It hurt.

She wasn’t sure where it hurt, exactly, just that it did. Ceaseless and sharp. She tried to cry out but her face felt loose and damp.

“Paloma!”

“Adora, don’t look at her face, dear. She —”

Paloma heard a sound like retching. Her little sister sobbed something she could scarcely make out over the roaring of blood in her ears. Her mother’s voice was vacant and dreamy, murmuring soothing things in the same tone she’d always saved for Dora and Dora alone.

The night air felt cold against the skin on her legs, which were bent unnaturally at the knee.

The last thing she heard was sirens.

___

“My lady?”

The first thing Paloma noticed as she brushed against the edge of consciousness was how cold her feet were.

She blinked her heavy eyes open. Her toes were peeking out from beneath an unusual white duvet that she didn’t recognize. The fabric was strangely smooth against her skin.

A petite girl peeked at her from the edge of her mattress. Her hair was short and brown, tucked neatly behind her heavily freckled ears. “My lady, you need to dress. It’s nearly breakfast.”

Paloma hesitated.

My lady?

Her family was wealthy, but nothing like this. Servants didn’t wake them up for breakfast, and certainly not servants in uniform.

Paloma propped herself up on one elbow, glancing down with a frown when she didn’t find the usual ache there. She’d had trouble with her elbow since she was young, why didn’t it ache now? “Who are you?”

The girl blinked and took a step back, tilting her head curiously. “What do you mean, Lady Irina?”

Paloma quirked a brow. “Irina?”

The servant’s tone was concerned. “My lady, what are you —”

Paloma shoved her covers away with force, shot to her feet and dashed toward an ornate mirror opposite her luxurious bed.

That was not her mirror.

And…oh.

That was not her face.

That blonde hair, those cyan eyes—those weren’t hers. Paloma had dark hair, dark eyes, and a scar an inch above her lip. It was all gone, gone, gone.

“Who am I?” Paloma knew her tone was hollow, but she couldn’t help it. After all, how was she even whole? Hadn’t her legs been warped and bloody? Hadn’t her face been crushed? You didn’t come out the other side of a fall from the fifth floor window in one piece.You came out like the panes of glass she was launched through: Shattered.

“Lady Irina, is this some sort of odd joke?” Her servant’s face had flushed, her hands wringing together in front of her stomach. “You’re rarely this unkind!”

Paloma took a slow breath, staring down at her nails. They were soft pink, long and round. She had chewed her own nails down to the quick — these weren’t hers. None if it was. “What’s your name?”

“Molly!” The girl insisted, with an almost petulant frown. She caught herself, schooling her expression. “My name is Molly, my lady. Do you truly not remember? I have served you since last year.”

“Molly, I think something is terribly wrong.” Paloma glanced up at her. “I do not know where we are. I do not know you.”

“Oh,” the maid wailed, a hand flying to her mouth. “Oh, something must have happened! I will fetch the physician. Just wait!”

And suddenly, she was alone.

Paloma tucked the silken skirt of her night dress beneath her legs, sat in front of the mirror, and stared.

Who was she?

She was not herself. She knew that much.

The slick fabric between her fingers told her she wasn’t dreaming. Dreams were not this vivid. Dreams didn’t give you ice-cold stone beneath your skin and rattling windows that made your ears ring.

Where was she?

It was nowhere she recognized. Certainly not her family home on the bay.

She… she had died, hadn’t she? The pain of her fall was too deeply etched into her memory to have been an illusion.

It was coming back to her in pieces. The vacant terror of the fall itself. The overwhelming everything of hitting the grass. The warmth of the blood that pooled in her lungs. How strange it had been when she could not move her legs, or her face, or do much of anything other than murmur and gurgle.

And now she was somebody else. Living as a… noble lady?

She carefully examined the room. It was sumptuous, if a little cold for her taste. The wind of what was surely a storm shook the window panes, flurries of bright snow coming down in force.

It was beautiful, in an old-timey sort of way. A smattering of glossy wood and fluffy rugs. On her wall hung a stunning gown, pressed and clean.

There was a knock on the door.

“Lady Irina, may we come in?”

It was a man’s voice this time. He sounded older. Gentle, in a way that reminded her of her father. One of the few men who had ever shown her any care.

“Yes,” she said, hoping it was loud enough.

The man who entered had a worried furrow to his brow, his long grey hair pulled into a short ponytail. He was walking with a gnarled cane, Molly following dutifully behind him.

“Molly tells me that you are not well,” he said, tone calm and even. “You don’t remember who you are?”

Paloma searched his eyes for any sign of skepticism, but he seemed genuine. She shook her head. “No. I don’t... I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, my lady,” he told her. He nodded to Molly, who held out a hand to help her to her feet. “Let’s sit in your foyer and see if I can find anything that may have caused this.”

Molly led her to a sitting room, attached to the bedroom by a simple white door with a crystal handle. She sat on a neatly upholstered couch with a frown, letting the physician take one of her hands for examination.

“Your name is Lady Irina Lis. You are the first daughter of your house, and you are twenty-four this month.”

Paloma paused for a long moment. “Who am I to meet for breakfast?”

The physician followed her veins with a bronze rod while Molly busied herself with undoing the thick braids in Paloma’s hair. “Your father, Duke Leon Lis, and your older brother, Lord Artan Lis.”

“Are we close?” Paloma winced when the cool metal of the rod reached her wrist. “My family and I?”

“Very!” Molly declared, with a relieved smile. “His Lordship loves you and Lord Artan very much. Your mother too — though she is visiting your grandfather for another fortnight or two.”

Mother.

That word must mean something very different to whoever Irina Lis was. To Paloma, it was little more than something curdled and sour.

Paloma swallowed her anxiety and patiently let the two finish their tasks.

Irina.

At least the names were recognizable here. At least she understood the language. These were the small mercies she could count on.

But what would Irina’s family say when they found out their daughter was somebody else entirely?

Paloma allowed herself to be shuffled through a routine she found unusual, but pleasant. The physician pronounced her physically healthy, and suggested that she visit a “mentalist” here in the estate. That perhaps she had just experienced a particularly frightful fever, or a terrible dream. Whatever that meant in this place.

With him gone, apparently it was time to prepare for breakfast. Molly took great care not to pull her long hair, combing through the long curls with a floral-scented cream Paloma couldn’t recognize the exact smell of. A gel was dabbed on her cheeks and lips, and she was helped into a sizable dress of lace and ribbon that made her think of a fairytale.

“The physician will let your father know what’s happened,” Molly assured her, pulling Paloma’s (Irina’s) curls over her shoulders and tucking a rogue strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “Maybe seeing them will help trigger your memory!”

Paloma could hardly breathe as she was guided down a set of lengthy, spiral stairs and toward a set of double doors. They were engraved with miraculous beasts that wereunfamiliar to her. Their heads and backs were adorned with horns and feathers and wings of all kinds.

“It is right through here, my lady,” Molly told her, with a polite curtsy. “Please walk carefully, you seem unstable in your shoes.”

Her shoes. A pair of low heels with a strap. They were a pretty purple color, with silver buckles. She hadn’t gotten used to her new feet yet, they were so much smaller than she remembered. Paloma found her voice finally, after a moment of searching. “I will be careful, Molly. Thank you.”

Paloma took a few moments to steady herself before placing her splayed fingers on the right door, clicking the mechanism with her free hand and stepping into the room.

The two men she saw took her breath away.

“Happy day, father,” she said, repeating the words Molly had told her were her usual greeting. “And to you, brother.”

“Irina,” the older of the two said, his eyebrows furrowed and expression concerned. “The physician tells me you’ve lost your memory. I had hoped this would not happen again.”

Paloma’s head jerked up, meeting his cyan, shiny eyes.

“Again?” She repeated, the words sweet on her lips, uncommon and uncomfortable in their plushness. “What do you mean again?”

Her brother met her eyes with a similar expression to her “father.”

“Yes, Irina,” he said patiently.

“Again.”