Morning began with the same ritual: a maid she didn't recgonize drawing the curtains open without a word, sunlight spilling across her face, the faint scent of polished wood and rosewater.

The maids never lasted more than a day.

They came and went like changing wallpaper       new voices, new faces, each one careful not to meet her eyes for too long. Mina quickly realized it wasn't because of her, excatly. It was because of the Seraphine they thought she was.

By mid-morning, she was permitted to walk in the garden. The Duke's estate grounds were grand enough to swallow a city block, but for her, it was a gilded cage. There were no visits to the city. No guests. No family at the breakfast table     or any table.

She asked once, out of habit, where her father was. The maid froze, stammered something about "urgent matters" and "Your Grace will be informed you asked," and scurried away.

After that, she stopped asking.

The stables were the only place that felt alive. The horses flicked their ears and snorted when she approached, unbothered by her presence. The hounds wagged their tails, pressing noses into her hands, entirely ignorant of the fact that she was supposed to be the terror of the estate.

Mina started spending hours there. not really thinking, just brushing manes or watching the dogs doze in straw. It wasn't about kindness. It was jujst the only place that didn't feel like being watched.

Sometimes, in the silence, she wondered about the original Seraphine. Maybe being locked away with no friends, no affetion, no anyone but strangers who came and went like clockwork would crack anyone eventually. Maybe all she could control was how people left her     forcing goodbyes, treating the servants like playthings she could discard.

No toys. No laughter. No real family. Just endless rooms, endless silence.

Mina couldn't forgive her    she'd read enough to know the orginal Seraphine's hands were bloody, not just metaphorically. But for the first time, she could imagine what kind of hollow, ugly place her heart must have lived in.

And the days kept dripping by,