Norina still looked at the young lady as if her life was about to end. But the expression on her mistress's face was one of contemplation.

'So I still have a chance?' she thought.

Determined to take that chance, she left the room to get a new set of pajamas from her closet and returned.

Gathering up some of the tools she was going to use anyway, the young maid gave her best reassuring smile. "Let's get you dried off first, my lady."

Celia, lost in thought, was reminded that she hadn't actually been alone in the room. She had to respond somehow, didn't she?

She had missed Pan, he would have told her she was fine. Or maybe he would have kept quiet and just reassured her by being beside her.

"Yes, I'd appreciate that." She didn't like wet socks and wore high boots instead, no matter what the weather was like, so of course she didn't appreciate being completely drenched.

It also reminded her of the moment she had woken up in the body of Rowena, a person she had known for quite some time. Or, well, a "character" rather than a person.

She knew it the moment she had heard the name, even though she could not tell just by looking at her reflection in the mirror.

Rowena Dynari van Varnhagen was a character from a fantasy novel she had read about a year or two ago.

She liked it, so she had read it twice. It was a bestseller, after all, though a bit generic in its plot. It was called "The Saintess' Unbreakable Shield".

'But why did I have to wake up as one of the book's most random plot devices?' The thought brought on a look of something between pure annoyance and apathy that made her maid flinch as she tried to dry her mistress's hair.

In the Saintess' Shield, Rowena had been the character who had received the most criticism. 'While it was popular for having characters who acted mostly natural in most situations, despite it being sort of a fairytale, Rowena was a wet blanket.' Celia couldn't really wrap her mind around it.

Maybe she was simply too young to understand. But Rowena was a character who was thrown into the story as a disposable obstacle to get the hero and heroine to notice each other for the first time. After that, she was supposed to marry the unsightly tyrant of the neighboring empire, but died unexpectedly of pneumonia before that could happen. 'Saved by the plot, I guess?' Celia commented in her mind. 'But why have her, if you don't even need her?'

There was a story to all of this. Celia had met Sarah Dent, the author of the book, before it was even written. At the time, she had held her hands together, much like a religious believer, and told the child that she considered her to be her muse. She then sent her an autographed copy of the book, which later turned out to be a huge success.

When asked about her, the author would always claim that Rowena was a pitiful character, though most readers would perceive her as a minor villain. She would insist that she was important to the plot and to the relationship between the protagonists.

'Except that it was the Emperor who pressed for their marriage, so it did fuck all for their progress.' That fact made Celia roll her eyes while Norina put away the hairdryer, which had a steampunk-like edge to it while being powered by a mana stone built into the device.

After that, Norina helped her into her fresh clothes, a simple white gown, but made of a high quality fabric that felt good.

Another factor of this story that was rather difficult to understand: Who was Rowena really?

At this point Celia was at her wits' end as she followed Norina into the bedroom and sat down on a soft couch with a coffee table. Once again, the maid had left her alone after excusing herself for a moment.

It all felt too real. Until she'd heard that name, she'd never believed she was in a dream, so saying now that she was surely dreaming wasn't even convincing to her own ears.

"I felt pain as soon as I opened my eyes. I'm still in pain. I'm not going to pinch myself now," she muttered in her raspy voice.

Her throat must have taken a hit from all the water she had to vomit and the accompanying coughing fits. Her hand went up to her collarbone, pressing lightly against her own skin as she continued to clear her throat.

The door opened after a few seconds, as she put her hand back down and began to fiddle with the soft hem of her nightgown's long sleeve.

She hadn't felt cold after waking up, even though she was wet. Still, there was this lingering chill in her body that she couldn't quite place. It felt strangely familiar, though different from the way her features felt familiar.

It would be best to try to understand her situation better. Why was Rowena so thin? She had never been described that way, but people had called her appearance "ghostly". So her sickly countenance was what they had meant.

Celia knew Rowena had problems with her family. The blatant disrespect of what could only be assumed to be her nanny, if her experience reading historical fantasy novels served her right, as well as the gossiping maids around her made her status abundantly clear.

'She must have been abused,' she thought, shaking her head subconsciously as she saw the maids, who had entered a moment ago, place some plates and silverware on the table in front of her, 'or maybe not?'

A nutritious meal revealed itself to her astonishment. The scent that tickled her nostrils made her mouth water and her stomach growl in appreciation.

Not only was she thin, she felt emaciated at this point. Gladly, she took her spoon to try what looked like a soup with vegetables in it.

It felt like that would be the most agreeable with her sore throat, but her mind lingered on a juicy looking steak a few inches to the right.

"Please eat it well, my lady," Norina remarked, while the second maid, who had come in with a cart of food, just stood there silently with her eyes closed.

"I will," she replied politely, but not in a way that would indicate that she was of a lower status.

Nobles had to maintain dignity after all, right? Even though she had no idea how she had gotten into this position, she had to fill the shoes now. At least until she could figure out what this was all about.

While she ate her soup, trying to keep some kind of manners, even though she didn't really know anything about those, she felt better and better. Also more and more tired.

She wanted to eat the steak, but after a bite she had to opt for the delicious vegetables on the side, because the pain wouldn't let her go that far. She was also starting to feel a little queasy.

But that was enough for her. If Rowena got this treatment all the time, how did she end up like this?

She wiped her mouth with a napkin, then looked at her two maids for the first time and flinched.

Both young women had been staring at her without thinking to hide it; the new servant, Ava, was downright shocked. That made Celia even more wary.

"What is it? Was I not supposed to eat this?" She cocked an eyebrow at them, trying to read their intentions.

Too bad she was never any good at it, though she had gotten keener over the years.

Good thing she didn't have to use her own CPU too much, because Norina eased her burden by chiming in while Ava was still speechless.

"Of course not, my lady! We are glad you ate so well this time," she said enthusiastically, "we would be thrilled if you would continue to do so in the future."

Another unpleasant feeling hit Celia like a frying pan to the face.

With that, Ava finally broke out of her stupor. "We handed you your sleeping medication earlier. Did you need more?"

'Sleeping medication?' Since Celia knew almost nothing about the character that Rowena was, she had no idea that she took drugs to sleep. But if she had already taken them, why was she awake?

'No, wait, I wasn't originally awake, was I?'

The terrible feeling she had before was about to pay off, she feared.

So she asked what she had wanted to ask anyway: "Can you get everything ready for an outing tomorrow? I want to have a look around the capital."

Norina, who was busy putting the plates back on the cart, paused in her actions to give a dumbfounded expression. "But, my lady, I'm afraid we can't let you. The Grand Duke's orders are absolute."

"Orders?"

"As delighted as we are to hear of your ambitions," Ava began, "we cannot let you out of the annex for the next three weeks, my lady."

It was at that moment that Celia, no, Rowena had finally caught on. This was shortly after the beginning of the novel, when Rowena had been grounded for her transgression against the newly appointed Saintess, Scarlett Raylee Baldwin, the only daughter of the Marquis of Baldwin.

She read a lot of books like that - transmigration stories with people who woke up as characters from books they had read. Though she had trouble believing that this was something that could actually occur, this was surely the closest thing to compare to her current situation.

Celia always admired those protagonists for their epic memory abilities, because she didn't have them. It would have been much harder to tell what part of the book this was if there hadn't been such an obvious clue.

"Right, I was grounded." About one week after being grounded for a month, only one big event had happened in the book after all.

There was a small pang in her heart as she had to admit the truth about what might have happened to her. Rowena had asked for sleeping medication, but hadn't even changed into her pajamas. Instead, she went and took a bath - all alone and in her indoor attire. Was it really just because she was the Grand Duke's crazy daughter? The eccentric annex lady?

That lingering feeling Celia... no, Rowena had in her limbs; a kind of coldness she couldn't quite explain. When she was still Celia, she had had the same feeling just before she woke up in this mess, for it was the cold feeling of death.

Her face distorted from her understanding of the situation. 'So that's what they call pneumonia around here, huh? I guess 'suicide' isn't such a nice word.'