I stumbled back from the mirror like the revelation of what was going on was a physical force. I had never been one to faint from surprise but now, looking into this mirror, I felt light headed. This was impossible. Even if I wasn't Kitty Bezucheva, the fact that I was in a completely different body was astounding. I looked at myself in the mirror again, and yet again I felt like I would pass out from the shock. This time it wasn't from the fact that I was a different person, although that certainly didn't help, this time it was because the very fabric of reality had changed for me, or rather the art style. I hadn't noticed it earlier because the game's backgrounds were pretty realistic but looking into the mirror there was no doubt that my three dimensional, realistic existence was now one that fit the anime inspired, two dimensional art style of the game.
It was giving me vertigo, looking at my apparently three dimensional hands and then glancing back into the mirror and seeing an obviously flat image on top of a background. I went back to bed, put the covers over my head, and closed my eyes, waiting for the world to stop spinning around me.
Anna's last words bubbled up into my mind," Anyways, I'll be seeing you soon I expect."
At the time I had thought next to nothing of them, I was still shaken by what happened at the party, but considering where I was now; was it possible she was addressing those words to me, not Natasha? If so, it's possible that she may be key to my escaping this place. Speaking of this place, what did I know about this world to begin with?
My knowledge was incredibly superficial as it was nearly all about relationships between Natasha and the various male leads. Ultimately this knowledge failed me on the grounds that I knew nothing about the relationship between Kitty and everyone else. Actually I only knew two things about Kitty: the first being that she was engaged to Nikolai and the second being that she attended the party Anna threw but this second piece of information was ultimately useless since I didn't know her motivations for going. Was it to bully Natasha for being a commoner or was it because Kitty was simply cruel? Neither of these options were particularly attractive but I supposed the former was more acceptable than the latter. Well I wasn't going to find my answer mulling it over in my mind over and over again but it at least gave me a hint on how I should act around others, even if it was diametrically opposed to how I normally acted.
Now for the other characters, Natasha was the one I knew the most about from playing the game last night. As long as you weren't outwardly rude to her she was friendly enough, although a bit temperamental. I think I could reliably count on her to support me in this world, even if her standing in high society was shaky, she was the heroine, this alone made me think she probably had an ace up her sleeve even if it was unknown to her. The character I knew the next most about was Nikolai. I also believed I could trust him to some extent as long as I didn't act too suspicious. He was probably the most important person to my survival since I was to be engaged to him and women don't exactly enjoy a surplus of rights in this place. Next was Leo, if I could I'd prefer to keep my distance from him. His obsessive tendencies made him borderline a yandere if what I read online was to be believed. Andrei was next, he was another big blindspot for me since I knew next to nothing about him but he was my brother now, perhaps I could trust him a little bit.
Lastly was Anna. If you had asked me yesterday who the character I knew the most about was, I would have named her with no hesitation. After the comments she made last night I wasn't so sure about that anymore. Even before that, it would be shortsighted to say I knew very much about her after all I didn't know which Anna was the one I was dealing with. Was it the Anna some people described as the cute adventurer who was just jealous or the Anna whom others described as a force of actual evil? Just because the one I met last night fell into the latter category didn't necessarily mean that the one here would be the same. In fact there was nothing that said that she had to be either of those things, none of the characters I knew had to be anything remotely like their in game counterparts beyond their looks.
A feeling of panic set in, what if that was the case? What if the little knowledge I had was obsolete to begin with and I was stuck in this world with essentially nothing. Ironically I had always been a fan of this type of reincarnation story but the protagonists in the ones I read always had some sort of foresight, I barely had that to begin with and being stripped of any foresight scared me deeply. I tried to calm myself down but the thought just kept circling in my head. I desperately wanted to start bawling into my pillow but I resisted the urge to do so. Crying wouldn't change anything, it might actually make things worse. I put on a brave face and went and looked out the window next to my bed.
I really was the crown princess, from up on high I could see the entirety of the Tsar's palatial estate. I laughed at myself for inwardly comparing it to Natasha's estate. What a stupid thing to think about right now. Even though it was the middle of winter and snow blanketed the ground I could still see the small shapes of workers busily running around doing their duties. Thinking on it now I couldn't remember if the game had ever explicitly outlined what type of labor system this place runs on. Given the Russian setting of the game it wouldn't be a far stretch to say that they were still using serfs. If all my worst fears came true and everything was different from how I knew it to be then at least I could try abolishing the serfdom. I certainly wouldn't make any friends with the nobles but fuck them, even Nikolai was a classist piece of shit in the beginning. Now somewhat cheered up by my plans for a hypothetical revolution, I continued looking out the window, beyond even the vast estate I could see the edge of the woods. They were dark and somewhat foreboding. What was out there? Although it had never been explicitly stated it was heavily implied that somewhere in this world was a source of magical power. Between the anomaly in the north or the unexplored tracts of woodlands at least I would have something to do if the nobles turned me out for my modern way of thinking. But first I needed to see Anna, all of this daydreaming was meaningless if she had a way for me to return.
Renewed, I turned away from the window only to find a mousy looking maid struggling to get the door fully open due to the large tray of food in her hands. Even though I had made up my mind to try and be cold to match Kitty's original personality I couldn't just stand there and watch this poor girl continue to struggle. I walked up to her and held open the door, no wonder she was having problems with it, the door was really heavy. Due to being in a body that had presumably never done an ounce of work in its life all I could do was hold open the door for a brief second to allow the maid into my room before I lost my grip and the door slammed shut. The maid looked like she wanted to make a startled movement at the loud noise the door made but suppressed it in order to keep the food on the tray from spilling everywhere. Now that she was in the room she didn't do anything, she just stood there and looked at me with intense fear.
I cleared my throat, what should I say? Clearly she expected me to scream and hit her or something and I briefly considered doing so to keep up the act but ultimately my modern sensibilities won over and I decided against it. Being kind to the servants surely wouldn't cause some sort of horrible cascading chain of events, at least I hoped it wouldn't. If anyone important asked about this sudden change of personality then I could figure out a suitable excuse then. For now I had to figure out what to say in order to stop the poor girl in front of me from having a panic attack.
"Please put the tray down over there," I said pointing at the desk in the room I had only just realized existed a few seconds ago.
The maid looked like she wanted to say something but didn't, instead putting the tray down on the desk, struggling to open the door, and then leaving the room as quickly as could be considered polite.
I sat down at the desk and sighed. To cause such fear in a random maid, there was no doubt that Kitty was just simply cruel. I simply couldn't act like her after all, when it came to people close to her I would just do my best to keep my distance from them and for people for which that wasn't possible I would just hope they preferred my kinder rendition of the princess.
I couldn't continue just sitting here and speculating, the smell drifting up from the food was simply too much to resist. Looking down at it, I was a bit hesitant due to the same incongruence of my expectations for normal food and what was clearly an illustration sitting in front of me. Drawn food always looks better than real food right? Perhaps that would be the same in terms of taste? It was not. Even though I knew I was eating something, it was simply a texture in my mouth. Any pleasure that the act of eating gave was stripped away, I was somewhat disappointed but at least it satiated my hunger. Although it was so generally unpleasant I only ate as much as I needed to stop feeling famished.
With breakfast out of the way I wondered what was next, ideally I would have free reign of the library to research to my heart's content but I knew it would probably not be so simple. Most likely my day would be divided between boring lessons on etiquette and gatherings in the saloons of various high status women. Being both a woman and unwed there was basically nothing I could do on my own and undoubtedly my life was planned until I walked down the aisle and was handed off to another man who would similarly plan my every waking moment. As if on cue two older women barged into my room, these were definitely older maids who were used to dealing with Kitty's outbursts.
They looked genuinely shocked when I allowed them to dress me and tell me the schedule for the day with no complaint. Just as I expected, my morning was all lessons with some Madame or another while my afternoon was a tea party. Luckily my evenings were free and although I wasn't excited about the prospect of reading by candlelight, I would take what I could get. Another boon was the fact that I was literate. The possibility of either Kitty being illiterate or me not being able to read the script of this world had crossed my mind but luckily I could read. Interestingly it wasn't like I could read and understand the script, it was more like there was English overlaid on the script I was looking at which was strange and what I spent most of my classes thinking about.
The classes themselves were useless, even the ones that could be considered academic were not really about learning the subject but just knowledge needed to carry an interesting conversation. The woman teaching the history class was especially short with me, loudly complaining about the fact I couldn't distinguish Alexander the fourteenth from Alexander the ninth. This is where I learned that Alexander XIV was my father, the fact I didn't know this vexed the teacher so much she left before the time allotted was up. Despite the fact I was in a room full of educational books I wasn't allowed to read them due to the fact one of the older maids from this morning spent the remaining time scolding me for this. I did similarly terribly during etiquette, piano, and literature although my analysis for some classic book I don't remember was very interesting to the teacher, not impressive enough for her to overlook the fact that I continually forgot character names of course. The last class of the day was a math class. I was surprised that this was allowed before it dawned on me that it was to help me balance my future assets with my husband and make sure he hadn't been spending money on booze or women in secret. This reason was a little sad but I took the opportunity to do something mentally rewarding after sitting through three hours of profound boredom and trying to puzzle out what was going on with the translator embedded in my eyes.
It didn't take long to figure out that this was the original Kitty's least favorite class. The teacher looked so utterly defeated and really only did the bare minimum out of a sense of decorum. She looked ecstatic when I seemed to be putting forth some effort into adding decimals, even if I had a hard time getting adjusted to the bizarre base thirteen system this world used. By the end of the class she was practically my best friend, happily jabbering away at me seemingly forgetting the fact that I had previously been rude to her. Even though I was only supposed to be learning the most basic of math I had goaded her into teaching me some very basic algebra which she happily did. I had taken calculus in high school so I was easily able to go above and beyond what she had expected of me. I held back the compulsion to flex on her with my superior math skills because she was clearly proud of what she had learned, even if it was something that would be seen as a basic skill in the world I had come from. I was once again saddened by the state of women's rights in this world. Had this woman been born into my world she could have been free to pursue this thing she was obviously passionate about to her heart's content. Moreover she was a commoner, the fact she was standing here teaching me math was a testament to her own determination. Maybe I could do something, or at least say something.
"Why don't you go to another country? One that lets women study in universities, you're clearly talented enough. Why do you stay in this backwards place that allows bright individuals such as yourself to languish like this," as I said this she stopped writing on the chalkboard.
"Now your highness, don't say things like that. The tsar knows what's best and that's all there is to it, if he says it is inappropriate for women to study then that's all there is to it," the teacher said this but I could see she didn't really believe what she said. It was a lie said to stop the fact that she was being wronged from hurting.
Forget acting like Kitty. I wasn't sure I could act like a woman from this time period. The fact I ever found this setting romantic to begin with made me laugh. What was waiting for Natasha when she found her happy ending? The moment she was married to any of those men she lost all of her value in the eyes of society. The moment she reached her happy ending she reached the end of her life as an individual. All that waited for her was birthing as many children as she possibly could and hoping that she didn't die in childbirth. If her husband got tired of her, that was it, he could throw her away like it was nothing and not suffer any consequences. Natasha on the other hand would be forced into social exile and treated like a pariah for the rest of her days. The exact same fate awaited me. It was foolish of me to believe I could cause any sort of social change, I couldn't even choose who I wanted to marry. I absolutely needed to leave this world, I absolutely needed to see Anna.
For now I needed to help the woman in front of me. I took off the gaudy necklace the maids had forced me to wear and got up from my table before walking towards her and forcing the necklace into her hands and saying,"take this and find somewhere to sell it, it shouldn't be worth any less than three thousand gold so don't let yourself get swindled. Use that money to do something with your life, I hear they have public universities in the neighboring kingdom so why don't you try that? As for me, don't worry I'll just say I thought it was ugly and threw it away. I've done it before."
Part of that was a lie, I had no idea what would happen to me when the maids or my father learned about the missing necklace but I doubted the punishment would be too severe. I was also unsure of what the necklace actually cost but I knew that it couldn't be any less than three thousand which coincidentally happens to be enough to buy a house in this country. Hopefully that's enough to keep her going in the nearby France-like country Leo told Natasha extensively about that allowed women to study in university.
The teacher looked like she was going to burst into tears, I smiled at her, I didn't even know her name but I knew I didn't mind any potential punishment that might come from doing this. I spent the rest of the lesson trying to calm the teacher down, reminding her that loud noises might attract the suspicion of the maids who watched over me.
When she had finally calmed down she asked me,"Pardon me for my insolence but what triggered such a drastic change of heart in you, Princess? If you had told me yesterday that Princess Bezuheva would perform such a saintly deed for me I would have laughed; yet here we are."
"Ah, well I supposed I found it in me to turn over a new leaf. Say, what would the you of yesterday have expected me to do?"
"Well since I'm not castle staff you couldn't have me flogged as regularly as the maids so you'd have slapped me for asking such an insolent question."
The same thought I'd had earlier, about being in an isekai novel, occurred to me yet again, when the thought occurred to me earlier I thought it funny that I had been reincarnated as somewhat of a minor character but looking at it now Kitty Bezuheva was certainly a villainess in her own right. Perhaps not the same kind as Anna who was the type to commit evil deeds on such a scale that one couldn't hope to do much but admire her. Kitty was the more mundane type of villain, the type that abused her status to hurt those she deemed beneath her. The type who would most likely never face any sort of retribution. Despite the mundanity of her actions there was no doubt in my mind that she was the worse type of villain in comparison to Anna. I felt a slight sense of disgust that I had been reincarnated into the body of someone so vile.
"Did I say something wrong Princess? A most disturbed look crossed your face just now."
The teacher's words snapped me out of my stupor and I replied,"Of course not, I was just thinking of how wretched I am."
"Don't say that Princess. Even though there are bad rumors surrounding you I'm sure your newfound kindness will quickly dispel them all. I'm friends with quite a few of the maids here you see, and the fact that you helped Katarina open the door this morning is already making rounds through the palace. I'd have never told you this before but since you've changed I only find it fair to. Being your maid is considered a punishment. Katarina was sent to you this morning because she broke an expensive wine glass. I expect such a stunt will have her serving you for quite a while. Katarina was one of my students when I taught classes in town, many of the maids are, that's how I got this job. Katarina is a bit clumsy but she's a quick learner and very eager to please, I'm sure if you continue to show her kindness you will find indispensable before long."
"Of course I will, this new me is not a fleeting fancy. I would love to continue our conversation but I think you should leave now, make sure to take back exits so my maids don't catch wind of your leaving. I would hate for them to think you stole the necklace and drag you back here."
"You're right, if I come across Katarina when I leave I'll be sure to put in a good word for you."
I watched as she cheerfully left the room. I was truly sad to see her go, not only was she the first person to treat me as a friend here she also had information about the maids and my past self that could be helpful but when it came down to it her safety was more important. Plus it wasn't like I had gained nothing from helping her, I now had the name of a possible ally in the palace. Hopefully she and Katarina would meet on her exit and she would put in a good word for me. The old maids who had dressed me were clearly my handlers but if I could get a maid to voluntarily serve me hopefully I could get them off my back and have a bit more freedom. It would be difficult but I was the crown princess, I should be able to do it.
With thirty minutes to myself I decided to finally take some time and read the books I had been eyeing earlier. There should be something helpful to me in here, it was a classroom after all. Much to my chagrin, most of the books in this room were completely and totally worthless. The only thing that looked vaguely helpful was a history book about the royal family, so that's what I chose to read.
Unfortunately it was about as useful as it was interesting, it was merely a deluge of Alexanders and Ivans. It also started around seven tsars into the founding of this country which meant that any references to magic were scant. Magic was what supposedly gave the royal family the right to rule but by the time Alexander the fifth came to power any sort of talk of magic beyond the phrase "magic gave the royal family the right to rule" was deemed heretical. I was saved from the drab book by the familiar sound of the door swinging open as an older maid barged into the room.
Before she could loudly declare what I was to be doing for the rest of the day I said,"Is that any way to be treating the princess?"
She barely looked amused, replying dryly,"We don't have time for this Princess, Betsy's party is coming up in three hours and we must get you ready."
"I'm not going to let this go. You really must start knocking."
"Princess, I believe you've long since lost the privilege of privacy."
"If you won't knock before coming in then I want a new maid."
The maid looked like she could barely stop herself from laughing,"Princess, there's not a single maid in this palace who would willingly serve you but fine, name a maid and I will ask her if she would like the honor of serving you. You can't even do that can you? You look at the maids like bugs that only exist to serve you."
"Ask Katarina for me," I countered.
"The maid I sent you this morning? I heard you were unusually kind to her this morning. I know you Princess, if this isn't some sort of ploy to concoct a new form of bullying you'll get bored and fall back into your old habits. Still, I will call her for you but that doesn't mean she will come or agree to be your maid."
The two of us waited in frosty silence for the maid the old maid dispatched to come with Katarina or her rejection. I was a bit surprised by how rudely the maid was talking to me, I guess it was a concession the tsar made for her in order to have someone who could control me. It wouldn't be out of left field for her to also be receiving a notably higher salary either. I hoped that the teacher had been able to talk to Katarina, it would really put a damper on my authority for her to reject me.
After a very boring five minutes the dispatched maid came back with the same very anxious looking maid who I now knew to be Katarina. The old maid looked genuinely shocked that she agreed to come.
"I knew she would come, she's a clever girl. Now then, please remove yourself from my presence, I have no need for such a rude maid anymore," I said as smugly as I could manage.
The old maid looked absolutely enraged at this turn of events but didn't say anything in protest, instead she and the dispatched maid just left the room. With the two of them out of the room, I let myself relax, no doubt she would complain to both the head maid and the butler who would in turn talk to my father. I had nothing to fear though, I hadn't broken any rules.
I looked at Katarina who still looked like she was one wrong phrase away from having a panic attack.
"Thank you for agreeing to be my maid, those women have been allowed too much power for far too long. It's one thing to have a handle on a rowdy noble but it's another to be so blatantly rude."
Katarina perked up at my disparagement of the old maids," I know right! I wasn't even the one who broke that glass, it was the one who was lecturing you earlier. She just blamed me because I'm newer and I'm the one who got in trouble for it. Ah wait, I shouldn't be saying this." Katarina turned red when she realized she was acting poorly in front of me.
I giggled, saying,"You really don't have to act so formal in front of me. I know I was terrible in the past but I've truly changed. The way you could best serve me would be to just be yourself when we are alone, I really need someone to be a friend to me when everyone else in the palace is against me. Even though I deserve their scorn I really hope I can make amends eventually."
"I wanted to thank you again for what you did for Ms.Vera. You really made her dream come true, you know? She was originally a noble but threw away her status to become a teacher when her family wouldn't allow her to study. I'm an orphan myself and always looked upon her as a mother figure so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you've done for her."
What a sad backstory for two completely minor characters in an otome game, although it's more like the game was just a small window into a world just like my own where everyone had a story. It was likely every minor character I interacted with when I played the game had a similar story.
"So what do we do now Katarina," I asked, genuinely unsure of what to do next.
"Umm, that maid who came to talk to me gave me a piece of paper with your schedule on it, it looks like you have a party to go to soon. As for what to do to get ready for the party I uh, really don't know. I've only worked as a cleaning maid, I've never had any sort of experience helping a noblewoman directly. Ah, I just remembered that my friends Olga and Alisa used to be personal maids for two different countesses. Wait here and I'll go and get them," upon saying this, Katarina sprinted out of the room to look for the two maids.
Before long all three girls were out of breath and standing before me in the classroom.
"That was quick, you didn't have to exhaust yourself like that Katarina, there's still a while before the party starts," I gently chastised her. I appreciated the enthusiasm she was showing but I didn't want her to burn herself out.
Olga and Alisa looked at each other with bewilderment at my changed demeanor, I guess they had expected me to berate Katarina for taking any time at all.
"You two," the pair stiffened up when I addressed them,"I've just appointed Katarina as my personal maid but unfortunately both of us are totally unaware of what to do in terms of getting ready for a party. Katarina says the two of you have experience in this field so I implore you to help us."
The one I thought was Olga replied,"I'd love to help you, your majesty, but the two of us were personal maids six months ago, we are unsure of what the trends are and do not wish to accidentally make you a laughingstock."
The one I thought was Alisa nodded quickly in agreement.
"I'm the crown princess, surely anything I wear should be considered the newest trend. Besides, if they laugh at me for being outdated, why should I care? I am already engaged to one of the richest counts in the land, I may not gain standing in society for my fashion but in terms of wealth my position is guaranteed. All I wish for you to do is instruct Katarina on what to do and do your best choosing what will make me look the most beautiful," I answered.
Truth be told, there was never a point in my life where I cared even a tiny bit about being perceived as fashionable or even well dressed. I had always been a practical person when it came to clothing, I cared only about whether my pants had pockets and if they were comfortable. I doubted either of those options were available to me due to what was acceptable to wear in this time period so I settled for whatever made me the prettiest.
The two maids helped me undress from the everyday clothing the older maids had put me in and helped me take care of the long, black hair I had recently acquired. When I was clean and dry they spent a considerable time arguing between themselves as to what dress I should wear and what jewelry and shoes they pair with it. The only time I raised any objections was to turn down any makeup they offered, I could barely stand the uncomfortable clothes I had to wear all the time, I wouldn't stand for anything else. Besides, in my perception, I was already an anime girl, I doubted that makeup would make much of a difference anyways.
By the time the two of them were done I looked more like a princess than just merely a very pretty woman. The two of them looked very proud of their work and were very pleased by my praise.
"If I were to have another party would you two do me the pleasure of dressing me up again? I don't have much of an eye for what looks good on me."
"Of course! Actually, if you'd like, Alisa and I agreed we would like to be your personal maids as well. We had a lot of fun doing this, not many noblewomen would allow their servants to make creative decisions like this," Olga said.
Alisa added,"Plus Katarina told us what you did for Ms. Vera and Katarina herself has an abysmal sense of fashion. I'd be very worried if she were the one dressing you everyday."
"Oh come on you didn't need to say that," Katarina interjected.
"But it's true. Remember when the orphanage brought ribbons in and you chose that atrocious shade of yellow," Olga asked.
"I like yellow a lot," I said.
"She's not saying yellow is a bad color, it's just a terrible color for Katarina," Alisa explained.
"Ms. Vera said she liked it," Katarina said with a bit of a huff.
"She only liked it because it reminded her of a salamander she saw that she liked," Olga said.
"Well if the both of you have such terrible senses of fashion there's no other way about it, we absolutely have to be your maids," Alisa added with a sense of finality.
**********
I watched the town go by from the inside of my carriage. Katarina sat across from me, fiddling with the edge of her uniform with excitement. I was excited and nervous myself but I was managing to avoid showing it as blatantly as Katarina.
As the ride dragged on the excitement was dying away and was being replaced by a feeling of dread. I hadn't talked to a single noble before, what if I said something horribly offensive and caused a rift so horrible that war broke out? Moreover, I had read my share of old books. If it was anything like what was described in those, it was going to be terribly boring. Doubly so since I didn't expect there to be a single named character attending this party.
When we finally arrived at the party I chose a seat in the corner since I was among the first to arrive in hopes that if I hid myself I would not attract attention. Unfortunately for me this was not the case and a small ring of noble women formed around me. I tried paying attention to whatever drivel they were talking about but found it hard. They aggressively questioned what I was wearing and why I didn't have makeup on and acted appalled when I told them the truth. They calmed down when the hostess came over and said some soothing words to avoid a fight breaking out at her gathering. When the ladies' feathers became unruffled and the conversation turned away from me, I excused myself to go search for a countess I had made up.
Unexpectedly, I saw Natasha standing on her own in the corner holding a plate of sweets and looking dejected. Hallelujah, I was saved. Natasha was notably more learned on the fashion of the time and could undoubtedly give me some advice without acting horribly condescending. She looked reserved when she saw me walking up to her but relaxed a little when I smiled at her assuredly.
'I don't believe we've met before, my name is Princess Kitty Bezuheva, could you do me the pleasure of introducing yourself to me,' is what I tried to say but instead what came out of my mouth was,"I see Betsy has made it a habit of inviting commoners to her parties. That's what you're wearing? How drab, I suppose it makes sense you would not be aware of what's in style given your background but next time you are invited to a formal gathering like this please save yourself the embarrassment and don't allow your maids to dress you, it looks tacky."
I wanted to stop myself, what the fuck was I saying? Not only was I being mean I was also targeting Natasha's weak points. Knowing Natasha, she had spent hours agonizing over what to wear to this party while I was the one who let my maids do what they wanted. I expected her to react like she had in the game, spit out a few terse remarks and let her clever words speak for themselves but she didn't do anything like that. Instead she smiled pleasantly. A shiver went down my spine as I looked into her eyes, there was nothing intelligent behind them, she looked completely empty.
All of a sudden she dropped her plate and started crying loudly. Her face didn't change though, as she cried she continued to have that blank, pleasant look on her face. Before her expression could betray her, she ran from the room.
"There's the Kitty I know," a noble woman said proudly as she touched my shoulder.
I was absolutely mortified; both at my own words and Natasha's reaction. I ignored the flock of women who had come over to see what the commotion was and ran out of the room in an effort to catch Natasha and explain myself and hopefully make her explain herself but it was like she vanished without a trace. When I went back to the salon everyone was acting as they were before the incident. Disturbed, I lied about a stomach ache and left the party. Katarina happily chattered away on the ride back about the various servants she met at the gathering but I couldn't bring myself to pay attention to her, even if it was rude. I kept thinking about the strange smile Natasha gave me and how my mouth acted against my will. Moreover, she shouldn't have even been at that party from what I remember from the game. Just what exactly was going on?