The meal was cold when I came back, and it was only expected since it had been an hour, and honestly the cold didn't bother me as much as the fact that Jane had been looking for me the whole time because I wasn't in the cottage where I was supposed to be, and the moment she found me and saw the state of my cheek and neck she went from worried to angry in about half a second.
"What if the Lady gets a scar!!!" she exclaimed, already pulling out her kit and pointing me firmly toward a chair, and I sat down because sitting down was considerably more appealing than standing at that particular moment, given that my right side was making its feelings known every time I moved and my arms still felt like they were full of wet sand.
"Who did this to you, my Lady?" she asked, her voice doing that thing where it was technically calm but very clearly wasn't.
"Oh, just some nobody who wouldn't introduce himself," I said, and I reached for the desserts she had prepared beforehand because if I was going to sit here and get bandaged I was at least going to eat something while it happened.
Jane looked at me with that expression she had where she very much wanted to say something and was deciding whether to say it, and I grabbed a cupcake and put it directly in her mouth before she could decide.
She hesitated for just a moment, and then she took a bite, and I watched her expression do something involuntary.
"Delicious, right?" I asked.
Jane pouted at me and went back to bandaging my wounds, which was its own kind of answer, and I sat there eating dessert while she worked, and when she got to the part where she had to press down on the bandage near my ribs I kept my face very still and breathed carefully through my nose and did not make any noise about it, because there was no reason for her to know about the rib specifically.
'She looks like a chipmunk,' I thought, watching her concentrate, and I couldn't help it, I reached over and pinched both of her cheeks.
"L-Lady, stop it! I'm doing my work!" she protested, the words coming out slightly muffled.
"So you're not against it?" I chuckled, and I kept going because she was genuinely very funny when she was flustered, and this was the most entertained I had been since the fight, which was saying something.
And then a voice cut across from the doorway.
"What are you playing at?"
We both stopped, and I looked toward the source, and what I saw was blonde hair, red eyes, and a white gown, and it was the last person I had expected to see here and honestly the last person I wanted to see here, and for a moment I just looked at her and thought about how unfair it was that someone with that face had that expression on it.
What a beautiful face, and it really was hard to believe she had the title of Black Swan, because White Swan suited her considerably better, though the look she was currently giving me made that argument harder to make.
Jane composed herself quickly and bowed her head. "I greet you, Lady Adele von Konrow."
I slouched back in my chair and rested my chin in my hand, and I was careful about how I moved when I did it because the right side reminded me again that it had opinions.
"What brings you here?" I asked, keeping my voice easy.
"Whatever you're scheming," Adele said, and her voice had that particular quality of disdain that she had probably spent years perfecting, "you know you can't win against me, right?"
I picked up a piece of chocolate and ate it. "What are you talking about?" I tried to sound genuinely confused, which I thought I did reasonably well.
Adele shook her head slowly, like she had already decided something and was just here to deliver the conclusion. "No matter. If you try something against me this time, you won't remain unscathed."
I set down the chocolate.
"Unscathed?" I said, and I stood up, and I was careful about that too, and I moved toward her, and she took a step back, and I kept going until I was close enough that she couldn't pretend she wasn't doing that. "What kind of delusion are you living in?"
"You think that being reduced to an outcast, treated as a villainess, and stuck inside the spare mansion counts as coming out of things unscathed?"
"You deserved it," she said. "You're lucky that's your only punishment."
"Then what do you want from me?" I took another step closer, and she took another step back, and something in her expression shifted, just slightly, the way it did when someone realized the distance between them and a door was getting less comfortable. "You took everything away from me. What more do you want?"
I don't know exactly when I decided to do what I did next, and if I'm being honest I'm not sure I decided it at all so much as it just happened, and I reached out and took Adele's hand and placed the knife from the table into it, and I felt her try to pull away, and I felt how surprised she was by the fact that she couldn't, and I guided her hand up to my own neck and held it there.
'Come on then,' I thought, and I wasn't sure if I was thinking it at Adele or at the novel or at something else entirely.
"Why don't you just take my life at this point?" I said.
"Lady, stop it!" Jane cried out from behind me.
"Stay away from this, Jane!" and my voice came out harder than I meant it to, sharper than I wanted, and I heard her go quiet and I kept my eyes on Adele. "Just one cut to my carotid artery and you can achieve your goal, right? I'll even make it easy for you." I pushed her hand slightly closer, and she kept resisting, and she was stronger than she looked but she wasn't strong enough, and the bruised rib was screaming at me the whole time and I kept my breathing even anyway.
"Josephine von Konrow, get the hell away from her!"
I stopped.
The voice came from the doorway, and when I turned there was a figure with black hair and red eyes standing there and looking visibly furious, and I let go of Adele's hand, and the knife hit the floor, and Adele sank down onto her knees, and I stood there and watched it happen with something in my chest that I didn't particularly want to examine.
"Adele!" Mark rushed toward her, and I stepped into his path with one hand out and he ran into it and stopped, and I was very glad he didn't push because I was not in a condition to brace against anything right now.
"Well, well, well," I said. "If it isn't Mark von Konrow."
He drew the sword at his waist and pointed it at me, and I looked at it, and I thought about the fact that this was the second time today someone had pointed a sword at me, and the first time had gone considerably worse for the person doing it, and I didn't have anything left in me to repeat that outcome tonight.
"Step away from her," he said.
"If I got a gold coin for every time someone pointed a sword at me today, I'd have two," I said, "which is a weird number to have in the first place."
I stopped paying attention to him and looked instead at the main mansion, which was lit up and lively even at this hour, and I could hear the faint sounds of it from here, music and voices and the particular kind of noise that came from a room full of people who had somewhere to be and were glad about it, and I looked at it for a moment and then I smiled, and it was a small smile and it was a little bitter and I didn't try to make it anything else.
"I'm supposed to have my debutante ball tonight, you know," I said, and I said it to Mark but I said it for Adele too, and I didn't look away from the lights while I said it. "But because I'm not a good girl, I don't get one. That's fine."
I lowered my hand and stepped back, and Mark went immediately to Adele's side.
"Adele, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, brother," she said, and she was looking at the floor.
"At least with this, I don't have to pretend anymore." I glanced at Mark, who was seething in that particular way he had where his whole face got involved. "You truly are despicable, Josephine," he said.
"Same as you, retard," I replied, and I raised a middle finger in his general direction and then turned away from both of them.
"Jane," I said, "clean up the cottage. I'll rest today."
I looked back at Adele one more time, and she was still looking at the floor, and I watched her for just a moment longer than I needed to before I turned and started walking back toward my mansion.
"Congrats again on your debutante," I said, mostly to the air in front of me. "I hope you at least liked my gift."
With that, I kept walking, and I made sure my back stayed straight until I was out of sight, and then I let it go, just a little, just enough to get myself home.