It was truly quite simple what was happening to Ericka Elayne. She was in the act of dying.

No, that was far too passive a word to properly explain what she was going through.

She was being murdered.

Yes, that was the right phrase.

Murdered by the very serial killer she had spent weeks and months profiling and tracking down, until it was as if she knew him better than she knew her own parents. 

She’d known going undercover, disguised as the kind of prostitute she knew he loved to target the most, had been risky in more ways than one, and over the past month she had arrested more men soliciting services than anything else. Tonight, she’d thought to herself, would be no different.

Until she laid eyes on him, a man with wavy black hair, nearly six feet tall, approximately 160 pounds, wearing the clothes of the upper class. When she walked up to him and began to talk to him, she instantly knew he was nobility of some kind. The son of a wealthy businessman, most likely. He was not the first man she’d thought matched her profile, but he was the first to match it so exactly.

Too exactly, she now knew.

He’d disabled her quickly. In the split second she had turned her back to him and began to lure him back to her apartment to arrest him, he had suddenly grabbed her by the back of the neck and slammed her forehead first into the brick wall.

She had known he was a bold man, impulsive and bloodthirsty, but she hadn’t thought he would be so brash as to hurt her in the first dark alleyway she led him down, where anyone could spot the two of them.

It’s truly pure, dumb luck that he hasn’t been caught yet, she thought foggily, her mind groggy and strange from blood loss, the crimson liquid pouring into her eyes.

When she had fallen, the dark wig she’d worn had slipped off of her head, revealing the short red tresses she’d been hiding. 

“A cop, are we?” she’d heard him hiss angrily, and despite herself, she mentally protested against his accusation. She was a private investigator, thank you very much. Not a policewoman. 

But she hadn’t been able to verbalize such thoughts, not when he grabbed her around the waist and threw her on her back while covering her mouth to muffle her screams, all while tearing out his blade, a large butcher’s knife.

She had expected him to rape her like he usually did with his other victims. That was his MO: incapacitate the prostitutes by inducing a head injury, rape them, then kill them by stabbing them to death and tearing out their organs.

But he didn’t, not this time.

“Damned cop,” he growled with each stab he took. “Making my job so bloody difficult, damn it.” Even while in the act of murdering another human being, he was still speaking like someone raised in the upper echelons. 

It briefly occurred to Ericka, even as her vision darkened around the corners, that this was her best possible chance to profile him, even though she knew such observations would be completely useless. Nobody could survive this many stab wounds.

He was a messy killer, she noted, as he struck her in the ribcage. No medical experience. Even though he had killed over five women, six if you counted her, he killed as if he had next to no experience. 

He was frantic and angry. Angry at women in general. The way he was muttering, he found prostitutes and police officers equally filthy, how interesting. 

Her thoughts began to dissolve, becoming less organized. Her heartbeat was steadily slowing, but increasing in loudness.

The man rose from above her, emanating the stench of blood. Her blood. Carelessly, he took out a handkerchief and swiped it up and down the blade, splattering her with the liquid. 

He said something to her, but she did not make out what he was saying. His voice was too far away, too blurry.

And then she opened her eyes, seeing nothing but darkness, and heard a voice wailing, “Oh, somebody, somebody, please save me, I don’t want to die, not like this!”

Neither do I, Ericka found herself thinking bitterly. Nobody wants to die. 

But somehow, that strange voice, she heard it whisper back to her, “Please help me, not like this, please…”

Against her better judgement, Ericka found herself reaching out towards the voice, and suddenly, a hand grabbed hers in return. The grip was tight as a vice. 

“Thank you,” the voice told her, and suddenly pain erupted in Ericka’s lungs, burning and hot. She took one deep breath after another, it was as if she hadn’t breathed in years.

“Calandra!” She heard a voice, a different voice, cry out in relief. “Oh thank god, oh thank god, you’re alive.”

Ericka did not have the chance to wonder who this Calandra girl was before she became acutely aware of the taste on her tongue. A bitter, but slightly salty taste, and above that, an almost overpowering flavor of pure sugar. 

She knew this taste, she knew it well, from years ago, when she was a new private eye, testing herself with poisons, forcing herself to improve immunity.

Meave. A bitter poison that with just the right amount of sugar, could be explained as a flavoring in tea or cakes, and usually, when consumed in a high enough dosage, was utterly fatal.

“Poison!” she found herself croaking out, but the voice that came from between her lips was one she did not recognize. Instead of the smoky, almost masculine voice she had, this was high and clear, an actress’ voice, a singer’s voice. Feminine and young.

“What?” that other voice asked, and slowly, Ericka’s vision started to swim into place.

She was in a lavender room, she quickly noted. Lavender with soft pastel pink colors, and pale minty blue. Very pretty, but judging by the chandelier and canopy over her bed, expensive.

This was not Ericka’s room, and certainly no hospital room she could afford. No, this had to be some wealthy girl’s home, an upper class woman, or…

Ericka gulped.

Even nobility. 

She turned to face the woman sitting next to her, an older woman with frizzy gray hair pulled away to show a kindly, heart shaped face.

“A mirror,” she gasped, and the woman blinked. 

“Beg pardon, Lady Calandra?” she asked softly.

“I need a mirror…” Ericka trailed off, realizing she did not know this woman’s name.

Maude, a voice, the voice Ericka had heard in the strange darkness, whispered in her ear.

“Ms. Maude,” Ericka finished, and the woman’s eyes widened as if she had never heard that name before. It made Ericka’s stomach dip, but then she smiled at her.

“One moment, my lady,” she told her as she rose from her seat before returning with a hand held mirror.

Ericka could not believe her eyes as she took the mirror from Maude. 

For the girl in the mirror now was not the woman Ericka usually saw. She did not see her short red hair, her soft face, or brown eyes.

She saw blue tinted lavender hair and a thin, delicate face and green eyes, all on the face of a girl that had to be around seventeen or eighteen at the very most.

This was too real to be a dream, and besides, Ericka never lucid dreamed. Just the very thought was enough to tell her this was her reality.

This led her to one strange conclusion.

That she had died and been brought back to life, but inside the wrong body.

The body of a noblewoman.