Lady Regina Sheridan stared blankly at the very pretty and very shiny blond man frolicking in front of her.

He was wearing seven brooches today. She knew that he was wearing seven brooches because she had counted them, even as she wondered how he managed to keep the one attached to his belt from falling off.

"My dearest heart," he cried, bouncing in excitement. "Are you not excited to see the surprise that I prepared?"

With a movement born of long practice, Regina stepped forward and casually pulled him out of the way of the large falling rock, noting the shadowy figure disappearing on the roof line above them, as the blond man continued to gaze tenderly at her.

It would have been too much, she realized grimly, for her prince to realize that a large rock had landed behind him when he was more interested in her answer to his question.

"Yes, my sweet dove," she finally replied with infinite weariness. "I am... excited to see your performance."

In truth, Regina was not excited to see his performance.

Regina was also not excited to foil the next three murder attempts that would inevitably happen when her sweet dove sang three folk songs while doing a strange dance from his mother's homeland.

Regina's only excitement in life came from trying to keep this goldfish of a fiancé, and thus herself, alive.

Yet as Regina watched her prince dance his self-described “mating ritual" in front of her, Regina wondered if maybe she would have been better off being executed as a villainess.

~♦♥♦~

Six Months Earlier

Lady Regina Sheridan had no idea why she was standing in the middle of a ballroom in her nightgown.

It was particularly strange because Regina generally did not attend ballrooms or wander about them while under-dressed. In fact, she had never even left her family’s manor, even to visit the small collection of towns and villages that made up her family’s lands.

In fact, Regina’s only regular activities consisted of discussing survival strategies with her closest cousin, avoiding the sinister machinations of her parents, and trying to mimic wallpaper well enough to leave her childhood home before her family murdered her.

Yet when Regina cautiously pushed through the crowd at the ball, none of whom seemed interested in the half-naked woman in their midst, to see another version of herself…

The first thought that came to Regina was, By the blood, why would my parents spend the money to purchase a gown like that?!

After all, while Regina did not go about dressed in rags, she did not own any fancy gowns either. There were remarkably few occasions to dress up when you were spending most of your life trying to avoid being noticed and then murdered by your family.

Besides, her parents hoarded money as though spending a dime on anything but the bare necessities would cause them to die in distress. So why would they suddenly buy her a gown with enough lace to make hundreds of silkworms weep?

Beyond that, Regina could not understand why some version of herself might be somewhere other than the Sheridan family’s estate. After all, no Sheridan under the age of 25 ever left the estate unless they were about to have a mysterious “accident” or –

“I would like to welcome our guests to this celebration of the uniting of two great families,” said a startlingly familiar man who suddenly appeared behind not-Regina’s shoulder.

– Were about to get engaged.

A chill ran down Regina’s spine as she realized that she had never before seen her surly miser of a father look so happy.

“No Sheridan under the age of 25 leaves the Sheridan estate unless they are about to be murdered… or married off to another noble family,” Regina murmured, suddenly realizing what was happening.

It was only after Regina spoke that she suddenly remembered that her father was right in front of her. Regina felt the all too familiar panic starting in the back of her throat as she realized that she had both just revealed one of her family’s most terrible secrets and that she had revealed the secret while standing nearly naked in a ballroom.

Regina was not sure which act would get her murdered faster. Either way, she had just destroyed a dozen years of trying to be the human equivalent of a very forgettable beige so that her family would forget to murder her for not being useful.

Yet, to her surprise, none of the people around her reacted to her in any way.

“I almost feel insulted,” Regina muttered under her breath. “I know I am hardly the most beautiful woman in Carcosa but I am muttering ominous secrets while wandering around a ballroom in my nightgown. Does nobody care about any of that?”

Regina was so busy being both confused and irritated that she only realized the truth when the very pretty and very shiny jewelry-encrusted blond man behind her put his elbow through her torso.

“By the blood!” Regina cried in a mixture of anger and disbelief as she saw his elbow move through her body without encountering any resistance. “After all those years of outlasting thirteen cousins and a sister, did someone in my family finally notice I existed… only to murder me?”

The blond man bounced up and down in an odd little dance and Regina decided that was as much of an answer as she was going to receive.

However, even if she was dead, Regina was determined to find out who this false Regina was… and why her family was engaging the not-Regina to someone very high-ranking, based on the lace of her dress and the width of her father’s smile.

Regina’s eyes narrowed and she ducked behind the dancing blond, who was an excellent distraction for anyone who might be able to notice dead women in inappropriate nightdresses. It also allowed her to concentrate on the words of the nobles clustered around her.

Unfortunately, she soon realized she would have been better not paying the other nobles any attention at all.

She could hear the polished but cutting voices of the group of elegant noblemen around the dancing blond as they dissected not-Regina in every aspect.

“Pedestrian looking, is she not?” said an exceedingly gorgeous older nobleman with rose red hair and brilliant emerald eyes, though the haughty look on his face made Regina loathe him already. “No doubt she is the comeliest daughter the Sheridans could come up with but even so…”

“You may be underrating her charms,” said a handsome younger man who had a delicate pink flower with a ruffled center on his lapel and the oddest hair that Regina had ever seen – dark brown waves on top and a smattering of grass-green hair beneath. “Who knows? Perhaps the lady in question is kind and keen.”

“If so,” said a dignified older nobleman who wore a blue suit patterned after ocean waves to match his curly blue hair, “she is wasted on that family. She should have joined ours instead. Those brawny arms would help us a great deal.”

“No doubt,” said another middle-aged nobleman with an elegant leaf-shaped brooch and hair so black, it nearly burned purple in the candle-light. “I am sure this young lady would have excelled in helping you distribute frozen fish to the masses.”

“Exactly!” Lord Ocean Waves said, apparently immune to sarcasm when it came to his specialty.

“She must have strong powers,” muttered a strikingly beautiful nobleman standing a little ways away, his blindingly white suit matching the white hair rippling past his shoulders as he stared at Regina’s other self. “Maybe she could even win a dance battle against a feet fish.”

The other lords stared at Lord Feet Fish before they apparently decided to ignore his strange murmurings.

“She probably is powerful as well as elegant and astute,” Lord Grass Hair speculated. “Why else would she be chosen to ascend to such great heights?”

“Why indeed,” muttered Lord Leaf Brooch. “Though I would imagine that the Sheridan family’s purse greatly helped her engagement prospects.”

“Even so,” Lord Ocean Waves murmured, “It is strange that I have never heard of Lady Regina Sheridan. In fact, I do not believe anybody had heard of her before her engagement was announced.”

“Perhaps,” Lord Red Hair, “The Alpins would prefer their brides be a little less… distinguished than women who come from families with a better pedigree… and greater beauty.”

Even Regina, who was hardly bursting with pride when it came to her noble line, felt a little affronted at the clear condescension in his tone.

“Listen here,” she told Lord Red Hair now that she was sure nobody in this room could hear her. “My family may be murderous and miserly but that does not mean you should look down on us for our pedigree or lack of beauty. After all –”

At this point, Regina even dared to boldly poke her finger in Lord Red Hair’s direction, feeling a queer sense of liberation. Who knew being dead was so freeing?

“There are so many other things that are wrong with my family! Our pedigree and looks are the last things you should be criticizing!”

Regina expected that to be the end of it and was genuinely surprised when one of the nobles actually defended her… so long as she ignored the less flattering implications of his argument.

“Let us be fair,” Lord Grass Hair said. “None of us may know Lady Regina well, or at all, but the Sheridans are not nobodies. They have had quite a fascinating rise from mere barons with unknowable powers to actual marquesses. Who knows what their future will bring?”

Lord Leaf Brooch took a sip from his flute of champagne, eyes gleaming with speculation.

“Who indeed?”

Regina decided that since she was dead, she did not need to listen to people insulting her and the politics of petty, boring nobles.

Ignoring the cluster of nobles continuing their veiled insults and speculations behind their smiles, she watched as not-Regina continued to move forward to the center of the ball room… only to sink into a deep bow that left real-Regina’s knees shaking in sympathy.

Behind her, Regina’s father followed, looking more prideful now than when he cut off the figurative, and possibly literal, legs off his rivals.

“Lords and ladies,” her father said, “I bid you welcome to my daughter’s engagement ceremony.”

Even as the real Regina started so violently that her elbow should have collided into the shiny blond man in front of her, not-Regina and Regina’s father were joined by a stunningly handsome blond man who had obviously been waiting for the announcement of the engagement ceremony.

Even in this strange evening full of bizarre events, Regina found it hard to grasp that any version of her could be engaged to a man like this. Regina was not a woman prone to self-doubt. She had managed to make it to one-and-twenty without dying and that was something that made her one of the most remarkable women in Carcosa considering her family. However, this man was as far beyond someone like her as an eagle was beyond a sparrow.

For one, this man was so handsome he looked like a prince from a storybook, so elegant that he almost seemed to glide rather than walk, and so intimidating Regina found it hard to look into his icy blue eyes. Regina was impressed that her other self was able to overcome that terrifying gaze by looking down demurely.

Still, this terrifyingly beautiful man managed a tight smile for her other self and then looked around the room, his even voice somehow reaching every part of it.

“Friends,” he said, “we greet those who have come to bear witness to this engagement –”

But before the man – her other self’s fiancé – could finish his sentence, there was a loud bang as the doors of the ballroom were flung open and the ballroom floor was suddenly flooded with guards who seemed to easily outnumber the lords and ladies.

“What is happening?” Regina’s father cried, even as both Reginas spun around wildly, staring at the sudden influx of guards stamped with intimidating blue-and-gold-livery. “How dare you disrupt a royal engagement party?!”

“Do you dare,” said a grizzled looking older guard with an especially intimidating row of medals on his uniform, “stand between the imperial guards and a daughter accused of betraying the crown prince and Carcosa itself in her role as its future queen?”

“What?!” both Reginas cried at the same time, before not-Regina collected herself enough to speak with a calm that would have made nightgown-wearing Regina proud if nightgown-wearing Regina was not both terrified and confused.

“Good sir,” not-Regina said, a waver in her voice but steel in her eyes, “I do not know what you are accusing me of but I - I have never betrayed anyone in my life!”

The guard did not look at all moved by her pleas – and unfortunately, neither did Regina’s fiancé – who was apparently Carcosa’s Crown Prince and future King.

“Please believe me!” not-Regina pleaded again, this time with her fiancé. “Your Highness, I – I just arrived at the Capital City but a month ago! I know nobody but my family and have no ambitions but to – to –”

“To stay alive,” the real Regina muttered, horror overtaking her. “Only I do not seem to be succeeding.”

“Cease your falsehoods,” the grizzled head guard raged, even as not-Regina was suddenly entirely surrounded by other members of the imperial guard. “Lady Regina Sheridan, you are a villainess whose conduct is unworthy of a future crown princess. The royal family has uncovered evidence that you have trampled on those you are responsible for –”

“What are you speaking of?” not-Regina cried, even as she shrank back from the guards surrounding her. “Who am I supposedly trampling?!”

“You,” the head guard said while the handsome blonde man, who had to not only be a member of the Alpin royal family but the crown prince, looked mildly appalled at the proceedings, “are convicted of the basest cruelty to commoners.”

“Commoners?!” a familiar voice cried, before Regina’s mother suddenly appeared next to Regina, looking as wild-eyed as Regina herself felt. “Since when did the royal family give a damn about commoners? You would bathe in their blood if you thought it would increase productivity or provide an advantage over the other noble families!”

While that was not the most tactful thing for her mother to say, the nightgown-wearing Regina had to agree, as did the bouncing blond man in front of her. Regina had been so absorbed in the horror of the stern blond crown prince she had nearly forgotten this very shiny, very bouncy other blond.

“By the blood,” he muttered, now moving his hips in what Regina assumed was a circle of sympathy. “Poor Lady Regina is in more trouble than ever. Does her mother not realize that there is no better way to get your head chopped off than to say truths nobody wants to hear?”

Unfortunately, the shiny blond appeared correct as the look on the Crown Prince’s face shifted from mild concern to an actual glare.

“Captain,” the Crown Prince said, “What exactly did Lady Regina do to those poor commoners?”

Regina realized she could not remember the last time she even interacted with a commoner. The Sheridan estate kept a few commoner servants but Regina was paranoid to the point of being practically self-sufficient when it came to her food and drink. As she tried to determine when and how Not-Regina could have possibly even encountered commoners, she was interrupted by a stern voice.

“Lady Regina Sheridan,” the apparent captain of the guard said, “has abused the maids given to her by His Highness in the most abominable of ways.”

“What do you mean?” the not-Regina cried, sounding as baffled as the real Regina felt. “I have never abused a maid! The most I ever did was tell them that I wanted to make my own tea so that I could ensure it was not being poisoned in the making!”

“Ah,” the Captain said, looking grim. “That explains it. You must have been upset that they disobeyed you by attempting to care for you…”

Even by Regina’s understanding of the strangeness of Carcosan law, that seemed an odd accusation of treachery-

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“...and thus, killed them before fashioning their corpses into a throne,” the Captain finished, oddly triumphantly.

Well, thought Regina, that was at least a little more understandable cause for concern, if only because it seemed terribly unsanitary.

Even past her newfound ring of guards, nightgown-wearing Regina could see that her finely dressed counterpart looked utterly horrified.

“Why would I murder them?” not-Regina asked. “In fact, how would I even murder them, seeing as how I have no magic or training in weapons?"

“Is that actually true?” the Captain said, looking almost intrigued. “It would be an easy enough claim to prove… if you were willing to share the Sheridan abilities with us. It seems very suspicious that nobody outside of the Sheridan family knows the magical powers of the Sheridans.”

“Whatever they are,” not-Regina snapped, “they certainly do not lend themselves to outright murder! Though even if they did –”

It was an interesting statement for not-Regina to make, real-Regina realized. It was entirely possible that the Sheridans’ magical powers allowed them to murder people. Regina had no idea and if not-Regina was being married out of the family… she had no idea either.

Of course not-Regina had more pressing concerns such as…

“Why would I make my maids’ dead bodies into a throne?! ”

“Very true,” the shiny blond man in front of nightgown-wearing Regina said. “That seems very unsanitary.”

Regina was relieved that at least one person in this room shared her thoughts on personal hygiene… even if it was depressing that it was only a shiny, bouncing blond man who reminded her very much of a bobbing dandelion.

Unfortunately, Regina did not have the presence of mind to linger on that heartwarming connection with a stranger because, without another word, her finely dressed counterpart began to be hauled away by the guards at last, even as her parents silently watched.

“Mother!” not-Regina cried. “Father! Please tell His Highness that the – the guards are making a mistake! Please!”

Then Regina’s vision of her other self and family were drowned out by her own blurring words as she closed her eyes, unable to look any further.

Then she closed her eyes and turned around, only to see the shiny blond man next to her shake his head, suddenly no longer dancing and looking oddly… sad?

The nobles that had been speculating about Regina’s other self were behind him, looking far less devastated by her fate. The fact that not a single one of them seemed to think that fate came about from not-Regina building furniture out of body parts was a very sore comfort.

“By the blood,” Lord Ocean Waves said, “was that little upstart stealing the royal family’s secrets to pass them onto her own family? I would not do so even if it helped us Poissons catch the best fish in the ocean. What a way to court disaster!”

“Especially if you got caught,” Lord Feet Fish said, “which is likely if you do not have a feet fish to teleport you around.”

Once again, the other nobles stared at Lord Feet Fish for a moment before electing to ignore him.

“I suppose,” Lord Red Hair said with an unpleasant smirk, “the Alpins now know that there is a reason they should stick to prettier brides with finer breeding.”

Lord Leaf Brooch just snorted. “The Alpins fear powerful noble families too much to breed with any who can rival them. If they cannot pluck a flower from about their feet, they will simply go back to breeding from their own family circles – which will eventually lead them to disaster.”

“That may be why they chose poor Lady Regina in the first place,” Lord Grass Hair said, shaking his head.

“Do not tell me you pity her,” Lord Red Hair said, looking startled. “If she was fool enough to displease the Alpins of all families, she fully deserves her fate!”

“Does she?” Lord Grass Hair asked. “Though she clearly crossed the Alpins to give some sort of advantage to her family, she is so young… and with such a crime on her head, she will be lucky to ever see sunlight again.”

Lord Ocean Waves looked confused. “So you think the Alpins will let her keep her head and not execute her immediately?”

“Probably,” Lord Feet Fish said, with far more chill in his voice than before. “The Alpins enjoy making examples of their enemies… and death can be less of a deterrent than an ill-treated living reminder.”

For once, Lord Feet Fish’s words seemed to lead less to confusion and annoyance than fear. Looking around, Regina could register the uneasiness on each of the lords’ faces before one of them changed the subject.

“Lady Regina will hopefully live,” Lord Grass Hair said, “and given her youth, may even receive a relatively lenient charge. She is someone else’s puppet so what need is there to harshly punish her?”

“What of her family?” Lord Ocean Waves said, looking nervous. “Will the Alpins not make an example of them, since she must be their pawn?”

“I suspect,” Lord Leaf Brooch said, “we will soon discover that answer.”

Eyes wide, Regina spun around, hoping beyond hope that maybe her parents were prepared to defend her or support her or… or… do something that could help her -

Yet if either Regina was hoping for a sign of familial affection, she was doomed to be disappointed.

Tears burning in her eyes, the real Regina watched as her father and mother stood by and watched their last surviving child be taken away by the assembly of guards.

“Some people,” Lord Feet Fish said, suddenly looking older than his youthful and handsome face would indicate, “do not deserve their children.”

“If children were given only to the deserving,” Lord Leaf Brooch said, “would any of us even be here?”

The Regina Sheridan who was still in the room with them simply stared blankly over the shoulder of her blond dandelion shield, into the space where her other self had once been.

“She deserved better,” the shiny blond man still in front of her said. “I wonder whether she would have enjoyed frolicking? I hope she gets the chance to find out.”

On that cheerful note, darkness fell.

For a brief moment, Regina had hope that she would wake from this terrible, realistic nightmare.

Regina realized very, very quickly that life liked to make sure she knew she was being tormented. Therefore, when Regina saw the light again, she did not see the canopy of her bed or feel her sheets twisting around her form.

Instead, she found herself in a large, smoky room filled with all the trappings of luxury – crystal chandeliers, decadent glasses full of amber scotch, and a scattering of magical artifacts that Regina could not even begin to identify.

More importantly, the room also contained a man that Regina recognized when she moved towards him.

…A man that she had seen in the ballroom that she had just escaped after witnessing Not-Regina’s arrest.

However, the very pretty and very shiny blond man she had seen just a few moments ago no longer seemed to be in a dancing mood. Instead, he had a grave, even melancholy look on his beautiful face as he slumped into an upholstered chair, staring at the newspaper in front of him.

After realizing he was going to say nothing, Regina circled around him to read the headline upside down, a skill she had mastered to anticipate her mother’s moods every time her mother gambled far too much on a horse-race…

…and saw a headline that nearly stopped her somehow-still-beating heart.

“Lady Regina Sheridan Killed in a Carriage Accident After Being Accused of Treacherous Mistreatment of Productive Citizens!”

Head spinning, Regina staggered back and almost fell through the newspaper before she began looking around her for something that would make this… this insane news make sense.

Then, as if they had previously been hidden, Regina heard the voices of all the other noblemen from the ballroom discussing her recent death.

With slow dread, she turned around to see them all seated around a table, glasses of liquor in hand as they calmly discussed her death.

“I cannot say I saw that coming,” said Lord Grass Hair, looking almost as sad as the pretty blond man. “Who could predict that poor Lady Regina would meet such a pitiful end?”

“Then you do not have enough of an imagination,” snapped Lord Red Hair. “I knew the Alpins would kill her off after they discovered her betrayal and publicly made an example of her!”

“Was it the Alpins though,” speculated Lord Ocean Waves, “or Lady Regina’s own parents? After all, what use does a noble Carcosan family have for its failures? No more use than a fisherman has for a net with holes.”

“Do you truly have to relate literally everything to fishing?” Lord Red Haid said, sounding aggrieved.

“Yes,” Lord Ocean Waves stated, sounding baffled that it was even a question.

Lord Red Hair just sighed before Lord Leaf Brooch spoke, breaking his previous silence.

“The Sheridans are a… mysterious family,” Lord Leaf Brooch said, “but surely even they would not destroy their own kin. To be so callous where your own child is involved is… is monstrous beyond telling.”

“You are giving my family too much credit,” Regina sourly replied, though she knew he would not hear her. “Did my parents look as though they were about to intervene on my behalf when you saw those guards come for not-me?”

Even so, Regina felt a little better when Lord Grass Hair supported Lord Leaf Brooch by saying, “Yes, as Duke Neville said, we must not leap to hasty conclusions. Perhaps this is all just a tragic carriage accident…?”

For the first time, Lord Feet Fish spoke and said, “How many tragic accidents do you think young ladies get into after they have just been arrested for being a villainess that humiliated Alpin royalty?”

Lord Grass Hair sighed before asking, “We cannot have at least one, Duke Kuzey?”

Lord Feet Fish – no, Duke Kuzey – sighed as well and said, “The only ‘accidents’ that arise after someone crosses the Alpin royal family are those that benefit the Alpins. So how ‘accidental’ could Lady Regina’s final carriage ride be?”

Lord Ocean Waves had an oddly shrewd look in his eye when he spoke. “That would all make sense… if the Alpins had not already made an example of Lady Regina. Why would they risk further infuriating the Sheridans after they had already won? If you catch a shark in a crab pot, either it is not really a shark… or you are not really using a crab pot.”

Regina had never previously wondered if it was possible to hear a fish metaphor so bad that it made her want to give up eating seafood, but she was discovering all sorts of new and exciting information in this endless dream.

“I know you said something about fish that I am going to ignore,” Lord Red Hair said, sounding almost excited, “but this still means that someone must have killed Lady Regina… someone who wanted her secrets to die with her. The only question is… who would be willing to take that risk?”

Unable to bear the looks of speculation, which ranged from merely curious to cold and calculating, Regina spun around…

…only to find herself staring at the pretty, shiny dandelion man’s face as he abruptly rose from his seat, shaking his head as though he were saying a prayer.

“Poor Lady Regina,” he whispered, his voice so soft she had to strain to catch his words. “One day you are a plucked blossom offered to the royal family and the next…”

Regina found herself staring at the only existing portrait of herself obviously reprinted in the upside-down newspaper, her false face smiling with a carefree innocence she had never had in life… or death.

“May she suffer less in her next life,” he murmured.

As Regina tried to process the strange pain in his voice, the world dissolved into darkness and the after-image of a blond man clutching a faded flower in his hand.

~♦♥♦~

Lady Regina Sheridan, still alive potential-villainess, sat bolt upright in her bed.

"What," she said, staring hard at the sheets she had twisted in her hand, "in the name of the blood was that?"

She had to take several deep breaths before she could calm her racing heart and make sense out of what she had just experienced.

“What just happened to me?” Regina said, still numb with shock. “How did I have such a ridiculous dream? Unless…”

Her eyes widened as she tried to recall the previous night.

“Did someone try to slip something into my food?!”

She frowned as she continued musing.

“No, that cannot be right… After I saw what happened to poor cousin Ronald last year, I only eat after everyone else has taken a bite and nobody at the table has started foaming at the mouth. So the elders could not have poisoned me without poisoning my parents and eight other cousins. Even for the elders, that would be unseemly.”

She buried her face in her trembling hands, trying to calm herself once more.

“So that strange… vision was probably not the result of poison. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is…”

Slowly, Regina’s hands slipped from her face as she straightened her back and then began readying herself for the day ahead.

“That I need to stop eating cheese before bed and not worry about that ridiculous dream. Did Henrietta not warn me about the effects of indigestion on nightmares? I have enough problems in my waking life without borrowing problems from my imagination. I need to do with this dream what I do with every other horror in my life.”

Nodding, Regina made her way out of bed before looking at her pale but resolute face in a nearby vanity mirror.

“I need to push anything that terrifies me into the depths of my mind and act as though nothing could possibly go wrong in my life while making sure nobody has cause to murder me.”

Thus fortified with her normal mixture of steely determination and paranoid fear, Regina prepared to spend her day being one with the Sheridan manor’s wallpaper.

It took some skill for the only Sheridan of her age left alive to be overlooked, unseen, and too far beneath any powerful person’s notice to be worth harming… but Regina had spent years communing with wallpaper, porridge, and the color beige. She knew how to take bland to new heights of mundanity!

Her camouflage skills had kept her alive for the last one-and-twenty years of life and she fervently hoped it would keep her intact a few years longer.

After all, Regina just needed to survive until the age of twenty five when her family elders finally would be forced to agree she had inherited none of the Sheridan magic and should be wed off to another noble family.

The only other alternative lay in her manifesting her family’s magic, a magic so rare and secret that neither she nor any of her young cousins even knew what it was.

Yet if Regina manifested her family’s magic, whatever it might be (personally, Regina suspected it had something to do with earning money by glaring at people), she would either be married to one of her male cousins or (even worse) uncles to breed more Sheridans.

That was assuming that her magic was found useful.

If Regina manifested magic and her magic was found to be useless, she would be killed off for being a disgrace to the Sheridan blood.

Given the options, Regina was desperately hoping that some widower with twelve plump children would suddenly decide they wanted a Sheridan connection before Regina developed any skill more advanced than keeping the elders from remembering her name.

As it was, Regina also desperately hoped that when she arrived at the breakfast table, she could have a calm and peaceful day with no fatal ‘accidents’ in her future.

Surely a civilized murderer would wait until after she had a cup of tea?

Yet when Regina arrived at the breakfast table, she was shocked to see both her mother and father together.

For as long as Regina could remember, her parents acted as though spending time with one another was as pleasant as amputating a body part. Of all the problems with her parents, this one Regina could at least understand given that they were cousins who had been forcibly married. So while Regina’s parents had managed some pretense of family togetherness before Regina’s older sister had been killed for having ‘useless’ magic, Regina’s parents had outright avoided each other’s company afterwards.

Therefore, seeing them together sent a chill down Regina’s spine… one not helped by the joyous looks on their faces.

“Mother,” Regina said, trying not to panic and flee, “and Father! What a… pleasant surprise to see the both of you here!”

Left unsaid were the words, ‘If you are here to hunt me down, can you at least give me a head start?’

Regina wondered if somehow she had accidentally worn something not in a particularly unobtrusive shade of beige, but a discreet glance down revealed that she was still as colorless and bland as a bowl of oatmeal.

Still unsure how her parents could even see her, Regina was jolted out of her half-formed plan to see if she could become one with the wallpaper by her father’s brisk tones.

“Come sit,” said Father, “and stop standing like a particularly stupid ruler.”

He sniffed. “Probably a metric ruler, at that.”

When her father started comparing her to a ruler, Regina knew she had to act swiftly, even if she was insulted by the comparison. After all, she was even more boring than a ruler! She did not even have exciting numerical markings on her!

Quickly taking her seat, Regina took a moment to examine her parents to try to determine what they might be doing.

‘Father only lets himself be so happy when he has plenty of money in hand,’ she noted, ‘and Mother only looks this pleased when she has won big on a horse race or attended the funeral of someone she hates. So they are obviously plotting something together…

‘...and I can only hope it does not mean anything terrible for me.’

Unfortunately, Regina’s concerns were all too quickly realized.

“Congratulations, Regina Edmund Sheridan,” her father said, pushing his glasses up his nose, even as her mother leaned back and began playing with one of her knives. “You are about to achieve something almost as remarkable as a well-balanced set of accounts.”

The only time Regina’s father ever used the middle name her parents had given her out of disappointment she was not the boy they had expected was if something truly terrible was about to happen.

Blinking hard, Regina forced a smile and said, “That is such… astounding news, father. I cannot wait to hear more of what you mean!”

“Your leaky quill of a sire,” Regina’s mother said even as her father shot a glare at her, “is trying to tell you that you are about to get married and remove yourself from this bloody family.”

Swallowing hard, Regina managed a slightly more natural smile, even as she wondered how something like this was even possible. Had her parents misunderstood some declaration of the elders?

“I am thrilled to hear of such wonderful news,” Regina said, “though I suppose this means that our elders have accepted that I will never develop our family’s magic?”

The idea that Regina would not have to wait until twenty-five, as was the way of the family, filled Regina with an entirely unfamiliar hope for her future.

“Of course not,” her father snapped. “You are already one-and-twenty and not special in the least. After all, you have not experienced anything… peculiar recently, right?

Regina shook her head so hard, it was a wonder it still remained attached to her neck.

“Of course not!” she said, resolutely trying not to think of her bizarre dreams. “I would not dream of being special! My very presence makes mediocrity look amazing! I make porridge, taxes, and the color beige seem exciting!”

“Taxes are exciting,” said her father, frowning, before her mother raised a hand and he closed his mouth with a snap.

“Good girl,” her mother said, giving Regina a terrifyingly penetrating look. “I did wonder where you were getting all that beige… I can help you find more, should you have a shortage of material for your outfits. Staying… uninteresting shall help you remain out of trouble where you are going, at least until everything is finalized.”

Smile faltering, Regina said, “...Where I am going?”

No Sheridan left the family house prior to marriage…

…unless the family they were marrying was of higher rank than the Sheridans. The Sheridans were a marquessate, so there were only four families in the land that were higher ranked than they were-

Mounting horror clawing at her heart, Regina said in a voice on the verge of utter panic, “Mother, Father… where are you sending me?”

“The palace in the Capital,” her father said, beaming even as Regina felt her entire body freeze as if she had been set in ice. “We are in talks with the royal family to arrange an engagement. If all goes well…”

For the first time in a very long time, Regina’s mother began to laugh.

It was the most terrifying sound Regina had ever heard.

“If all goes well, we will have a glorious party for your engagement!” her mother said joyously. “If the negotiations succeed, Crown Prince Aaron Alpin says that he would like to have the engagement ceremony within the month.”