The last thing I remembered was the soul-crushing glow of my monitor during tax season; the first thing I saw when I woke up was a gilded cherub staring down at me from the ceiling.
It was fat, gold, and ridiculously ugly.
My head felt like I'd been hit by a truck. A slow, grinding hangover throbbed behind my eyes. I groaned, rolling over, and was immediately swallowed by a mountain of fabric. Silk sheets. A heavy down comforter. It felt like I was drowning in a rich person's laundry basket.
This wasn't my cramped studio apartment in Chicago. Not even close.
My place smelled like stale coffee and desperation. This place smelled of… dust. Perfume. And something else, something faintly sour and unwashed hiding beneath the expensive scents.
I forced my eyes open again. The golden cherub was part of an enormous canopy over the bed, a monstrous piece of furniture dripping with carved wood and velvet curtains. My heart started a low, anxious drumbeat against my ribs.
"Okay, Miller," I muttered, my voice a dry croak. "Where the hell are you?"
A prank. It had to be a prank. My buddies at the firm, probably. Drugged my celebratory end-of-tax-season drink and hauled me off to some medieval-themed hotel as a joke. It was way over budget for them, but the thought was just stupid enough to be plausible.
I tried to sit up, but the weight of the blankets was insane. Before I could struggle free, a figure detached itself from the shadows in the corner of the room. He was a man in a powdered white wig and a blue coat stitched with gold thread. He looked like a historical reenactor who took his job way too seriously.
He rushed forward, his face a mask of anxious relief. "Your Majesty! You are awake."
I froze. Majesty?
Nope. This was too much. They'd gone too far. "Look, man, the joke's over," I rasped, pushing myself up on my elbows. My body felt… wrong. Heavy. Sluggishly soft, like it hadn't seen a gym in a decade.
The man simply bowed lower, his eyes fixed on the floor. "Shall I call for the First Valet, Sire? The court awaits the lever."
He was speaking French. I understood him perfectly.
That single fact cut through the fog of my hangover like a shard of ice. I don't speak French. I took two years of it in high school and the only thing I retained was how to order a croissant.
Panic, cold and sharp, began to flood my veins. This wasn't a prank.
Suddenly, the room was full of people. They moved with a silent, eerie efficiency, a swarm of powdered wigs and silk coats. One began pulling back the heavy curtains, flooding the room with pale morning light. Others laid out an absurdly complicated outfit on a nearby chair: silk stockings, lacy undergarments, and a velvet coat that probably cost more than my car.
They were all staring at me. Waiting.
I felt like a bug under a microscope. I scrambled backward, kicking away the heavy blankets. "Get away from me!" I shouted, the French words feeling alien and clumsy in my mouth.
They all stopped, their eyes wide with shock. The first man, the one who'd called me Majesty, looked like he was about to have a heart attack.
I had to get out of here. I had to see my face.
My legs swung over the side of the bed, and I stumbled onto a thick, patterned rug. My own legs felt foreign, pale and flabby beneath a fine linen nightshirt. I pushed past one of the silent servants, my eyes scanning the room frantically. There. A mirror. A huge, ornate thing framed in more gold leaf.
I didn't want to look. Every cell in my body screamed at me to turn around and run. But I had to know.
I took three stumbling steps and stared at my reflection.
It wasn't my face.
Staring back at me wasn't Alex Miller, thirty-two years old, with tired eyes and a jaw that was just a little too sharp. The man in the mirror was… puffy. His face was pale and fleshy, his chin weak, his eyes a watery blue filled with a familiar sort of confusion.
It was a face I knew from history books. A face I'd seen in paintings.
The face of a dead man.
A single, ice-cold thought sliced through the chaos in my head. Louis XVI.
The last King of France.
My blood ran cold. The panic wasn't a slow flood anymore; it was a tidal wave. My mind, the accountant's mind that always sought order in chaos, started running the numbers. Louis XVI. French Revolution. Reign of Terror.
Guillotine.
My breath hitched. I could almost feel the phantom weight of the blade on my neck. I knew the date. I'd read about it a dozen times. January 21, 1793.
What year was it now? I had to know what year it was. I had to know how much time I had left on the clock. My life was no longer a life; it was a countdown timer.
Before I could start screaming, the man in the blue coat cleared his throat nervously. "Sire… the Controller-General, Monsieur de Calonne, begs an audience. It is a matter of utmost urgency."
The name barely registered. My mind was a screaming void. But then he said something else.
"He has brought the latest report on the treasury."
The word cut through the noise. Treasury.
Ledgers. Numbers. Profit and loss. That was a language I understood. It was the only thing in this gilded nightmare that felt solid, real. A lifeline.
"Send him in," I said, my voice barely a whisper. I turned away from the mirror, unable to look at the face of my own executioner any longer.
Charles Alexandre de Calonne was a man who looked like he hadn't slept in a week. He scurried into the room, clutching a heavy, leather-bound book to his chest as if it were a shield. He bowed so low his wig nearly touched the floor.
"Sire," he began, his voice trembling. "The latest report. It is… as we discussed. Dire."
"Give it to me," I commanded, my voice gaining a sliver of strength.
He hesitated for a second, surprised by my tone, then shuffled forward and handed me the ledger. I snatched it from his hands. The paper was thick, the ink a faded brown. But the columns of numbers were universal. Revenus. Dépenses. Income. Expenses.
My eyes flew across the page. Then the next. And the next.
My professional brain took over, momentarily shoving the existential terror into a locked closet. This wasn't just bad. This was catastrophic. The P&L of the entire kingdom was a train wreck hurtling toward a cliff.
They were spending money they didn't have, on things they didn't need, while their income streams were drying up. It was Enron, but with a crown.
I saw a single line item for a masked ball held at Versailles. The cost was more than the annual tax revenue of a small city. I saw pensions paid to nobles for doing literally nothing. I saw loans taken at exorbitant interest rates just to cover the interest payments on other loans.
This wasn't just a bankrupt company. This was a fiscal black hole.
No wonder they chopped his head off, I thought, a wave of grim, hysterical clarity washing over me. He wasn't a tyrant. He was the worst CEO in history.
This was the reason. This financial disaster was the dry kindling, and the revolution was the match. If I could fix this… if I could somehow balance these books… maybe I could stop the fire before it started. Maybe I could save my neck.
A flicker of hope, the first I'd felt since waking up, ignited in my chest. This was a problem I could solve. It was just a big, ugly audit. The biggest, ugliest audit of my life.
Just as I was about to start grilling Calonne, the grand double doors to the chamber swung open again.
A woman swept in, her presence immediately commanding the room. Her hair was a mountain of powdered white curls decorated with ribbons and pearls. Her silk dress was a masterpiece of pale blue, so wide she had to turn sideways to fit through the door.
She was beautiful. And I knew exactly who she was.
Marie Antoinette.
The most hated woman in France. My wife.
The shock of seeing her in person was a physical blow. She wasn't a caricature from a textbook anymore. She was real, breathing, her skin glowing in the morning light. She was also wearing a diamond necklace so magnificent it looked like a constellation of stars had fallen around her throat. I recognized it instantly. The Diamond Necklace Affair. The scandal that would destroy what little reputation she had left.
She glided toward me, a bright, practiced smile on her face. It didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Louis?" she said, her voice a light, melodic chirp. "You are awake so early. And with Monsieur Calonne?" She waved a dismissive hand at the ledger in my lap. "Please don't trouble your head with such dreary things."
I stared at her, my mouth dry. Trouble my head? Lady, they are going to literally trouble my head. With a big, sharp piece of metal.
She reached out and placed a cool, delicate hand on my arm.
I flinched.
It wasn't a choice. It was a pure, visceral reaction. The touch of this stranger who was supposed to be my wife sent a jolt of wrongness through my entire body.
Her smile faltered. The light in her eyes flickered, replaced by a shadow of confusion and… was that hurt?
She pulled her hand back as if she'd been burned. "Are you unwell, my dear?" she asked, her voice quiet now, laced with a genuine, unexpected concern that threw me completely off balance.
I stared at the woman history had condemned, the symbol of everything wrong with this kingdom. For the first time, I saw not a villain, but a person. A lonely, confused person.
And I had no idea what to say.