The next few days fell into an easy rhythm that seemed to help Thaniel calm down. Rather than following Lian around, fretting about Pandy, and sitting quietly with a book and worried eyes, he actually began to show signs of his usual adventurous, even mischievous self.

  Every morning a maid woke the boys at eight for breakfast. Or rather, they woke Thaniel, because Lian’s eyes popped open as soon as the first rays of the sun passed between the curtains, and within ten minutes he was sitting at a little blue-stained desk and studying. One of the many in-game books Pandy read in her past life had indicated that being linked to the rising and setting of the sun was one of the traits of a Light mage, but it was interesting to see it in action.

  It surprised Pandy the first time, and the young villain nearly caught Pandy perched on the desk, reading the book he’d left out the night before. She managed to dive off and escape under the bed before he turned around, and after that Lian slid out of bed without disturbing Thaniel, got dressed, and spent the next hour or so reading while Pandy pretended she was sleeping.

  After breakfast, which consisted of a buffet-style selection of covered dishes, most of which would have made anyone health-conscious gasp in horror, Lian went back to his room to continue reading. Thaniel followed him for the first three days, but rebelled on the fourth.

  “Lady Alice said we could ride one of the horses,” Thaniel wheedled, gripping Lian’s hand as he stared up at the taller boy. “I’ve never ridden a horse before. Can’t we?”

  Lian looked from his brother to the stairs leading up to the second floor where the bedrooms were. Pandy could almost see his desperation. Usually, he simply would have said, “No,” and left, but this was Thaniel, the only person in the world he cared about, at least according to game lore.

  “I suppose I can take him,” a grumpy little voice said. They all turned to look in surprise at Geraldine, whose thick brows were drawn down over her freckled nose. In spite of the fact that breakfast was served at eight, none of the family were ever there at that time, which relieved Lian and disappointed Thaniel in equal measures.

  Thaniel ducked behind Lian, much as Miss Cupcakes was half-hidden behind Geraldine’s legs. “It’s all right,” he mumbled. “Lian says I need to study for school.”

  Lian sighed, so softly Pandy might not have heard it if she wasn’t clutched against Thaniel’s chest, and thus in between Thaniel and Lian. “You’re quite intelligent, Thaniel,” he said stiffly. “You can study…later. They’ll have classes in equestrianism at Falconet, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have some experience. Many members of the nobility have been riding since they were your age or younger.”

  The little boy’s face brightened, then clouded over again. “What are you going to do?”

  Lian glanced at the stairs again. “I do need to study. My martial and equestrian skills are sufficient.” That was an understatement. In the way of all the best otome games, each of the love interests had their own realms of expertise. As the villain, Lian was as good or better than they were at everything, making him the perfect rival no matter who you decided to romance.

  Thaniel’s face fell. “I want to go with you, then.” His fingers tightened on the bottom of Lian’s gray coat.

  Geraldine gave a little sniff, and both boys looked at her again, reminded of her presence. Her lips were pinched tightly together, and her nose was in the air, but the fists balled up in the fabric of her knee-length skirts said she was more nervous than she pretended.

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” she declared. “Do what you want.” Rather than moving toward the breakfast room, however, she turned as if to go back to wherever she’d come from. At her heels, Miss Cupcakes gave Pandy a withering glare before limping after her young mistress.

  Showing more sensitivity – or perhaps more of a desire to be rid of his little brother – than Pandy had thought him capable of, Lian stepped aside and gave Thaniel a little push. “Go with her,” he said. “I’m going to be studying the relative merits of the compulsion versus ingratiation techniques for training elementals, and I need to focus.”

  Thaniel gave his brother a pleading look, but Lian was already heading for the stairs without looking back. Geraldine, on the other hand, had stopped, and was shifting from foot to foot as she waited to see what Thaniel would do, almost stepping on her kitten’s tail in the process.

  Finally, Thaniel gave Geraldine a shy smile. Pandy hadn’t really thought of him as a bashful child, but she had really only seen him around people he’d known his entire life, and this was the first time he’d left his brother’s side since they arrived.

  “Will you really show me how to ride?” he asked, a blond curl falling over one blue eye.

  Geraldine blinked. Her lashes were surprisingly long, thick, and curly, surrounding her rich chocolate-brown eyes. Now that Pandy had a moment to actually look at her, she was rather pretty, in spite of her heavy brows and a penchant for large bows and an excessive amount of ruffles.

  “I don’t… I won’t teach you how to ride. One of the stablehands will do that. But I can show you to the stable.” Reaching down, she scooped up the kitten, who gave a long-suffering mew as she was draped over the girl’s shoulder, between her neck and a large puff sleeve.

  She started to walk off before Thaniel said, “Aren’t you hungry?”

  If this had still been a game, the question would have triggered a loud growl from the girl’s stomach, but she just made a face. “I suppose, but everything Chef makes when Daddy’s home is greasy.” Her expression brightened, and she glanced around. “Come on!”

  Thaniel followed the girl through halls Pandy had never seen before. She’d spent the last three nights wishing she dared explore, but between Lian sleeping just a few feet away and the fear that she might run into Miss Cupcakes prowling the house, she hadn’t dared. It was thrilling to catch even brief glimpses of locations from the game.

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  The library looked almost exactly as she remembered it, though the curtains were yellow instead of blue. Would they be changed at some point over the next three years, or was this another difference between game and reality? How large would those differences grow between now and when the game was supposed to begin?

  The kitchen was the scene of another event between Clara and one of the male leads, and it, too, was subtly different from Pandy’s memory. There were more pots and pans hanging overhead, and a large piece of spitted meat rotated slowly over the fire. She assumed an elemental was turning it, but it was so low-level that it had no physical manifestation. Chef was a Fire elementalist, something she knew from reading the diary he kept stashed behind the flour sacks in the pantry.

  As Geraldine, Thaniel, and their pets appeared in the doorway, a large man looked up, immediately noticing their presence. He looked very different than he did in Clara’s event as a broad smile crossed his face and he doffed his tall, puffy white hat, bowing deeply.

  “Ah! Ze lovely lady Geraldine,” he said, pronouncing Geraldine’s name in a spectacularly fake French accent. The chef’s voice actor only had one line in the game, and Pandy had always privately felt that the man had probably never been closer to France than eating French fries with his Big Burgernator.

  Of course, she’d never posted that on the forums, even when someone else mentioned it, because how would she feel if she put her all into something only to have it mocked? Well, actually, she knew exactly how that felt, which was why she never said anything.

  Straightening, the cobblestone wall of a man, solid and round and gray, said, “Are you lookeeng for an appel thees morning?” He laid a finger beside his bulbous nose, winking broadly, then seemed to notice Thaniel, even though the boy had been standing in plain sight the whole time. Looking comically shocked, he said, “And ‘oo is thees? Oo la la, what a ‘andsome boy! Ees he per’aps your suitor, Lady Geraldine?”

  Geraldine turned a brilliant shade of red and began to splutter. “No! I barely know him! He’s just some boy who-”

  Thaniel took a step back, tears already forming in his eyes. Seeming to realize she’d just stepped in it, Geraldine jerked her chin up, grabbed Thaniel’s free hand and said, “So what if he is? And we do need apples. We’re going to the stable this morning.”

  Thaniel’s fingers spasmed, then closed around those of the little girl. He sniffled slightly, but managed a smile, and Pandy’s heart threatened to burst from her chest. He really was adorable, and he definitely wasn’t as all right as he was trying to pretend. Honestly, he could probably use a therapist, but as far as she knew this world didn’t have them, so instead she pressed her soft nose against his jaw, her whiskers tickling him until he giggled damply.

  Geraldine glanced back at the sound, only then seeming to realize that she was still holding his hand. She released it, but not as quickly as she could have, and the red in her cheeks shifted from embarassed anger to simple embarrassment.

  Chef noticed, of course, gray eyes twinkling beneath heavy gray brows. He wasn’t particularly tall, and he was rather soft around the middle, but when he was chasing you with a flaming cleaver in the middle of the night he was absolutely terrifying. Now, however, he only seemed like an affectionate grandfather figure as he gestured to a passing kitchen boy. “Breeng Lady Geraldine a basket of apples, Charles. Allez!”

  The boy hurried off, quickly returning with a small basket of apples, many of which bore bruises or wormholes. The chef took it from him, then reached over and grabbed two perfect, shiny red apples from a counter nearby, startling a young woman who had been about to begin cutting them up for use in some recipe. She started to protest, then saw who had stolen her ingredients and just sighed and went off somewhere, presumably to get more apples.

  “‘Ere you are,” Chef said, extending the basket, now topped by the two beautiful apples. Geraldine took it, and once again the large man winked. “Enjoy your outing, eh, mademoiselle? You must allow me to prepare your wedding cake someday.”

  The girl’s cheeks flamed anew, and Miss Cupcakes hissed warningly at Chef. The man just let out a booming laugh and turned away, shouting at another boy to make sure he cut the potatoes into perfectly matching cubes.

  “Come on,” Geraldine said, straining to hold the heavy basket. Thaniel reached out as if to take it from her, even though he was smaller than she was, and she snatched it away with a scowl. But when they reached the heavy wooden door on the other side of the room, she couldn’t open it and hang onto her wicker weight, so Thaniel took one handle of the basket while she held onto the other. Together, they pushed open the door, stepping out into the bright sunlight.

  The two children munched on the glossy red apples as they crossed the training yard Pandy recognized from another of Clara’s events. It was a beautiful morning, with a cool breeze carrying away the first of the sun’s heat, and stilted conversation quickly became cheerful chatter between two children who usually had no one their own age to talk to.

  At first Pandy was surprised by the size of the stable, but once she thought about it, it made sense. For all that the Reedsleys seemed extremely wealthy to her, they were actually considered ‘poor’ by most of the nobles in the game. In fact, Clara was bullied when she first arrived at school because her clothes were simple and out of style.

  Lord Captain Reedsley was a cavalry officer, however, and lived on a sprawling country estate. Of course he had lots of horses, but once Pandy looked more closely, she realized that many of them were old or injured. There was a mare with only one eye, and a gelding whose tail was little more than a stump. Did Captain Reedsley take in all the horses who were hurt or retired from the cavalry?

  “Princess Petunia is my favorite,” Geraldine gushed, crossing to an old mare calmly cropping grass near the pasture fence. The mare looked up as the girl approached, and her brown eyes sparkled as she caught sight of the basket of apples. Soon both Thaniel and Geraldine had placed their pets on the ground as they fed wrinkled apples to the horses who quickly gathered around. Stablehands watched indulgently as their charges lipped at the children’s hair and hands, leaving drool that neither Thaniel nor Geraldine seemed to notice.

  With the two children thus occupied, Pandy and Miss Cupcakes found themselves once again face to face. The kitten stood between her mistress’ stockinged ankles and glared at Pandy with all the venom in her tiny kitten heart, while Pandy attempted to look as innocuous as possible. In her previous life, it was all but impossible to convince anyone to take her seriously, even though she was a perfectly average human being. In this life, everyone seemed convinced that she was an unholy horror, even though she’d never done anything except be the best possible rabbit she could. Life really wasn’t fair.

  As the number of remaining apples diminished, the children began drawing out the activity, pulling back the fruit between bites and focusing on their favorite horses. Most of the others drifted away, including one pushy brown gelding who barely dodged a swipe from Miss Cupcakes’ claws when he shoved his head through the fence and went directly for the basket.

  Pandy took advantage of the children and kitten’s distraction, and hopped back toward the training yard. She had a few things she wanted to check out, and this was the best chance she’d had since they arrived.