Kashvi had spent the past few days shut up in her room, but tonight would be different. She'd finally accepted it, she'd transmigrated into the world of the novel. There wasn't really a choice left in the matter anymore.

So she decided her mission would begin tonight.

"I heard you weren't feeling well these past few days." Vikram broke the silence the moment his daughter joined him at the table. He watched her glance up at him briefly before her eyes dropped straight back to her plate.

That was his cue to stop talking.

His daughter was cold, distant, hard to read most days. He was relieved she was still topping her exams despite whatever had been going on, but he couldn't shake the worry sitting in his chest. Maya was still young, but she carried herself like someone twice her age. He respected her drive to prove herself worthy of running the family business one day. Still, some nights he wondered if she was spending her whole youth chasing that instead of actually living it.

He couldn't say any of that to her face, though. It would only make her defensive, make her think he didn't trust her judgment.

While Vikram sat there turning that over in his head, Kashvi was busy working up the nerve to ask him for something. She already knew he'd agree to almost anything she asked. That wasn't the problem. The problem was finding the right moment.

'There's no right moment left,' she told herself, steadying her resolve. 'Nothing's changed since the last time we sat here in silence. If I don't do this now, I'll regret it. The main story doesn't start for another ten years, but the villain is already turning into something worse every single day.'

"I want to transfer schools," she said, voice quieter than she intended, lifting her head to meet his eyes with as much determination as she could manage.

Vikram's brow rose, clearly thrown by the request. "You want to transfer?" he repeated, watching her nod. "Why? Is something wrong at the academy I should know about?"

She shook her head. "It's nothing like that. I spent the last few days in my room thinking things through, not because I was unwell. And after everything, I've decided I want to change schools."

It wasn't like Maya to make sudden decisions, so the timing didn't shock him much. What did shock him was the idea of switching schools in the middle of the academic year, and to somewhere less prestigious, no less.

He had a hundred questions crowding his head, but he knew better than to ask most of them. So he asked the one that actually mattered.

"Why," he said again, same even tone. "What could you possibly gain from leaving the top academy in the country for somewhere ordinary?"

"Because," Kashvi paused, holding his gaze steady, "I want to know what it's like to be a normal sixteen year old girl."

His eyes widened slightly at that. Had he heard her right? His daughter, the girl obsessed with becoming the perfect heir, wanted to be normal?

"I won't get that at Imperial Heights. Everything there is about connections, legacy, who your family is. I want to go somewhere my classmates don't already know me as the Chauhan heiress. I know I might lose some of those future connections by doing this, but I don't want you to keep worrying about me either, Papa."

Vikram opened his mouth, then closed it again, words caught somewhere in his throat. His daughter was a perfectionist through and through, so hearing her admit she wanted something as simple, as almost trivial, as normalcy was jarring enough. But it was the word "Papa" that actually knocked the wind out of him. Not sir. Not a title. Papa.

"I already looked into a school. It's called Raghavendra's, the government school in the city. I just need your approval." She kept her tone even, controlled, exactly how the real Maya would have delivered it, giving nothing else away as she watched him clear his throat.

"If that's what you truly want, I'll make the arrangements." His eyes widened again, just slightly, when for one brief second, she smiled.

It wasn't a big smile. Barely there at all. But it wasn't the practiced, performative one she usually wore either. It was real. And something in him held onto that, quietly hoping his daughter genuinely wanted to be an ordinary girl for once, free to make mistakes without the weight of an empire riding on every single one.

"Thank you, Papa." She went back to her food, grinning inwardly, unable to shake the warmth spreading through her chest. It felt like something in her was slowly starting to heal.

Three days later, at the government school...

After Raghavendra was discharged from the hospital and returned to his cramped one room apartment, life resumed exactly as dull as it had always been.

Kashvi had told him repeatedly to rest, to actually take care of himself, but there was no version of his life where that was possible. He wasn't like her, someone with the luxury of doing nothing for a while. He had his part time job waiting, rent that didn't care how injured he was.

'I shouldn't be thinking about her,' he told himself, staring out the classroom window, elbows braced against the beat up desk in their overcrowded room. 'I don't even know her name. She doesn't know mine either. There's no reason we'd ever cross paths again.'

He nodded to himself, trying to push the memory of the strange girl out of his head, the first person in longer than he could remember who'd shown him any real kindness. To Raghavendra, people like that were usually just spoiled, comfortable enough at home to have compassion left over for strangers. She probably just felt sorry for him. That was likely all it was.

Just as he'd convinced himself he'd never see her again, he was proven wrong.

Their teacher walked in a moment later, and the noisy classroom scrambled into their seats. Raghavendra barely registered any of it, didn't think twice about the sudden hush that fell over the room. He was only there to be marked present. Nothing about that day mattered to him.

"Alright, class. Before we start today's lesson, I want to introduce a new student joining us." The teacher smiled, gesturing to the girl standing beside him.

Every head in the room turned. The boys stared, jaws slack, clearly having never seen anyone like her before. The girls' reactions were more mixed, some visibly annoyed by her, others openly admiring.

Raghavendra's eyes drifted toward the front of the room out of habit, and then went wide the moment he recognized her face.

"Hi. My name is Maya Chauhan. I hope we get along." She smiled warmly, tilting her head down in a polite little bow.

'What...' A chill ran down his spine as her gaze flicked to him for just a second, something unmistakably mischievous flashing behind that polite smile.