Chapter 1 – The Last Page I Ever Read
I died on a Tuesday.
Not dramatically, not in a hail of bullets like I always half-joked I would.
Just a stupid traffic light, a delivery truck that ran the red, and the sudden, absurd realisation that the last thing I would ever see was the cover of a webnovel glowing on my phone screen.
The title was something ridiculous:
The Saintess's Pure-White Smile Will Save the Kingdom!
I remember snarling, "Bullshit," right before the world went black.
Then it went white.
Too white.
Chandelier-white. Perfume-and-roses-white. The kind of white that belongs to ballrooms you only see in period dramas.
My ears rang with string music. Hundreds of silk skirts rustled like restless birds. A thousand candles burned above me, dripping wax that never seemed to fall.
I blinked.
My hands were wrong.
Small. Pale. Manicured. A silver tray balanced on my gloved fingertips, trembling just enough to make the crystal glasses chime.
I was wearing a maid's uniform.
Black dress, crisp white apron, lace cap pinned to hair that definitely wasn't my military buzz cut.
And I was standing in the exact centre of the graduation ball of Saintess Lilia Royal Academy, three steps behind a girl whose crimson gown looked like spilled blood under the lights.
Lady Evelyn de Clermont.
The villainess.
The girl whose engagement was about to be publicly shattered in front of the entire aristocracy.
The girl whose loyal, nameless maid (me) would die shielding her from assassins on a muddy road in exactly six months.
I knew, because I had just finished the final chapter five seconds before I died.
The Crown Prince's voice rang out across the ballroom, cold and theatrical.
"Lady Evelyn de Clermont!"
Every head turned. The music stopped mid-note.
I felt Evelyn's spine stiffen in front of me. The long train of her gown brushed my ankles like a warning.
I should have been panicking.
Instead, something ancient and soldier-calm clicked into place inside my chest.
Inventory:
One body that isn't mine.
One silver tray with six glasses of sparkling rosé.
One villainess who is about to have her life destroyed.
One future where we both die screaming.
Unacceptable.
The prince kept talking, words I could quote by heart: cruelty, harassment of the saintess, immediate dissolution of the engagement.
The crowd gasped on cue.
Evelyn's shoulders began to shake, tiny, almost invisible tremors.
Her gloved hand, hanging at her side, brushed the air once. Searching.
I shifted the tray to my left hand and let my right fall.
Her fingers found mine instantly.
She squeezed once, hard, like someone drowning grabbing a rope.
I squeezed back twice.
I'm here.
I'm not letting go.
The prince finished. The heroine (blonde, teary-eyed, perfect) dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief that probably cost more than a house.
Silence stretched until it hurt.
In the original novel, Evelyn screamed here. Slapped the saintess. Sealed her fate.
Instead, Evelyn lifted her chin.
The chandelier light caught the sharp line of her cheekbone, the glittering crimson of her eyes.
She looked like a queen about to burn the world down.
And I (tiny, breakable, ridiculous in my maid's cap) felt something ignite behind my ribs so fiercely it almost felt like pain.
The prince sneered. "Have you nothing to say, Lady Evelyn?"
Evelyn's voice came out low, steady, beautiful.
"I have nothing to say to liars."
The ballroom erupted.
I smiled.
It was the smile I used to give right before a night raid. The one that made my squad call me demon.
I didn't know this body could make it, but it did.
Evelyn's fingers tightened around mine again.
Round one, motherfuckers.
Let's begin.