The dining hall buzzes with the kind of tension that precedes public executions. Every conversation stops when I enter, every fork pauses mid-air, every perfectly coiffed head turns to witness the latest chapter in my humiliation.
I claim my usual table in the shadowed corner, but even there I feel exposed. My untouched soup grows cold as I watch Mirelle hold court at the Veriton table, her laughter ringing like silver bells across the marble expanse.
“Look at her,” someone whispers from a nearby table. “Sitting there like she actually belongs.”
“The poor thing,” another voice adds with false sympathy. “To be cast opposite Prince Henry! How mortifying.”
My hands clench around my spoon until my knuckles go white. Across the hall, Calla catches my eye and raises her goblet in a mock toast, her smile sharp as a blade.
That’s it.
I surge to my feet, my chair scraping against stone like a battle cry. The hall falls silent as I stride across the floor, my footsteps echoing like gunshots.
“Mirelle,” I announce, my voice cutting through the hushed atmosphere like steel. “We need to talk. Now.”
She looks up from her delicate picking at roasted pheasant, her perfect composure never wavering. “Helena, darling, can you not see we are dining?”
“I can see you’re performing,” I snap, leaning over their table. “Just like you’ve been performing since I arrived.”
Calla sets down her crystal goblet with deliberate precision. “How deliciously dramatic. You’re truly embracing your theatrical calling, aren’t you?”
“Stay out of this,” I snarl, my gaze never leaving Mirelle’s face. “This is between us.”
Something flickers in Mirelle’s eyes—panic, perhaps—before her mask slides back into place. “Very well,” she says with forced calm. “Let us speak privately.”
The side corridor feels like a tomb, our footsteps muffled by ancient tapestries. When Mirelle finally stops before a stained glass window depicting some long-dead saint, she doesn’t face me.
“You’ve made a spectacle of yourself,” she says coldly. “Again.”
“Have I?” I move to block her path, forcing her to meet my gaze. “Or have you orchestrated another performance? Tell me, Mirelle—did you know about the casting?”
Her silence is answer enough.
“You did,” I breathe, the betrayal hitting me like a physical blow. “You knew they would cast me as the fallen woman opposite him.”
“Helena—”
“No!” My voice cracks like a whip. “No more lies! No more pretty words designed to make me feel better about being your sacrifice!”
Mirelle’s composure finally cracks. “You think this is sacrifice? You want to know what sacrifice looks like?”
She steps closer, her voice dropping to a vicious whisper. “Sacrifice is watching Henry destroy every girl who catches his attention. It’s seeing their reputations shredded, their families disgraced, their futures obliterated.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Last season, Lady Beatrice Worthington. Beautiful, intelligent, from one of the finest families in the realm.” Mirelle’s eyes glitter with something approaching madness. “Henry pursued her relentlessly. Flowers, poetry, stolen kisses in moonlit gardens. The whole academy thought they were witnessing a fairy tale romance.”
My blood runs cold. “What happened to her?”
“She believed his pretty words. Let him into her chambers one night. By morning, half the academy had seen the drawings he’d made of her… compromised state. Detailed sketches of every intimate moment, passed around like playing cards.”
The corridor spins around me. “No…”
“She tried to kill herself with laudanum three days later. Only survived because her maid found her in time.” Mirelle’s voice turns to ice. “Her family shipped her off to a convent in the Outer Isles. She’ll never marry, never have children, never show her face in society again.”
“But why would he—”
“Because he can!” Mirelle explodes, her careful control finally shattering. “Because he’s a prince and we are expendable! And now you’re next in line for his particular brand of destruction!”
I stagger backward, my back hitting cold stone. “You could have warned me—”
“I tried!” she shrieks. “I told you to avoid him! I begged you to keep your head down! But you couldn’t help yourself, could you? You had to poke the sleeping dragon!”
“So you decided to feed me to it instead?”
Mirelle’s laugh is bitter as winter wind. “I decided to survive. Something you’ve never learned how to do.”
The words hit me like a slap. “I trusted you.”
“Trust is a luxury neither of us can afford.” She straightens her skirts with trembling hands. “Not in this place. Not with these people.”
“These people? You mean your friends?”
“They are not my friends!” The words tear from her throat like a scream. “They are my captors! My tormentors! But they are also my only hope of escaping this place with my reputation intact!”
I stare at her—this stranger wearing my dear friend’s face—and feel something die inside my chest.
“Then we have nothing more to say to each other,” I whisper.
That night, I pace my cramped chamber like a caged beast. Sleep eludes me, driven away by visions of ruined girls and princely cruelty. When the academy bells chime midnight, I wrap my robe around my shoulders and venture into the corridors.
The marble halls feel different in darkness—more sinister, heavy with secrets. I tell myself I need air, need movement, need anything but the suffocating walls of my room.
Then I hear voices drifting from the East Wing stairwell. Sharp. Female. Familiar.
I press myself against the shadowed wall, my heart hammering as words float down from above.
“—told you she doesn’t belong here,” Calla’s voice hisses like steam from a kettle. “She’s not one of us. She never will be.”
“She’s like a sister to me,” Mirelle replies, but her voice wavers.
“Sister?” Calla’s laugh is cruel as breaking glass. “You mean your father’s bastard ward? The girl your family raised as charity?”
The words hit me like physical blows. Bastard? Charity case?
“Don’t,” Mirelle warns, but there’s no strength in it.
“Oh, but I must,” Calla continues with vicious delight. “Because you seem to have forgotten the truth. She’s not your blood, darling. She’s not your equal. She’s a foundling your family dressed up and paraded around like a pet.”
“Stop,” Mirelle whispers.
“Why? Because it hurts? Because it reminds you that everything you’ve built here could crumble if people knew the truth about your precious ‘sister’?”
My knees nearly buckle. A foundling. Not Mirelle’s true sister. A charity case.
“You want to protect your future?” Calla’s voice turns sharp as a blade. “Then you’ll remember where your loyalties truly lie. With me. With this place. Not with some pathetic pretender who doesn’t even know her own origins.”
I stumble backward, my vision blurring with unshed tears. Every step echoes like thunder in my ears as I flee toward my chamber.
Behind me, the voices continue their deadly dance, but I can’t bear to hear more.
In my room, I collapse onto my narrow bed, the truth crashing over me like a tidal wave.
I am not who I thought I was.
I am not Mirelle’s true sister.
I am nothing but a bastard wrapped in silk and educated beyond my station.
***