I spent the entire morning locked in my room, unable to look away from the girl staring back at me in the mirror.
She looked so damn innocent. Soft cheeks still rounded with the last traces of baby fat I knew I'd lose after my mother's illness. Hazel eyes that used to beg for scraps of approval from anyone who would give them. Chestnut hair falling loose and unstyled, catching faint gold in the sunlight streaming through the yellow curtains.
The small scar on my left palm — the one from shattered glass the night Margaret first moved in — was gone. But the memory burned fresh anyway. The raised voices. The way my father chose silence over defending me. The way I started shrinking to make room for the new "family."
I touched my cheek, half expecting the reflection to flinch. It didn't. This body was eighteen. Hopeful. Clumsy. Desperate to be seen and loved.
My mind was twenty-four. Scarred. Widowed by betrayal. Pushed off a balcony while rain soaked through my wedding dress and my half-sister smiled behind my murderer.
"You're not her anymore," I whispered, voice cracking just a little. "She died that night. You're what crawled back out."
My hands trembled as I picked up the hairbrush. Every motion felt borrowed, like I was wearing someone else's skin. This version of me still remembered how to blush at compliments and apologize for existing. The version in my head only remembered the cold press of the railing against my back, Alexander's calm face, and the glint of my mother's pearls around Clara's neck.
A soft knock on the door yanked me out of the spiral.
"Evelyn? Sweetheart, can I come in?"
My mother.
My chest tightened so hard I almost couldn't breathe. I crossed the room and opened the door before my brain caught up. She stepped inside carrying a small tray with tea and her homemade biscuits — the ones she always brought when she sensed I was hurting.
She looked exactly as I remembered from before the sickness stole her strength. Warm brown eyes, dark hair without a single grey strand yet, hands steady as she set the tray on my desk. The scent of bergamot and vanilla wrapped around me like a blanket I thought I'd never feel again.
"You've been so quiet since breakfast," she said, her gaze sweeping over my face the way only mothers can — seeing everything and pretending not to. "Is it the gala this weekend? Or… something to do with Clara?"
I almost laughed, bitter and sharp. In my first life I had brushed off her concerns, called her paranoid, defended the woman who would later help kill me. I had been so blind.
"Both, maybe," I answered carefully, perching on the edge of the bed. My fingers twisted in the quilt. "Clara's… not what I expected."
My mother's lips pressed into a thin line. She sat beside me and took my hand. Her skin was warm. Alive. Not the paper-thin, cold fingers I had held in a hospital room years from now.
"She and her mother move fast," she murmured, voice low like we were sharing secrets. "I see how Margaret looks at this house. Like she's already measuring the curtains. And Clara…" A tired sigh escaped her. "She watches you the way a cat watches a bird. Like you're competition, not family."
I squeezed her hand harder than I meant to. The urge to spill everything — the wedding, the push, the pearls, the fall — rose so violently I had to bite the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.
In the old timeline I had defended them. Never again.
"I won't let them take anything that matters," I said. The words came out low and fierce, edged with something colder than my eighteen-year-old voice should have held.
She studied me for a long, quiet moment. "You sound different today, Evelyn. Older. Like you've seen things you shouldn't have."
My stomach twisted into knots. I couldn't tell her. Not the truth about dying. Not yet. Maybe never. "Just a bad dream last night. It felt too real. That's all."
She didn't look convinced, but she pulled me into a side hug anyway, her chin resting on my hair. "Then let's make today better. Come on — let's go through your wardrobe for the Blackwood Charity Gala. You should wear something that makes you feel powerful, not invisible."
We spent the next hour surrounded by silk and taffeta. I pushed aside the pale pink gown I had worn in my first life — the one that had made Alexander look at me like easy prey. Instead, my fingers lingered on a deeper emerald green silk. It hugged my small frame, brought out the shifting gold and green in my hazel eyes, and made me look… sharper. Less breakable.
My mother raised an eyebrow, a small smile tugging at her lips. "Bold choice. You've always leaned toward softer colors before."
"I'm tired of blending into the wallpaper," I said, holding the dress up to my body. "Let them see me this time."
Pride flickered across her face, warm and bright enough to make my chest ache. "Good. The world already has too many wallflowers."
Later, when I was alone again, I sat at my desk and forced myself to breathe slowly. Alexander would start circling soon — flowers, charming smiles, lies wrapped in silk. Clara would begin her quiet campaign, little comments designed to chip away at me until I disappeared from my own life. My father would choose the path of least resistance, as always.
And Damian Blackwood…
I closed my eyes, and his face surfaced unbidden. Those winter-grey eyes across a crowded room. The low, serious warning I had laughed off as jealousy. The guilt I only learned about after he found my broken body on the pavement below the balcony.
This time I would listen. I had to.
But how do you thank a man for trying to save you from a future he doesn't even remember living through?
I opened my eyes and met the reflection again. The girl looking back wasn't soft or pleading anymore.
She was calculating. Patient. Dangerous.
A weapon forged in silence and second chances.
And she was done being overlooked.
But as I turned away from the mirror, a chill crawled down my spine. From downstairs came the sound of light, tinkling laughter — Clara's voice, sweet as poisoned honey, already weaving itself into the fabric of my home.
She was here. Already moving pieces I couldn't yet see.
And somewhere in the distance, the Blackwood Gala waited like a stage set for the first real move in a game I refused to lose again.