“She’s still sleeping.”

“I can’t believe the Pachrout noble house agreed to let this useless princess into their home.”

“Keep your voice down. She might hear you.”

A pause.

Then a scoff.

“Let her. What is she going to do? Cry?”

I smiled beneath my pillow.

Interesting.

I’d been awake for nearly a minute, and already someone had managed to irritate me before I’d even opened my eyes.

Normally, I lived alone. No roommates. No neighbors who dared knock on my door. No irritating voices invading my personal space.

So either I was having a remarkably vivid dream, or someone had made a very serious mistake.

“Honestly, I don’t understand why we’re wasting our time here. The other princesses are already at the palace.”

“Because we’re unfortunate enough to serve her.”

That was enough.

I threw the pillow aside and sat upright.

“You must have a death wish, coming into my—”

The words died in my throat.

Two unfamiliar girls stood beside my bed, both dressed in matching maid uniforms. One was blonde, short-haired, and visibly nervous. The other had her arms crossed, chin lifted, wearing the sort of smug expression I’d seen on people who mistook their positions for actual power.

Neither of them looked familiar.

Neither did the room.

I stared at the enormous four-poster bed, the pale pink curtains, the ridiculous collection of porcelain dolls, and the embroidered cushions scattered everywhere.

Good heavens. Whoever decorated this place had declared war on good taste.

I looked down at my hands.

Small fingers. Smooth skin. No familiar scars.

I pinched my arm.

Pain.

Wonderful. Even my dreams had developed a cruel sense of humor.

“Princess?” the blonde maid asked cautiously. “Are you feeling unwell?”

Princess.

I slowly turned my head toward her.

“What did you call me?”

The second maid rolled her eyes.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your own name now. You’re Isabel, the fourth princess of Ethanel.”

Isabel. The fourth princess of Ethanel.

For a moment, the room seemed to tilt.

Then the names began falling into place.

Ethanel. The Elements Festival. The royal family.

And Isabel Ethel.

Oh. This was interesting.

I knew those names.

Not from real life. I knew them from a web novel. A particularly irritating one my cousin Judy had been obsessed with for months. She’d spent so much time ranting about its characters that I’d eventually learned the entire plot against my will.

I remembered Isabel.

She was the fourth princess of Ethanel, born to a concubine of insignificant noble origins. Unlike her elder sisters, she possessed no impressive elemental affinity. In a kingdom where magic determined a person’s worth, that made her little more than an embarrassing stain on the royal bloodline.

Her sisters despised her. The queen hated her. Her father barely acknowledged her. And the servants treated her like a stray dog that had wandered into the palace.

Her life ended in the Forbidden Forest after her sisters framed her and left her to die.

A tragic character. A miserable fate.

And according to Judy, an infuriating waste of a perfectly good princess.

I lowered my gaze to my hands again.

Then I began to laugh.

It started quietly, little more than a breath escaping between my lips. But the longer I thought about it, the harder it became to stop.

I had died. Or perhaps I had been dragged into another world through some cosmic joke.

Either way, I was now inhabiting the body of a princess whose future had already been written by an author with a fondness for suffering.

Most people would have panicked. Some might have cried.

Me? I wanted to meet the people responsible for Isabel’s miserable life.

A slow smile crept across my face.

This was going to be fun.

“Are you listening to me?”

The sharp voice dragged me back.

The second maid was tapping her foot.

“Today is the Elements Festival. We’re already behind schedule because of you. Get out of bed and stop behaving like an idiot.”

I stared at her.

I remembered what they did.

The maids assigned to Isabel routinely withheld her meals, damaged her clothes, and passed information about her movements to her sisters. They had learned that the fourth princess was too frightened to complain.

They had mistaken her silence for permission.

A common mistake.

I pushed the blankets aside and stood. The maid looked pleased, convinced her little display of authority had worked.

I let my shoulders slump. Lowered my eyes. Perfectly adopting the fragile, timid posture of the original, abused Isabel.

“You’re right,” I whispered, stopping just inches from her face. “I’m sorry for making things difficult.”

She sniffed.

“At least you understand that much. Now, hurry up and—”

I moved.

My hand shot out, wrapping tightly around the back of her neck. With a swift, brutal jerk, I slammed her forward.

CRACK.

Wood meeting bone echoed through the room. Her knees buckled, but I kept my grip iron-clad, pinning her bloody nose against the wardrobe frame. A smear of warm blood stained the wood.

The blonde maid made a strangled noise, pale as a ghost.

I leaned close to the first maid’s ear, my timid demeanor gone.

“Let me explain something to you, sweetheart.” My voice was soft. Almost affectionate. “You’re going to learn the difference between a princess who doesn’t fight back and a princess who simply hasn’t found a reason to bother.”

She trembled beneath my grip.

“You’ve been very comfortable insulting me in my own room. I wonder how comfortable you’ll be doing it when you’re missing a few teeth.”

“P-Princess…”

“That wasn’t a question.”

I released her.

She dropped to the floor, clutching her nose, staring up at me as if she’d just discovered the monster under her bed was real.

I examined the blood on my fingers. Then I gasped.

“Oh, dear.”

Both maids froze.

I looked at the blonde with huge, innocent eyes.

“How terrible. She must have tripped.”

The injured maid stared at me in disbelief.

I smiled at the blonde.

“You saw it, didn’t you?”

“Y-Yes, Your Highness.”

“She tripped?”

“She… she tripped.”

“Wonderful.”

I wiped my fingers on the bedsheets.

“Now, would you be a darling and prepare my bath? I’d hate to be late for the festival.”

By the time she returned, I’d decided to call her Lily.

I couldn’t remember whether that was her actual name. It hardly mattered. She responded when I used it.

She prepared my bath and helped me dress with the stiff, nervous movements of someone handling a sleeping serpent. I allowed her to fuss over my hair. I even thanked her.

She nearly dropped the comb.

Once finished, I examined myself in the mirror.

The girl staring back was beautiful in a delicate, almost fragile way. Pale skin. Large eyes. A soft mouth that made her look perpetually uncertain.

She looked like someone who apologized when other people stepped on her feet.

How unfortunate. I preferred faces that warned people to keep their distance.

Still, appearances could be useful. A harmless-looking girl could walk into places where a dangerous one would never be permitted.

My gown was pale and unadorned, lacking the embroidery and stones that adorned my sisters’ clothes.

“Is this what I’m supposed to wear to the festival?”

Lily lowered her head.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“And my sisters?”

“Their dresses were prepared by the royal seamstresses.”

“Tell me, Lily. Do my sisters dislike me?”

Her hands stopped moving.

“I wouldn’t know, Your Highness.”

“That’s a terrible lie.”

She went pale.

“Don’t worry. I’m not asking you to criticize them.”

She swallowed.

“They… they can be unkind to you sometimes.”

Interesting. Frightened, but not entirely spineless.

I filed that away.

“And what about the festival? What should I expect?”

“The usual ceremonies, Your Highness. The royal family will demonstrate their elemental abilities before the court. There will be guests from the noble houses.”

In Ethanel, elemental magic was more than talent. It was status, influence, political currency.

My sisters had made a habit of turning the festival into their personal stage. Elena, admired for composure and formidable magic. Camilla, beautiful, proud, and vicious enough to make cruelty look like art. Rosamund, charming enough to make people forget how carefully she sharpened her words.

And Isabel? The joke everyone shared when they thought she couldn’t hear.

Lily followed me through the royal palace’s long corridors, keeping her eyes lowered as servants hurried past us.

The other maid had been left behind to nurse her “clumsy accident.”

The palace was magnificent, with marble floors, towering pillars, and enchanted crystals illuminating the walls. Yet the farther we walked from the royal family’s private quarters, the more neglected everything became.

Isabel’s chambers were tucked away in a quiet corner of the palace, far from her sisters’ luxurious rooms.

Apparently, even within her own home, the fourth princess had been given a place where nobody would have to remember she existed.

I rested my cheek against my hand as we continued toward the festival hall.

The palace was filled with movement. Servants carried trays of wine and food, guards stood at every entrance, and nobles in glittering formalwear passed through the corridors in groups.

Here and there, people demonstrated small feats of magic—water spiraling above a servant’s palm, a spark of wind dancing between a child’s fingers, and wind stirring the ribbons tied to a noblewoman’s gown.

Beautiful. Impractical. And potentially useful.

I wondered how much of this world operated according to rules Judy had never bothered to explain. A web novel could provide broad strokes, but living inside the story was another matter entirely.

Memory was a slippery thing, and Judy’s rants had never been delivered in chronological order. Some details were crystal clear. Others had been buried beneath complaints about the author.

Knowing the future was an advantage. Assuming the future couldn’t change would be stupidity.

I would have to be careful.

I turned my attention back to Lily.

“Tell me something, Lily. Has anyone ever told my sisters no?”

She blinked.

“I’m sorry?”

“Have they ever wanted something and been denied it? Have they ever had to face consequences?”

She looked at me as though I’d asked whether the moon could fall out of the sky.

“Not often, Your Highness.”

There it was.

My sisters weren’t merely cruel. They were accustomed to a world that rewarded their cruelty. That made them more dangerous than ordinary bullies. It also made them predictable.

People who had never faced resistance became careless when they believed victory was guaranteed.

And careless people were wonderfully easy to manipulate.

I remembered what happened in the original story tonight.

Tonight, my sisters would attempt to destroy Isabel by drugging her wine and arranging for her to be discovered alone with Brandon Pachrout, the second heir of the Pachrout house.

Brandon was a drunkard, a womanizer, a thoroughly unpleasant man. Even the king had reservations about allowing a princess to marry him.

But the Pachrout family possessed considerable influence, and a scandal could force the king into accepting an arrangement he would otherwise reject.

Drug Isabel. Get her into a room with Brandon. Bring witnesses. Turn it into a scandal.

A masterpiece of royal sisterhood.

I almost admired the efficiency.

I let my shoulders slump, melting back into the fragile, timid posture of the abused fourth princess.

The mask settled into place as naturally as breathing.

At the end of the corridor, the doors to the festival hall opened.

Blinding magical lights spilled across the marble floor, and the roaring music of the Elements Festival washed over us.

I smoothed my gown and lowered my eyes.

Inside, I was delighted.

My dear sisters had prepared a trap for a frightened princess.

Yet they had no idea who was walking into their lives.

Tonight’s going to be fun.