As the room fell silent, Rowena decided to make her way to her next destination, not minding the puzzled and shocked expressions she had left in her wake. Why had it come as such a shock to them that a 17-year-old noble girl, who was supposed to have made her debut by now, would want to be educated?

'Lady Annex is going to learn etiquette? Our lady?' She hadn't been there herself, but Liza, the bobcut maid, had known an older lady among the servants in the Grand Duke's household very well. In fact, she had only gotten this job because of her.

This particular servant, Nona, still worked as a seamstress at the main mansion. She had once told Liza how the young lady of the Duke's family had suddenly changed one day. She had told her it was because of his marriage to her stepmother, the Grand Duchess Beatrice – and probably because of the addition of her daughter, Arabella.

She had been so enraged by their admission to her home that she had stopped showing her wits, refused to learn anything further, and shut herself in her room all the time.

'Her request for a room to be alone in makes sense, but training to become healthier? And learning etiquette on top of that?'

Norina might have been fooled, but Liza didn't believe it, for she saw the rumors as more than that.

She had met the lady for the first time almost a year ago, and within that year she had been a sorry excuse for a living being, let alone a noble lady. There was nothing resembling dignity about her, and now she claimed to be willing to learn?

'She clearly must have heard the rumors about her engagement talks with the tyrant of the Lodden Empire instead of our Crown Prince,' Liza thought in annoyance.

It wasn't as if she didn't feel pity at all. But it was her mistress's own fault for attacking the new Saintess inside the temple – and in front of the pope, no less!

Sighing, she resumed cleaning the dining area, as she could already see the stars in her fellow maid's eyes. She would also soon realize that she was betting on a dead horse if she thought she could make a difference here.

Nevertheless, it wasn't Liza's place to educate her, so she should just do her job and get the lady what she wanted, because that was what the Grand Duke had ordered them to do.

The lady in question had already started following the blonde servant's directions to the room in the basement. As long as she hadn't actually started the etiquette lessons, she would first take a look at the room she had set her sights on.

To get there, she had to go down a long, winding staircase that led to a lower level, resembling a dungeon. The door to get in had been locked, but the key had been easily obtained from the head maid.

The first noticeable thing was that it was surprisingly clean, although a little dust had collected on all the surfaces she could see.

She turned on the electric light, surprised at how well it actually worked.

'I mean, I already knew they had electricity in the book. They were not very modern in some aspects, but surprisingly advanced in others, alright.'

There had been power plants of some sort, but they were quite small, more of a case of naturally generated energy, and only accessible in the capital or in Territories with enough money. Mana Stones served as a substitute, but again, most less affluent regions didn't have them.

They were mostly powered by fire and other natural resources. 'As one would imagine of a world set in the Victorian Era of some sorts.'

When she had reached the room, she had come to the conclusion that this place was probably cleaned sporadically. Which obviously meant that she shouldn't produce anything that would compromise her position or identity and leave it there for someone to find.

It was a good thing to know for the future, as preparation was the best she could do at the moment. She would start by checking the condition of her body.

The maids had told her that this area wasn't used, since the annex didn't have its own brigade of knights. There weren't many guards either, as Rowena didn't like to have them, so there were just enough to secure the building in case of basic threats.

As she searched the underground level, she took a look at some of the rooms, all of which were empty. She was already wondering why she hadn't been given another key besides the one she'd used for the first door she'd entered.

When she reached the second-to-last one, with the last being the training hall at the end of the corridor, she just took a quick look around. Nearly closing the door by reflex, she was startled by a tall figure clad in a white.

But as she tried to raise her skinny fists to look intimidating and ready for a fight, she realized that she had not seen a person, but something else instead. Something covered in a white sheet and much thinner, yet at the same time broader than a person.

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Intrigued, she turned on the lights in the room itself, revealing something large, all alone in this almost empty brick-and-mortar space. There seemed to be several randomly stacked pieces of furniture, but none of them were covered.

'Wouldn't they normally cover stuff up to keep it from getting dusty?' Following that thought, it seemed like everything in there was pretty much never going to be used again, except for that one thing. 'Whatever is it, it's either important enough to be preserved or someone didn't like looking at it very much.'

Of course, Rowena was far too curious not to look at it. When she was still Celia Smith, she had one too many times found her nose in things it wasn't supposed to be. Not that she was proud of it.

But when she finally revealed the hidden object, she was immediately taken aback. A large portrait of a beautiful woman, with silvery-white eyes, pale skin and wavy lavender hair flowing over her petite shoulders, looked at her with a gentle expression.

Her not-so-good memory was still able to produce exactly one line of description from the book: "As much as she was like a true copy of her birth mother, Rowena's eccentric nature was a far cry from the serene beauty and personality the late Duchess had."

'So… this would have been my mother, had I been born here, I guess?' A strange thought, even after she had decided to indulge in this reality and accept herself as "Rowena" now, for the sake of her sanity.

A little somberly, she put the sheet back where it had been and went to the training hall, where she had originally planned to go anyway. Sitting cross-legged, she assumed a pose similar to a meditative state and closed her eyelids.

'Now that your face befits your soul, what are you planning to do?'

She shook her head at the question. "Nothing much. Live? No, 'survive' might be a better word, because I don't even know what to expect if I get sold into the Lodden Empire," she said, but his words still lingered in her mind.

He had mentioned before that her soul shone brighter than her body, but it still pained her to know that he seemed to think her original face was really so bland.

Or perhaps he meant that Rowena was simply so beautiful to look at. As far as she could tell, now that she had seen it for herself, she really was the spitting image of her mother, Isidora van Varnhagen.

From the book, Celia knew that Rowena had never had an easy life, but no one really paid attention to that because she was an insignificant villainess with no arc to speak of.

Now that she saw it for herself though, it was obvious that she had been a very troubled soul. Even if she couldn't access the real Rowena's memories, she still wanted to know how she truly felt.

About her family; about her position. Why did she have that outburst against Scarlett when she must have been aware of the consequences? Especially in front of so many people in the temple and the Pope on top of it.

The thought of the church made Rowena furrow her brow.

"Whatever, let's concentrate."

The moment she said those words, the quiet hall was disrupted, as if on cue, by the sound of the grand doors being recklessly opened.

"So you really were down here!" The screeching voice of what she could only assume was her nanny had reached her a second after she had burst in.

It was pretty clear that the woman with no maid's outfit, but enough power to command maids, had to be a nanny. There had been a chance that she was the head maid, but that doubt vanished when Rowena had to ask the same head maid for the key to the basement.

'Anyway, she's a nuisance,' Rowena thought, giving a look of utter disapproval to someone who was still essentially a servant of the Duchy of Varnhagen. "Is there any reason for you to act this rude?"

Stunned, the nanny stopped in her tracks, but only for a split second. "I'm here to ask you this, young lady. I heard that you wanted me to hire a new etiquette teacher, knowing full well that Mr. Ballinger is already waiting for you to take your lessons."

To be honest, when the maids mentioned Ilona, she hadn't given it much thought, since it hadn't mattered who they would ask to hire someone in that annex. But that answered the question she had never asked.

And this woman looked furious. Why should her mistress's willingness to learn make her so angry? Then again, she hadn't known there was already a teacher.

Since Rowena had been described as someone without any education, she had just assumed that they had given up on her. It was a stupid conclusion, considering how Rowena had been treated.

She wasn't respected, for sure, but everyone did as she said, no matter how much they gossiped and laughed behind her back. She didn't have to go hungry, and she had the finest clothes. Of course, there would be a teacher for her at the ready, right?

Especially since her debut should have already taken place. "I forgot. In that case, the problem is already solved." The middle-aged lady had a vein on her forehead that was ready to pop, so Rowena decided to close her eyes again to ignore it. "Anything else that justifies you barging into a room like this when you know your master is inside?"

"Master?" Madam Ilona replied, "You hardly act like one anyway, as you well know." A sigh echoed through the training facility.

As the young woman opened one of her eyelids to take a peek, she saw the nanny rubbing the bridge of her nose in an attempt to calm herself.

"Alright. Starting tomorrow, you will receive your lessons once again. But I don't understand why the poor man should even bother if you don't give him the time of day anyway."

Meanwhile, the lady in question was busy thinking about how to respond to her disrespectful behavior. It seemed like this body had it coming, but it still didn't sit well with her. She didn't appreciate being treated like that again, so she had to make a decision now.

"Good. I also want a designer to come here, seeing as I can't leave myself. I need new clothes. Before that, I need to see the finances under my name," she said, her tone harsh and demanding, "and work on your way of speaking to me, I am indeed your master, Madam Ilona."

Again, the servant seemed completely flabbergasted, as if she had never heard her mistress speak in such a decisive tone.

Even after being treated like an inconsequential villainess with little to no agency, she was still known to be quite unpredictable. However, Madam Ilona only seemed confused, not angrier than before after being talked down to in this manner.

She just scoffed to end their conversation and excused herself from the basement.

Rowena didn't really know what to do with this situation, so she settled for what she had planned. Gathering Mana in her body took time. She had to clear out the Pathways, maybe even reshape or build them in the first place.

Someone who had already felt Mana would be able to force Pathways into a body that didn't have them, so she knew it wouldn't be impossible.

She should be able to do this just fine in any body, right? She simply couldn't tell how long it would take.