Chapter 2: A woman of many faces

The ink flowed easily this morning.

Verena dipped her quill again, brushing it lightly over the crisp parchment. The scent of fresh ink and polished wood surrounded her—a quiet, productive atmosphere.

“The blue-haired noblewoman, seen once again at Duchess Melienne’s tea party, caused quite the stir after openly correcting the Marchioness of Helbourne’s financial judgment. A spectacle of rising power, or a fall from grace waiting to happen?”

She smiled.

The article was sharp enough to wound but vague enough to amuse.

She signed it with her usual pen name: "Nightingale."

Across her writing desk lay a neatly stacked set of folders—documents, statements, the very fabric of the city’s gossip. Everything passed through her hands. From noble dramas to commoner's heartbreaks, she turned them into gold—both in coin and in impact.

The city thrived on scandal.

And she, Verena, was its puppet master.

But what the world didn’t know… was that she wasn’t just writing the stories.

She was starring in them.

With a hum, she pushed away from her desk and stretched, running a hand through her brown hair streaked with a delicate sheen of blue, the color glinting in the morning light.

In the mirror nearby, her eyes—icy, intelligent blue—stared back at her with quiet satisfaction.

“Celeste at the tea party. Rosalie comforting the marquis’ children. Mira walking with the prince. Sylva posing as a muse…”

The ink had barely dried on the latest scandal sheet when Verena leaned back in her chair, a smirk tugging at her lips.

Outside, the cobbled street was just beginning to stir. Delivery boys shouted greetings to sleepy shopkeepers, horse-drawn carriages clattered past, and the distant bells of the palace chimed the early hour. But within the walls of Verena’s quiet study, the world bowed to her ink-stained hands.

She closed her eyes for a moment and exhaled, the scent of lavender ink and old paper grounding her.

I built this.

She hadn’t been born into wealth or status. In fact, she hadn’t even been born into this world.

She was young—too young to survive alone—when she first realized she didn’t belong in this world. Memories of her past life came like flickers of candlelight: unfamiliar machines, glowing screens, fast food, and cold apartment rooms.

But in this world, her first job was not in an office or school. It was delivering the daily papers, one ink-streaked page at a time.

She never told anyone how she used to read those scandal sheets while running errands through the merchant streets, tracing the headlines with her fingertips like they held secret magic. Eventually, she began to write her own—short, clever little pieces she pinned up in alleyways. People laughed. Then they talked. Then they paid.

And now?

Now nobles paid handsomely just to know what she would write.

She opened her eyes and looked toward the mirror beside her wardrobe. Her reflection stared back: short brown hair, sharp blue eyes, and the air of someone who had seen too much too young—but feared nothing now.

That was the other secret: she could shapeshift.

Literally.

She wasn’t sure how it started. Maybe she was always different. Maybe reincarnation had gifted her more than memories. She remembered, vaguely, standing in front of the mirror as a child, stretching her face with her hands, whispering, “Make me different.”

At first, it was small—longer eyelashes, a slightly taller frame. But in time, with practice and fierce determination, she learned to become anyone. Just by imagining it.

Now, she could switch hair color, eye shape, skin tone, height—everything—with the ease of slipping into a gown.

But her favorite transformation wasn’t physical.

It was the power of it.

Each persona gave her influence. Access. Escape. Control.

And she loved it.

Scandals could be created, shaped, and solved at her whim. And no one ever suspected. Why would they? The noblewoman. The muse. The caretaker. The perfect breeze of spring. Four women—none connected. None suspicious.

Verena grinned and picked up her next parchment.

"Rumor has it the widowed Marquis of Fernmere has recently taken in a young woman of fallen nobility—one Rosalie, a vision in pink, seen walking the estate gardens with his children…”

She smirked.

In a world that loved to trap women in roles, she chose all of hers. Muse, temptress, noble, maid, widow—whatever the story needed.

Sometimes, she wondered what her old self—lost somewhere in the hazy fog of a past life—would think of her now.

Then again, those memories faded more each day. This world had claimed her fully.

And Verena wouldn’t have it any other way.

But before she went, Verena dipped her quill once more and scribbled a quick line on fresh parchment:

“Truth is nothing without the right mask"

A woman who could be anyone. A woman who could turn whispers into flames. A woman who could write the scandals she created—spinning them into gold.

Verena leaned back in her chair, fingers tapping against her lips.

She had built an empire of deception and profit. With a shift of her hair, a flicker of her gaze, she could change the course of noble society.

And no one—not the painters, not the princes, not even the most cunning aristocrats—had figured it out.

Yet.

She exhaled deeply, staring at the flickering candlelight.

How long can I keep this up?

She didn’t have an answer.

But she knew one thing for certain.

As long as there was money to be made, Verena would always have a new scandal to create.

And tomorrow, another face to wear.

Verena’s home was tucked away behind an old bookshop on the quietest side of the Noble Quarter. Few knew she lived there. Fewer still had ever seen her real face. It was safer that way. After all, she wore many faces.

Sylva.

Celeste.

Mira.

Rosalie.

Each one lived a life Verena had crafted with precision—each with her own wardrobe, accent, mannerisms, and stories. They were not costumes. They were real women, created with care, each sent into the world for a purpose.

She glanced at the polished box on her vanity containing Mira’s pale gowns and hair ribbons.

Time to become someone gentler today.

As she began her quiet transformation into Mira—the spring-like breeze of the palace—Verena caught her own gaze in the mirror.

She didn’t envy any of the noblewomen she wrote about. They lived in cages gilded with silk and gossip.

She, on the other

hand, was free.

And when she held the quill, when the whole court waited with bated breath for the next scandal…

She was queen.

Verena didn't know in the other part of the town, a young man was carefully analysing the cut out pieces from the newspaper.