen had looked at her too closely and Sia had talked without thinking, about plants and rock gardens and politics and everything under the sun. In her previous life she had used the Kaldor library extensively, trying to make her father proud with her studiousness. The world was out of reach for her directly, and so she’d tried to taste it through the pages of books, through novels and travel books written by explorers.

If all that she was experiencing was a dream, it had taken a strange turn. While she was talking to the queen, she had been herself and not thought of the consequences. Dreams were bound to end and for a few hours at least, she thought she could do all of the things she had been scared to in the past. She thought she could wreak havoc without consequence.

But the hours passed, and she was not descending into death. The manor rested in an angry silence. A maid had taken Sia to her room and left her there. She knew Fenix and Laureline would not have been sent to their rooms. After she heard the turning of the key from the outside, Sia settled into a chair by the window. The dream was not ending, which meant it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t the afterlife. It was her own life, ten years before. The only thing that made sense was that she had been given a second chance.

She laughed, because the chance had saved her. Without even fully knowing it, she had changed her life in one day. Her mother and father were furious. She could imagine her mother, furious and powerless. The queen had chosen Sia to join her in the capital, to be a lady in waiting to the princess. She didn’t know what her father would think. Perhaps he would be happy that his least valuable child had yielded some benefit.

From what she remembered of her childhood, Baronet Kaldor was a distant figure who never took interest in the details of raising his children. He provided Hedith with money, and was pleased with the outcomes excluding Ardisia. The door to her room clicked open, and a maid walked in.

“You’ve been called to the lord’s office, miss,” the maid said.

Sia made her way to the room. It was a large room adjacent to the Kaldor library, and the rest of her family were already in the room. Her mother looked furious. Fenix was busy reading a book, and her father was as usual inscrutable.

“Good evening, father,” Ardisia said.

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The last time she had spoken to her father was in her previous life. In that life, his expression had not be so neutral. He had hated her then, and she had felt like the mud on his boots. Something to be washed clean of as soon as possible.

“Ardisia, you disobeyed your mother today,” Baronet Kaldor said.

“I don’t understand, father,” Sia said.

“You were instructed to stay in your room,” her father said.

“I was in my room, like I was told. I woke up because I heard voices in the garden, and looked out the window. A maid brought me downstairs. She told me mother called for me.”

Sia pretended to be confused. She could play the part of the little girl who hadn’t known better. After all, her mother hadn’t told her to stay out of sight. In her past life, she had slept through the entire day with a fever. Wright looked at Hedith. It was only to be expected that she had done her job only half-way. His wife was beautiful, but she was lacking in many ways. She hadn’t even instructed the child properly.

In a way, it had been for the better. The queen had taken to Ardisia in a way he had not expected, and he could see Laurel had not been able to draw the same amount of interest. As it was, he had been concerned about what to do with his younger daughter. Even if Laureline was not chosen as the crown princess, she would face no shortage of suitors when she came of age. But Ardisia was not as beautiful, and she was strange. She was sickly on top of her strangeness, and he did not want to buy the heavy dowry that young men would demand to marry her. He could not have her marry beneath their rank and bring a bad name to the family.

If she grew up in the capital, favored by the queen, she could make up for her deficiencies with whatever meager amount of power or connections she made in the castle. Their family physician was forever telling him that the girl’s constitution was weak and that it was unlikely she would live long. But he doubted that claim now. She looked perfectly healthy. Even if she died in the castle, they could feign ignorance and the royal family would favor them out of guilt for taking their youngest child away from them.

Hedith saw him thinking and cleared her throat. “You cannot be thinking of sending her.”

“I cannot disobey a royal command,” Wright said. He could, but Hedith did not know better. “It would be better for us to stay in her majesty’s good graces. Is there any reason why Ardisia should not go?”

“It should have been Laurel,” Hedith said. The girl had entered the perfect situation and usurped Laurel’s opportunity for herself. If it had only been Laureline and the queen together, the queen would have seen her daughter’s charm and chosen her instead of Ardisia.

“If it was meant to be Laurel, the queen would have chosen her,” Wright retorted. “It wasn’t meant to be. Besides, Ardisia can pave the way for Laurel to enter the castle. I’m sure she will speak favorably of her family when she is with the queen, especially of her sister. Will you not?”

The queen might favor Ardisia at the moment, but that might change in months or years. The queen did not have the final say in who the crown princess would be, the prince would. Young men did not want conversation or introspective girls. They wanted beauty, and Laureline would be beautiful. In a way it was better. He would see a girl by his sister’s side as an extension of his sister, as perhaps a childhood friend.

“Yes, father,” Ardisia lied. “I will make sure the royal family knows how wonderful our family is.”