The scent of roasted meat was the first lie.
It wafted through the drafty corridors of the Saint Mary's Home for the Unwanted, a rich, savory aroma that had no business existing within these peeling gray walls.
Usually, the orphanage smelled of boiled cabbage, damp mildew, and the sharp, ammonia-tinged scent of fear.
But today, the air was thick with the smell of beef, rosemary, and cheap lavender perfume.
The transformation was nothing short of miraculous, or perhaps, blasphemous.
The main hall, typically a bleak expanse of splintered wood floors and darkened windows, had been scrubbed until the boards groaned in protest.
Garlands of wildflowers, likely picked by the older children at dawn under the threat of a cane, were draped haphazardly over the cracks in the plaster.
The windows had been wiped clean, allowing the midday sun to stream in, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air like tiny, suspended stars.
And the children.
Dozens of them, ranging from toddlers to teenagers, sat at the long wooden tables. They were unrecognizable. The rags stitched together from potato sacks, which they usually wore, were nowhere to be seen.
In their place were stiff, itchy tunics of bleached cotton and trousers that didn't have holes in the knees. Their faces, usually smudged with soot and tears, were scrubbed raw and pink.
But the most jarring sight was the food. Bowls of stew with actual chunks of meat, loaves of soft white bread, and even cups of watered-down milk.
The children ate with a fervor that bordered on desperation, their eyes darting toward the kitchen doors as if expecting the Matron to burst in, laugh, and snatch it all away.
In the corner of this surreal banquet, far removed from the clamor of clinking spoons and nervous laughter, lay a small anomaly.
Mira lay on her stomach on the floor, her small frame almost swallowed by the shadows of a large bookshelf.
She was six years old, with messy dark hair that refused to be tamed by the harsh brushing she had endured earlier that morning. She wore the same stiff, white dress as the other girls, but unlike them, she wasn't concerned with keeping it clean.
She swung her short legs back and forth in the air, humming a tuneless melody. Her cheeks were puffed out in concentration, creating a soft, dumpling-like appearance that made the few adults who passed by coo at her "innocence."
She propped her chin up with her left hand, her small fingers digging into her cheek, while her right hand gripped a piece of burnt charcoal she had stolen from the fireplace.
She was drawing on the back of a discarded inventory scroll. To any observer, it looked like the meaningless scribbles of a bored child, jagged lines, circles, and angry swirls.
But inside Mira's mind, the charcoal lines were a map of a world that wanted to kill her.
'Focus, Mira. Focus,' she chided herself internally, though the command was fuzzy, wrapped in the cotton-wool haze of a child's developing brain. 'Don't fall asleep. The big bad wolf is coming.'
Five years.
It had been five years since she had woken up in this world. She remembered the sheer, existential panic of that first day.
She had gone to sleep in her studio apartment, a twenty-something struggling artist with back pain and a mountain of student debt, and woke up screaming, her vocal cords producing only the shrill, piercing wail of an infant.
She remembered the humiliation of the pacifier. The rubber nipple had been shoved into her mouth by a frazzled caregiver to silence her.
She had wanted to spit it out, to demand an explanation, to ask for a lawyer or a doctor. But her infant instincts had betrayed her. The rhythmic sucking was soothing; it released a rush of dopamine that her undeveloped brain craved.
She had hated herself for it, sucking on that piece of plastic while her adult mind screamed in the void.
Adaptation had been brutal.
She had learned very quickly that this was not a fairytale. Saint Mary's was a warehouse for the discarded. The "teachers" here were not educators; they were wardens. They liked invisible children.
They liked children who didn't cry, didn't ask for more food, and didn't fight back. The "Punishment Room", a damp cellar with rats the size of cats, was a place Mira had visited once when she was three. She had never misbehaved again.
She had learned to leverage her biological advantages. Being a child meant her brain was plastic, absorbent.
She picked up the language faster than she expected. She learned to walk, to run, and to navigate the complex social hierarchy of orphans. But the most dangerous side effect was the blending of her souls.
Sometimes, she wasn't sure where the twenty-year-old ended, and the six-year-old began. Her thoughts were often hijacked by sudden, overwhelming urges.
A shiny object could distract her from a serious train of thought. Hunger made her irrationally angry. The need for a nap could override her survival instincts. It was like driving a Ferrari with a steering wheel made of majestic, slippery soap.
Mira sighed, a long, dramatic exhale that ruffled her bangs. She looked down at her drawing.
The charcoal stick traced a large, wobbly circle in the center of the paper.
'The Empire,' she thought, her eyes narrowing.
This world was a mess. A high-fantasy disaster waiting to happen.
From the bits of gossip she had eavesdropped on from the guards and merchants who delivered supplies, she had pieced together the geography.
The Empire was a massive, sprawling beast of a nation, divided into six main regions like slices of a very dangerous pie.
To the North, the Winter Dukedom, ruled by the house of freezing maniacs who fought ice giants.
To the South, the Verdant Dukedom, rich in agriculture and poison experts.
To the East, the Iron Dukedom, where the mountains bled metal, and the people had soot in their lungs.