Author's Preface
“She’s quite upset with you,” Mom says. “Both of you. And I don’t blame her.”
I have not heard most of her conversation with Thorunn and Moretti. They arrived at my house about two hours after I did (since I took public transport, but they had to walk). When they arrived, I did not come down to greet them. Instead, Mom let them in and treated them to all the formalities of a gentlewoman host. No doubt that, while she entertained them in the parlor, they gave her all the excuses they gave me. None of it will be new to her. I’ve already told her everything.
I have lain in bed since I got home, with my second-story window cracked to allow in the fresh sea breeze. I do not feel well. It was a long and sleepless night for me. Perhaps I drift off here in my bed, but I am not sure, as it seems only a second has passed after I closed my eyes that I overhear Mom’s voice from the front porch below. She must be escorting them out.
“Yes, but what can we do?” Moretti asks.
“My lady, I can’t leave this unresolved,” says Thorunn. “I leave in five days. I must speak to her.”
“Just give her time,” Mom replies. “Time, and space. If it can’t be resolved in five days…I don’t know what to tell you.”
After they leave, all is quiet for a while. A minute later, Mom knocks on my door.
“You okay, sweetie?” she asks.
I groan and roll over, pulling the covers tight around me. “What do you think?”
She smiles wanly and sits on the edge of the bed. “Fair enough. Stupid question. Those two are dense as bricks.”
“Ugh! I can’t stand them right now!” A thought occurs to me, and I glance over her shoulder at the open door. “Edgar’s not still here, is he?”
“No. I sent him back to the palace—he’s inviting the boys on a quick hunting trip, hoping to get through to them that way.”
I frown. “My dad…hunting?”
“Oh gods, he’s terrible at it,” Mom giggles.
“How terrible?”
“He has no sense of direction. He can barely ride a horse. And he feels guilty after shooting anything, even if he didn’t hit it, because ‘scaring the animal is just as cruel.’”
Despite myself, I laugh too. I never imagined that Edgar had such a soft spot for animals.
“Unless your two gentlemen can teach him not to scare off all the game, I doubt they’ll actually hunt—probably just amble aimlessly until the forest rangers get worried. But he’s agreed to chat with them, maybe give them some advice from the male point of view.”
I roll over again to raise an eyebrow at her. “You’re both trying to fix this, huh?”
“If Thorunn leaves before you resolve it,” she tells me, “you’ll feel awful.”
She’s right. The deadline hangs over me like a stormcloud. But the pressure of needing to resolve this fight quickly makes it even more difficult to think about.
“I wanted to ask you something, Ellie,” Mom says softly.
“What is it?”
“Who are you doing this for?”
“Doing what?”
“This. All of this.” She gestures around to the room. “Your father and I. The petition. ‘Elizabeth.’ At first I assumed this was just part of your plan, some way to…immunize us from what happened in your past life. But it’s more than that now, isn’t it?”
I ponder her question for a long time. Slowly, I sit up in bed, letting the back of my head roll against the bedframe. “I want to think it’s a part of it,” I finally reply. “A sort of unintended consequence. When I first started making plans, doing research on regression, I could never have imagined a…literal fucking cage fight between my two male love interests. Or a proxy engagement between my fiancé and a fake, nonexistent girl I made up. So I don’t know who this is for, Mom. It’s just what’s happening.”
“Elizabeth is certainly causing a lot of problems,” she agrees. “And she’s not even real.”
She sighs. Then:
“I don’t have to marry Edgar, you know.”
“What?”
“That part of the petition—reinstating our marriage, declaring you a legitimate child. We don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to,” she says matter-of-factly. “What if we cut out that part of the petition and just focus on getting the money, like you wanted to at first?”
I don’t believe what I am hearing. I shake my head incredulously. “Mama, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying this doesn’t have to be your problem. I don’t want to drag you into the Royal Family if it’ll just hurt you. Marriage for the Family is a political game; even for your father and I, we’re just playing a little different than most people do. But you don’t have to do that. You are not just the Grand Duchess; you are my daughter. ”
“That’s out of the question,” I retort. “All you’ve ever wanted was to reunite with my father.”
“Yes—and I have!” she laughs breathily. “You fixed it, Ellie. I’m happy with this. If Edgar and I can’t marry, it’s not the end of the world.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“We have each other, we have you, and that’s what matters. My dreams shouldn’t trample over yours.”
“And I got my dream,” I respond. “In my last life. That was my dream. To see the world. To be richer than a king. To become powerful. I achieved that dream, and I loved every minute of it! But the gods didn’t send me back to fulfill my dreams a second time. They sent me back to fulfill yours.”
Desperate to get across to her, I lean over and clasp both of her hands in mine. She is stunned to silence.
“Mama. You’ve lived your whole life in sacrifice to others. To Edgar, and to me. Just this once, let me sacrifice for you.”
“Ellie—”
Mom throws her arms around me. She is trying very desperately not to, but I can feel that she is crying. There was a time when I dreaded to hear my mother cry. It was almost always some guilt trip to convince me that my father was real, not just an insane delusion of hers.
But this cry is different. There is something mournful and haunting in it. It is the cry of a little girl. An orphaned little girl, alone in a foreign country, starved and worked to the bone, wishing desperately for a better life—a life as far away as the homeland she would never see again.
“You deserve to be a princess,” I whisper in her ear. “And I am going to make you one, no matter what the cost.”
On Monday morning, I arrive at Moretti’s office at eight o’clock sharp. He is late. When he finally limps inside at a quarter past, leaning on a cane for support, I make a show of looking at my pocketwatch.
“You’re late, counsel,” I tell him.
“Baroness,” he says stiffly. “I don’t recall scheduling a meeting.”
“You didn’t.” I open the door for him, then follow him inside and place a packet of paper on his desk. “This is on my time. I can offer a flat rate of two hundred obols, take it or leave it.”
Moretti frowns, thoroughly confused. I can tell that this is not what he was expecting his first conversation with me to be after I left him and Thorunn stranded in the industrial district, especially as he is still clearly suffering the sacrifice of spiritus vitae . But the mention of money lights a curious spark in his eye. With a grunt of pain, he sits at his desk, puts on his spectacles, and glances over the papers.
“Two hundred obols,” he echoes. “And where might you have gotten that pretty sum?”
I smile stiffly. “A young man won it in a pit fight and gave it to me as a gift.”
He mutters something along the lines of “must I truly battle twice for the same payout” but the papers seem to genuinely draw his interest. He raises an eyebrow as he finishes the first page. Then he flips to the next. And the next. I leave him to his new task and grab coffee for the both of us.
By the time I have returned, Moretti is deep into his work. He has two different legal treatises open on his desk and a notepad between them, flipping through my draft contract with one hand and taking notes with the other. “There is another timeline in which you become a vicious transactional lawyer,” he comments without looking up.
“What if I told you there is another timeline in which I became a real estate mogul?”
“Heh. I’d believe it.”
After a few more minutes, where I enjoy my coffee and his grows cold, Moretti finally reaches the end and nods in satisfaction.
“It’s good. It’s very good. It’s…unconventional, that’s for sure, but so is your situation. I assume you’ve already talked to the Jarl?”
“Not yet,” I respond. “I wanted to make sure it was legally sound before I floated it to him.”
“Sound? I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it. But it’s certainly good. ” He clicks his tongue. “Intimidation is a not-insignificant factor in contract disputes. I reckon they would take one look at this thing, then another look at you, and think, ‘I do not want to argue with someone crazy enough to make a monster marriage contract like this.’ Hells, I’m thinking that right now. How the fuck do you know all of this?”
“I read the papers. I watch stocks. They all have patterns, once you learn how to spot them.”
“I’m starting to think you were serious about being a real estate mogul.”
I shrug. He flips to another page, marveling at it, before glancing up again.
“And you wrote all of this last night?” he asks, incredulous.
“I did, yes.”
“Did you sleep at all?”
“Not a wink.”
“I’m terrified of you. Genuinely. And I think it’s going to work.” Moretti folds his hands. “When do you need it?”
“As soon as possible,” I say. “End of the day tomorrow.”
“How about Thursday?”
“Wednesday by five o’clock.”
“Done.”
He holds out his hand, and we shake on it. As I turn to leave, Moretti adds, “Oh—one more thing, my lady.”
I turn. He begins by meeting my eyes, but very quickly, has to pull his gaze away.
“I’m sorry about everything. Truly.”
I wave my hand. “If that contract is on my desk by noon on Wednesday,” I reply, walking out the door, “I’ll forgive you sooner.”
Moretti grins. “You drive a hard bargain, Baroness,” he calls after me. Then, half to himself, he shakes his head and snickers, “That Jarl doesn’t even know he’s won the lottery.”