Chapter 4

That was the night the original character was supposed to die, thrown out into the rain.

From the moment I'd transmigrated in, I'd made a point of keeping my distance from Nathaniel, my nominal brother.

I'd been dripping poison in my parents' ears since I was small, too—telling them a real man ought to make his mark protecting the realm, that a house like ours needed real accomplishments to keep its title secure, that Grandfather had won his rank on horseback and it was a shame to let his old sword gather dust.

Apparently, my father dreamed that very night of his own father chasing him around with a stick.

The next day, Nathaniel was shipped off to the border. He didn't come home once in three years.

Even for this presentation ball, all he sent was a servant bearing ten pairs of frontier-carved emerald bracelets.

I was curious what Ivy could possibly improvise without Nathaniel around to use.

Turned out, people can be reborn, but their wits don't come back with them.

…

Ivy had never gone through the kind of proper training a noble daughter received. She hadn't read any scheming-household dramas either.

Her repertoire of tricks, apparently, began and ended right about here.

The moment my dress got splashed by a maid I didn't recognize, I knew. It had started.

I set off toward my assigned room with my personal maid at my side. Partway down a quiet stretch of corridor, another maid came hurrying up, begging mine for help.

"Please, Lady Griffith needs you—something about a missing hairpin for Lady Ivy."

My maid glanced at me. I nodded.

"Go on. I can find my own way to the room."

Reassured, my maid hurried off.

I walked the rest of the corridor alone, my steps unhurried.

When I reached the door, I didn't push straight in—I paused first and listened.

Heavy breathing came from inside.

I opened the door.

Ivy was there. She looked at me with pure venom.

"Did you really think I was stupid? You knew I'd been reborn, so of course you'd expect the same old tricks and prepare for them ahead of time. Celeste, you're as good as dead."

The words had barely left her mouth when noise erupted at the door.

Ivy's eyes lit up. From somewhere, she produced a dagger and plunged it into her own chest.

"Help! Help me! Celeste is trying to kill me!"

She staggered toward the door and collapsed straight into my mother's arms as it opened.

"Ivy! What— what happened to you!" My mother nearly jumped out of her skin at the blood soaking Ivy's dress.

"Someone get the physician! Where's the physician! Hurry!"

Ivy shook her head weakly, then, with visible effort, pulled a bloodstained doll from inside her robe.

"Celeste… Celeste resents that she isn't one of the fated daughters, that she can never marry into the royal family... so she made this cursed poppet of the Crown Prince. I caught her... and she tried to silence me for it."

I looked at Ivy's performance and pointed at myself, unable to help it.

"Me?"

Ivy ignored me completely, gazing up at my mother with an expression of pure fragility.

My mother's tearful face froze solid.

"You're saying... Celeste cursed the Crown Prince because she can't marry into the royal family?"

Ivy, utterly oblivious to the strange look on my mother's face, didn't notice the sisters behind us either, all of them fighting not to burst out laughing.

She simply stared, full of feeling, at the man standing at the back of the crowd—the Crown Prince.

"Yes... yes. I beg the Crown Prince not to hold this against the Griffith house. Celeste isn't truly of Griffith blood—whatever she's done has nothing to do with this family..."

Under the weight of Ivy's expectant gaze, the Crown Prince parted the crowd and stepped forward.