Chapter 51: A Mirror With Cracks
The first thing Ophelia noticed that morning was that someone had copied her nail color.
It wasn’t exact—hers was a limited import from Virelli’s spring line, a muted lilac with opalescent shimmer. The girl three desks down had something cheaper. Thicker. Overcompensating. It pooled at the cuticles. Sloppy.
Amateurs.
NovelFire
Ophelia tilted her chin slightly, letting the sunlight hit her cheekbones at a flattering angle. If one more girl in the academy dared to imitate her lip gloss palette, she was going to file an official complaint. Again.
The private academy of Saint Ovidia’s Crown had always been her stage. And she’d fought for that status—for the whispered envy, the forced compliments, the way students cleared her path in the halls as if she were contagious with money and charm.
Which, to be fair, she was.
Or at least she had been.
Lately, there had been... murmurs.
She leaned back in her seat during etiquette theory, her manicured fingers twirling a stylus she had no intention of using. Professor Mettler droned on at the front of the room, something about posture and legacy and moral superiority. Or maybe it was foot placement.
Ophelia didn’t care. She was too busy wondering who, exactly, had leaked the idea that Lucas—her half-brother—was now the ward of Serathine D’Argente. The duchess. The one who threw parties where crown princes showed up without guards.
Lucas. Her half-brother. Her project.
Ophelia’s lips pressed into a tight, peach-glossed line.