Chapter 4: Replaced as a Daughter

Wren POV

Rosalind's morning tea was chamomile with two spoons of honey, never three, because three made her stomach turn. She took her heart medicine at eight, not before, because on an empty stomach it made her dizzy. She hated the east-facing chair in her sitting room because the sun hit her eyes at that hour, and she'd sit there anyway if nobody moved her, too polite to ask.

I used to know all of that better than anyone in this house. I figured I'd start there.

I got to her sitting room at half past seven, tray in hand, tea steeped exactly the way she liked it. The door was already open.

Calla was sitting on the arm of Rosalind's chair, laughing at something, a different cup of tea already steaming on the side table.

"Morning," I said, from the doorway.

"Wren!" Rosalind looked pleased enough to see me, at least. "Come in, come in."

"I brought your tea."

"Oh." She glanced at the cup already in front of her, then back at me, and something apologetic crossed her face. "That's so sweet of you, sweetheart, but Calla already made me a cup. Isn't that thoughtful?"

"I remembered you like it strong in the mornings," Calla said, smiling at me like she was including me in something. "Two sugars, right, Mom?"

"Two sugars," Rosalind agreed.

I stood there holding a tray nobody wanted, and it took everything in me not to say that she hadn't taken sugar in her tea in eleven years, not since her doctor put her on the heart medication that didn't mix well with it. Calla didn't know that. Calla didn't know any of it. And Rosalind was drinking it anyway, smiling, like it didn't matter that her daughter, the one who actually paid attention was standing right there.

"I'll just take this back to the kitchen," I said.

"Wren, wait.." Rosalind started, but I was already gone.

The nurse, when I found her changing Rosalind's medication schedule on the wall calendar, didn't recognize me either.

"Can I help you?" she asked, polite but distant, the way you talk to someone you assume works in the house but don't know by name.

"I used to manage her care. Before." I didn't know how else to say it without launching into the whole thing. "I know her medication schedule. If it'd help…"

"Oh, that's all handled." The nurse smiled, kind enough, oblivious. "Miss Calla's very on top of it. She meets with Dr. Ellery every week."

"Right." I nodded like that meant something to me. "Of course."

I found Dr. Ellery himself twenty minutes later in the hallway outside Rosalind's room, and he greeted me the exact same way, warm and clueless, and when I asked about her current dosage he said he'd have to check with Calla, since she was the one who kept track of changes now.

Three people. Three separate conversations. Not one of them had any idea I used to be the one holding that whole system together with both hands.

I went and sat on the back steps behind the kitchen for a while after that, because I didn't know where else to put myself.

The house kept moving around me anyway. Servants hauling crates through the courtyard, somebody hammering something into place near the front gate, banners going up along the drive for the King's visit in a few days. Nobody had a job for me. Nobody expected me to have one. I was just a body taking up space in a house that had already reorganized itself without me.

So when a woman I didn't recognize came rushing past with an armful of linens and shoved half of them into my hands without breaking stride, I just... took them.

"Storage room, second door on the left, thank you so much," she said, already moving on to the next crisis. "We're so behind, I swear, if the King's people show up and find the guest wing half done I will actually lose my mind"

I carried the linens. It gave my hands something to do.

That turned into carrying crates of glassware an hour later, and after that, helping haul furniture into the east sitting room for extra seating, and by midday I'd been handed so many odd jobs by so many new staff who had no clue who I was that I basically become one of them without either of us noticing it happen.

It felt better than sitting on those back steps doing nothing. That was the honest truth of it.

I was hauling a crate of wine glasses through the courtyard, arms straining under the weight, when I ran straight into somebody's shoulder and half the crate nearly went down with me.

"Watch it," a man's voice snapped, catching the crate before it hit the ground. He was tall, built like someone who spent more time fighting than standing still, a scar cutting through one eyebrow. I didn't know him. Something about the way he held himself told me exactly what he was,pack warrior, the kind who took his job seriously enough that it had carved permanent lines into his face.

"Sorry," I muttered, adjusting my grip.

He looked at me properly and I watched recognition land somewhere behind his eyes.

"You're her," he said. "The one who came back from the quarry."

"That's me."

His jaw tightened. "And you're hauling crates."

"Somebody handed them to me. Didn't seem like a good time to argue."

"Is that so?" His voice had gone flat, unreadable, and not in a good way. "Two years locked up for what you did to Calla, and now you're wandering around playing servant girl in front of the whole household right before the King shows up."

"I'm not playing anything."

"Sure you're not." He set the crate down harder than he needed to, glass rattling inside it. "Real convenient, isn't it. Everybody sees the poor broken girl doing menial work with her own hands. Really good look for you."

Something cold settled in my chest. "I don't care what it looks like."

"Yeah?" He stepped closer, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to hold his stare. "I've heard that one before. From people a lot better at lying than you."

I didn't answer him. There wasn't a version of an answer that was going to change what he already believed about me, and I was too tired to waste my breath trying.

He looked at me for a long second, something calculating behind his eyes, like he was already deciding exactly what story he was going to tell everyone else about what he'd just seen.

"Garrett!" Someone called from across the courtyard,a stable hand, waving him toward the front gate. "They need you at the checkpoint!"

He held my gaze another second before he turned and walked off without another word.

Garrett Thorne. I filed the name away. Something told me that wasn't the last conversation we were going to have.