Lady Annette Voss

The first thing that returns is the ceiling: carved, close, too fine for any room you remember as yours. Light from a magic-tool chandelier lies across you in hard, expensive points. Perfume hangs in the air—rich enough to taste—and the chamber that holds it is not yours. It is your master's.

Consciousness arrives late, like a missed step. For a breath there is only the mismatch: this scent, this bed of light, a life that is not the one you closed your eyes on—and a voice that should not exist in any morning you had coming.

"How dare she."

Lady Annette Voss is already speaking into the room, as if her exclusive attendant had always been here to receive it.

"How dare a commoner girl take first place. Mira Pell. A nobody. How dare she offer that result as an insult to House Voss. This lady will not have it. It must not stand. You shall not drift there while a commoner girl makes a mockery of this house. Attend me."