Eight months old, and Margotte had discovered the singular joy of independent movement.
Crawling was freedom. Crawling meant she could finally, finally, escape the confines of blankets and baskets and nursemaid arms. Crawling meant control over her own body in a way she hadn't experienced since her death.
It also meant a new battlefield had opened in her ongoing war with Adrian Valemont.
"They're so active!" Lady Rosalind exclaimed, watching as Margotte determinedly pulled herself forward across the Ashford drawing room floor. "I can barely keep up with her anymore."
"Adrian's the same," Marianne agreed, observing her own son as he navigated around a piece of furniture with surprising speed. "Just yesterday he managed to reach William's study. Gave the poor man quite a fright when he looked down and found a baby at his feet."
The two women laughed, settling into their chairs with tea while their infants explored the carefully baby-proofed space.
What they didn't realize was that both babies were racing.
Margotte had spotted it the moment she'd been set down: a leather-bound book on a low shelf across the room. It looked old, important, and most critically, it was achievable. She'd been practicing her crawling technique for weeks now, had figured out the most efficient hand-knee-hand-knee pattern.
She was going to reach that book first.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Adrian's head turn toward the same shelf. Saw the exact moment he identified the same target.
Their eyes met across the drawing room floor.
Mine, Margotte's glare said.
We'll see about that, Adrian's answering look replied.
"Oh, look," Rosalind noted with amusement. "They're both heading the same direction. How sweet."
Sweet was not the word.
Margotte put on a burst of speed, her pudgy hands slapping against the polished wood floor. Her technique was perfect; she'd studied the biomechanics of infant locomotion during a developmental psychology course in her previous life. Maximum efficiency, minimal wasted energy.
Adrian, predictably, had no technique whatsoever. His crawling was chaotic, more of a determined scramble than anything systematic.
Also predictably, he was keeping pace with her.
How? Margotte thought furiously, pushing harder. He's not even doing it right!
But there he was, silver hair bouncing, blue eyes focused with laser intensity on the prize, moving with that same infuriating flexibility that had always characterized his approach to everything.
They were neck and neck now, both babies crawling at speeds that were making their mothers nervous.
"Should we... intervene?" Marianne asked hesitantly.
"They're fine," Rosalind assured her, though she sounded uncertain. "Just enthusiastic."
Margotte's eyes narrowed. The shelf was close now, maybe six feet away. She could make it. She would make it.
She shifted her weight, preparing to lunge forward—
—and Adrian cut across her path, his route less direct but somehow faster, that creative spatial reasoning allowing him to find an angle she'd dismissed as inefficient.
No!
Margotte veered, trying to intercept. Their paths collided. For a moment, they were a tangle of baby limbs and indignant noises, both trying to crawl over or around the other.
"Oh my—are they fighting?" Marianne half-rose from her chair.
"They're just playing," Rosalind said, but she was rising too.
Playing. Right.
Margotte managed to extract herself from the pile first, pure determination driving her forward. Three feet now. Two. The book was right there, she could see the gilded lettering on its spine—
Adrian shot past her on the left, having apparently given up on crawling in favor of a weird sideways scramble that should not have worked but absolutely did.
His tiny hand reached the shelf first.
NO.
Margotte lunged, grabbed his ankle, pulled.
Adrian yelped (an actual baby sound of surprise) and tried to kick free.
Margotte held on grimly. If she couldn't win, neither could he.
"I think we really should—" Marianne was definitely moving now.
But it was too late.
Adrian, overbalanced by Margotte's grip on his ankle, toppled sideways. Margotte, still holding on, was pulled with him. They rolled in a tangle of blanket-dress and tiny limbs, away from the shelf, away from the book, away from victory.
They came to rest in a heap, both breathing hard, both glaring at each other with pure fury.
"Yours fault," Adrian said clearly.
"YOUR fault," Margotte shot back. "You cheated!"
"No cheat. You slow."
"I'm not SLOW, you just—"
"Children!" Both mothers were there now, scooping up their respective children. "What's gotten into you two?"
Margotte allowed herself to be lifted, still glowering at Adrian over her mother's shoulder. He glowered back over his mother's shoulder, one hand making a very deliberate grabbing gesture toward the book they'd both failed to reach.
Next time, that gesture said.
Bring it, Margotte's answering glare replied.
***
The next time came sooner than expected.
Their fathers had business to discuss, which meant an extended visit at the Valemont estate. Which meant Margotte and Adrian were once again placed in the same space and expected to "play nicely."
The Valemont drawing room had a grander staircase than the Ashford estate. A sweeping curve of polished wood with ornate balusters that led to the second floor. It had been blocked off with a decorative screen, of course. The adults weren't idiots.
But the screen had gaps.
Gaps that an eight-month-old baby could absolutely fit through.
Margotte eyed those gaps with intense interest. Beyond the screen, she could see the stairs rising up. And at the top of those stairs, visible through the balustrade, was what looked like a entire corridor of bookshelves.
The library. Had to be.
She'd been working on her pulling-up skills for the past week, using furniture to haul herself into standing positions. Her legs were getting stronger. Her balance was improving.
She could climb those stairs.
Across the room, Adrian was staring at the same screen with the same calculating expression.
Their eyes met.
The race was on.
Margotte moved first, crawling at top speed toward the screen. Behind her, she heard Adrian in pursuit. The adults were occupied—their fathers bent over documents, their mothers discussing household matters with the Valemont staff.
Perfect.
She reached the screen, found a gap, squeezed through. Her dress caught on something, but she pulled free with grim determination. Behind her, she heard Adrian grunt as he navigated the same obstacle.
Then she was through, at the base of the stairs, staring up at what suddenly seemed like a very tall climb.
I can do this, she told herself. I've analyzed the biomechanics. Pull up, step up, repeat.
She grabbed the lowest baluster, hauled herself up. Her legs wobbled but held. One step.
Adrian appeared beside her, already reaching for the next baluster.
Margotte lunged upward, determined not to let him get ahead. Two steps. Three.
This was harder than crawling. The stairs were steep, designed for adult legs. Each step required her full strength to climb.
But she was doing it. And so was Adrian, right beside her, both of them ascending in grim silence.
Four steps. Five.
"You're slow," Adrian huffed.
"Shut up," Margotte panted back.
Six steps. Seven.
The library seemed impossibly far away now. The floor below seemed impossibly far down.
Margotte made the mistake of looking back.
The room tilted. Her stomach swooped. That was... that was a long way to fall. Long enough to crack an infant skull. Long enough to—
Her hand slipped.
Time seemed to slow as her fingers lost their grip on the baluster. Her weight shifted backward. The world tilted as she began to fall, eight months of baby body unable to catch the balance an adult mind knew she needed.
Not again, her mind screamed. I just got this life and I'm going to die AGAIN because of a stupid competition with—
Something grabbed her dress.
A tiny hand, fisted in the fabric at her back, pulled taut and held.
Margotte's fall stopped. She swayed, suspended by that grip, her heart hammering in her tiny chest.
"Got you," Adrian grunted, his face red with effort.
He was holding her. One hand white-knuckled on the baluster, the other fisted in her dress, his baby body shaking with the strain of supporting both their weights on the stairs.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Margotte's mind was blank with shock. Adrian's blue eyes were wide, startled, like he couldn't quite believe what he'd just done.
Then his arm started to shake harder.
"Pull up," he gritted out. "Heavy."
The insult broke through her paralysis. "I'm not heavy, you're just weak!"
But she was already moving, grabbing for the baluster, using Adrian's grip as an anchor to haul herself back to stability. Her fingers found purchase. Her feet found the step. She was secure.
Adrian released her dress, his arm dropping like he'd been holding a boulder instead of a baby.
They stared at each other on the stairs, both breathing hard.
"You..." Margotte started, then stopped. What did she even say? Thank you? To Adrian Valemont? Her eternal rival? The person who'd just saved her life?
"You're welcome," Adrian said, somehow managing to sound smug even while gasping for breath.
"I didn't say thank you!"
"You were thinking it."
"Was NOT!"
"What are you two doing?!"
Both their heads whipped around to find Lord William at the base of the stairs, his face pale with horror. Within seconds, both mothers were there too, and the drawing room erupted in chaos.
They were scooped up, examined for injuries, scolded in gentle but firm tones about danger and listening and staying where they were put. The screen was reinforced. Additional barriers were discussed.
Through it all, Margotte was silent, still feeling the phantom grip of Adrian's hand in her dress. Still seeing the determination in his eyes as he'd held on, held her, despite the strain.
He could have let go. Should have, maybe if she'd fallen, someone would have caught her, probably. And it would have meant he won, in a way. One less competitor.
But he hadn't let go.
Later, when they were placed back in the friendship basket (under much closer supervision now), Margotte looked at Adrian properly for the first time since their reincarnation.
Really looked at him.
He was watching her back, blue eyes unreadable.
"Why?" she asked quietly, in the relatively private language only they shared. Their vocabularies had both expanded dramatically in recent weeks, though they kept the full extent hidden from the adults.
"Why what?"
"Why catch me? You could have won."
Adrian was quiet for a long moment. Then: "No book worth it."
"That doesn't make sense. You always want to win."
"Not like that." His tiny face scrunched up, struggling with concepts that were hard to articulate in their limited shared vocabulary. "We compete. That's... that's us. But fair. Same start, same rules. You falling is..." he gestured vaguely, "...not fair."
Margotte processed this. It made a strange kind of sense. Their rivalry had always had rules, unspoken but understood. They'd never sabotaged each other's work, never tried to win through destruction of the opponent. Just through being better.
"Besides," Adrian added, his voice going lighter, more teasing, "who else would I beat if you died again? Regular babies are boring."
Despite everything, Margotte felt a laugh bubble up from her chest.
"You're so stupid," she said, but without heat.
"You're stupider," he shot back automatically.
"That's not even correct."
"Don't care. Still true."
They sat in their basket, not touching, not quite looking at each other, but somehow more at peace than they'd been since this whole reincarnation nightmare began.
"Next time," Margotte said finally, "we tie ourselves together before climbing. Then if one falls, we both fall."
Adrian's eyes lit up. "That's the dumbest idea ever."
"I know."
"Let's do it."
Their mothers, watching from across the room, smiled at how peaceful the babies looked together.
If only they'd known the chaos being planned.
But in that moment, peace reigned. Two rivals, bound by competition and something neither could quite name yet. Something that had been there all along, underneath the academic battles and desperate achievements.
Recognition. Understanding. The knowledge that they pushed each other not out of hatred, but because no one else could push them quite so far.
Margotte looked down at her dress, at the wrinkles where Adrian's fist had held tight.
"Thank you," she said, so quietly only he could hear.
"Can't hear you."
"Shitty person."