It took weeks for Paloma to leave her room after that first uncomfortable breakfast.

Mostly because she was convinced that, if there were a portal that could take her home, it would appear in her chambers first. Perhaps it would show up somewhere nestled between the folds of her thick covers, or behind the mirror she gazed into with something like awe.

She took the vast majority of her meals in solitude. Molly always whisked the trays away afterward, and kept her clean and tidy while Paloma gazed lifelessly at the driven snow.

But time passed, and nothing changed.

No matter how long she waited, she remained Lady Irina Lis. Her hair was still blonde and her eyes were still an unsettlingly rich cyan color.

To their credit, the Duke and her new “brother” left her alone. She suspected Molly kept them updated on her wellbeing, but Paloma didn’t press her on it.

At the end of her third week, Paloma decided that it was time to try.

___

She adapted.

It was slow-going. She didn’t rejoin the family breakfasts until much later, when whispers of Irina’s mother returning made their rounds, and Molly gently suggested that she at least “meet” her.

Paloma didn’t want to.

In the end, she decided that if she had to meet the storied Duchess, she would rather do it in the company of the only two "family members" here who weren’t entirely strangers to her. It was better than risking a personal visit from the Duchess to her bedroom.

“Irina.”

The moment she stepped over the threshold, a pair of steady green eyes were on her.

Irina’s mother had long, vibrant red hair tied in a neat plait. She’d obviously passed the color on to Artan. Her frame was slight, nearly as swallowed by the sizable dining chairs as Paloma had been, and her dress was a rich emerald color.

The Duke and Artan stopped speaking at the sound of the Duchess’ voice. The servants had already left, and a place setting was neatly prepared for Paloma, like they’d been expecting her.

“Paloma,” the Duke corrected. A little thrill went down Paloma’s spine. “She prefers Paloma, dear. I’m sure you remember how unsettling your first months were. We must give her space to adapt.”

“Of course,” the Duchess said, a sad glimmer in her eyes. “Paloma, my dear, you are welcome to join us. I know you are surely still very ill at ease. We will not bother you, but we would love it if you would eat with us.”

Paloma sat primly in her seat, facing the family. They resumed their conversation as if nothing had happened, discussing the Duchess’ return from visiting her father, Viscount Novak.

“You… were like me?”

Paloma regretted it the moment she said it. The hush that blanketed the table made her too self-conscious to meet their eyes.

“Yes, darling.” The Duchess said, her voice gentle. “I was reborn here, just like you. I woke up as Adela Novak after I died of a brief illness in my original world.”

“And you… never went back?”

The Duchess’ expression was sad. The look she gave Paloma could only be described as “motherly.”

“No, dear. I tried, and I tried. But I could not.”

___

She had a fiancé.

Paloma had suspected that was the case. It would’ve been hard not to notice three carats of brilliant diamond on her ring finger. But she’d hoped that perhaps customs were different here. That a jewel on her hand meant something less serious. Something benign.

Her fiancé was from the Ducal House Rinne.

His name was Einar.

She didn’t know much else about him. Artan spoke fondly of him at breakfast on occasion and the Duke told her, with sadness in his eyes, that he had been coming around the family estate since he was a young boy. Their families were allied and had been for centuries.

Paloma also heard the whispers among the servants about his closeness to Irina herself. They’d been fated to wed since the day they met as children. That was what everyone seemed to think.

“But does Duke Rinne know that… I’m not her?”

Paloma said it suddenly one morning, to the shock of the entire breakfast table. She hadn’t spoken since the Duchess’ first day home, silently joining their meals each morning and eating her breakfast with a curtain of long hair obscuring her eyes.

It had been useful. She’d learned a lot. Some about the Duchess’ prior world, a place a lot like this one. But mostly about the political situation here, and the Lis’ place in it.

The Lis family were one of two Ducal households, the other being the Rinnes. They served at the pleasure of the royal family, currently ruled by King Adilet Kron. The King's house was a long-line of respected monarchs that had held power for many years without serious interference since a long-ago rebellion and civil war.

She had also learned enough to understand why the Rinnes would know their plight. Every other generation, the two Ducal families intermarried with different and distant branches, mixing their lines to secure the peace between the kingdom’s two most powerful households.

When Irina’s father had married Adela, it became important to keep the Rinnes on their side, and to ensure they knew the Novak line — and subsequently, Irina — wasn’t truly tainted by what this world deemed “the madness.”

Given the curse now afflicting the primary Lis line, the prior Duke Rinne had offered their strongest branch to try and weaken its hold.

Einar.

Paloma suspected that the true motivation of the Lis' reveal was also a kindness. To let their friends and allies know what the Novak blood could mean for any future children they may have with the Rinne heir.

“Paloma, dear, why are you asking about Einar?”

The Duchess’ tone sounded perplexed. Paloma flushed. Right, no one had told her, explicitly, anything about the Rinnes. She’d only gleaned it from conversation and observation.

“I heard he was my fiancé.”

The Duke pursed his lips. “Yes, well, he was. Things are rather… complicated right now.”

Paloma’s voice was soft. “So is he not?”

Artan set his spoon down, tapping his mouth with a napkin. “He is, on paper. But Einar and Irina were close. He’s taken her loss very hard. He didn’t have as long as we did to prepare himself.”

Paloma said nothing else, carefully finishing her soup and excusing herself with the polite bow of her head she’d learned from Molly.

___

If breakfast was uncomfortable, the moments between were worse.

At breakfast the Duke and Duchess, as well as Lord Artan, were careful to be genteel and kind. But in the moments between, Paloma had started to glimpse pieces of the grief they kept tucked away.

The quiet sobs in the Duke’s study when she walked by. The aimless wandering of the Duchess at nighttime, lingering at Paloma’s doorway but never knocking. The long stares from Artan when she occasionally did leave her room to visit the library.

It was obvious, and it was heartbreaking.

She could scarcely blame them. For any normal family, living with the perfect doppelganger of their dead daughter and sister must be torture.

Paloma knew her own mother would hardly care, but Ester Beaumont had never been the model of familial affection, anyway.

So Paloma kept herself scarce, out of respect for their mourning. When she did make her occasional trip to the gardens, frigid and barren in the deep winter, she took care to hide her face under the brim of a large hat.

She should have known the tentative peace she’d discovered here, stolen from beneath the pressing grief of Irina Lis’ bereaved family, could never last.

“…Irina?”

She heard the desperate voice behind her one particularly cold morning. It was as deep as it was agonized.

She turned despite herself, weeks of responding to the call of “Lady Irina!” carved into her bones by Molly and the other servants.

She wished she hadn’t.

Duke Einar Rinne was exactly as he’d been described. Tall and lean, with the broad, strapping shoulders of a knight. His hair was tousled and snow white, with a pair of spectacular golden eyes to match. He wore a neat jacket that seemed military in its cut with an array of shiny medals pinned to the lapel.

Despite never seeing his face herself, Paloma knew.

This body knew.

“Duke Rinne,” Paloma said in greeting, with an unpracticed curtsy. Molly had chastised her to mind that she greet anyone not in her immediate family line with one, just in case she’d forgotten that, too. For all the servants knew, her memory had begun to come back in pieces.

“You’re not her.”

His voice was icy. The emotion had fled it instantly, replaced instead with hollow, cold acknowledgment. At his sides, his gloved hands curled into tense fists.

Paloma swallowed heavily. She fiddled with the folds of her dress between her cold fingers, grounding herself with the feeling of the soft fabric. “No, I am not.”

Too much emotion hung in the space of seconds, the silence thick with grief and rage.

“Stay out of my way,” he said. His eyes were angry. “I do not wish to see the interloper who stole my best friend.”

Paloma understood a little something about not wanting to be seen.

“Yes, your Grace,” she said, with a tip of her head, and another curtsy. “Please inform Lord Artan when you intend to visit, and I will remain in my chambers.”

Duke Rinne paused, then shook his head and took off towards the estate. His steps were heavy and angry, crunching the fresh-fallen snow beneath his thick boots.

“See to it that you do.”