Spoiler from windtear in the spoiler forum

You know the blurb - Violette is desperately jealous of her sister, tries to kill her, spends 18 months in prison, wakes up two years earlier, resolves to do better this time and become a nun.

So it's the day after Maryjun's arrival and she and Violette go to a garden party. Here we meet Yulan, Violette's childhood friend. He is a year younger than she and resembles his 'cousin' the Crown Prince, who considers him a better man in almost all respects. As the novel progresses we will learn that Yulan is the King's son by one of his mistresses who the King strongarmed one of his relatives into adopting (a thing which is known by all of the other nobles but is politely Not Talked About), that he met Violette when she rescued him from bullies when they were both kids, and that he is utterly yandere for her. It is also implied that he knows temporal magic and therefore could be the reason Violette went back in time.

At the party one of the other noble girls with whom Violette has been friendly accidentally-on-purpose pours tea on MJ's skirt. The Crown Prince immediately attacks Vio as the instigator. Where before she defended herself and sealed the Prince's opinion of her as a jealous woman, here she stays silent. Yulan sarcastically tells the Prince how clever he is to see the whole situation at just a glance without talking to anybody and sweeps Vio off to eat. The Prince starts to brood on Yulan's words and realises that he jumped to conclusions that were probably wrong and resolves to pay more attention to Vio and the situation.

Next they're off to school. Vio resolves to spend more time with Yulan rather than throwing her attention away on the Prince and so starts to eat lunch with Yulan and spend time after school with him instead of fluttering around the Prince. Now that she's suddenly gone right after he accused her of something she blatantly didn't do, the Prince misses Violette. After a few days where it becomes blatantly obvious she is avoiding him, he gives a Royal Request for her to meet him for afternoon tea one day, where he apologises to her. The scene has the Prince reflecting on how she's not such a bad girl really and Vio wondering why she wasted so much time dreaming of this bloke and trying to think of a way to politely leave. She had been looking for Yulan right before getting the order, so once Yulan finds out she's at the Prince's salon he turns up to collect her. She grabs the chance to leave with obvious haste, leaving the Prince behind watching them go. Prince sees Vio smile at Yulan with happiness, realizes she was only smiling politely at him, and gets jealous.

Next is the violin recital thing. Vio realises that the Prince has barely interacted with MJ this time, while last time they were close enough that he invited her to the royal box. So she decides to tutor MJ in the violin to get her up to standard for a performance to attract the Prince's attention. We get some scenes here of the family interaction and we get to see how MJ is praised for everything but Vio is either told to help her sister more or ignored. MJ also asks to take afternoon tea with Vio and there's a truly painful scene where MJ is prattling on thinking everything is fine and Vio is trying not to scream. At the recital, MJ performs beautifully but when the Prince is getting ready for his performance his cape is ripped accidentally and there's no time to go get a new one. When some of the other ladies begin to discuss punishing the stage crew for allowing it to happen, MJ rounds on them, speaking in defence of the commoner crew. Meanwhile in the dressing area, Vio whips out a needle and thread and quickly mends the Prince's cape. He asks her how she knows to do that, because noble girls consider sewing beneath them. She fobs him off because she can't tell him she learnt to sew in order to pass the time in prison. When the other nobles ask how the cape got mended she says that she'd brought along one of their household's seamstresses in case something happened to her or MJ's outfits.

We now have the studying for exams arc, where Vio and Yulan make plans to study together and the Prince and MJ horn in. Vio chooses to see it as a chance to get MJ and the Prince together. This is where a lot of fans start really disliking MJ as she starts making overtures to Yulan, specifically because Vio likes him.

We now start a flashback arc in which we learn that Vio spent her childhood dressed as a boy at her mother's insistence and consequently was molested by her mother who pretended she (Vio) was her (Vio's) father, because of how much Vio resembles him. She also used to beat Vio for not being him. This only stopped when Vio hit puberty and became very physically obviously a woman. Polite Society saw Vio going around in boys' clothes with a boy's haircut and boyish mannerisms, and saw her sporting unexplained bruises, but very deliberately Did Not Connect The Dots, but consequently Vio and her situation now have a lot of sympathy in Society, though Vio doesn't realise it.

Now it is The Day That Never Ends. It starts when Vio's grandfather, the duke's ex-father-in-law, summons the duke for a Discussion about his behaviour. We do not yet know what was discussed, why Grandfather is only entering the story now, what his role is, or why he is able to order the duke around (but there's a lot of speculation on this forum). It continues when the current duchess summons Vio to afternoon tea. During this tea she makes it clear that she has been ignoring Vio at the duke's order. She makes overtures to Vio that are borderline creepy and strongly reminiscent of Vio's mother. Vio gets out as soon as she can. Meanwhile at school, MJ has 'overheard' some girls discussing (loudly) her situation, that her father is an adulterer, her mother is a golddigger and she's a bastard upstart, and how forbearing Lady Violette is, so graciously enduring such people. She (MJ) runs into Yulan and asks him if he's ever said such things. He promptly tells her he never said it but he definitely thought it. When she goes "Huh?" he asks her what she expected because what else do you call a man who openly lives with a woman when he's married to someone else, what else do you call a woman who sleeps with a married man, and what do you call a child born between two such people who insists on entering polite society? And regarding Violette, how could she possibly like such interlopers? And before she says how loving her father is, how loving was he to Vio? MJ is shocked at the reality that has been shoved in her face and races home. She bursts into Vio's room, crying, and demands to know if it's true that Vio feels that way. Before Vio can say anything, their father comes home and bursts into Vio's room. Looking around and seeing MJ crying, he yells at Vio that she's determined to destroy all his happiness and punches her in the mouth. MJ jumps between them and starts screaming, the duke is screaming, and Vio scrambles and gets out of there. She starts running and doesn't really stop until she bumps into Yulan who picks her up, tells her he loves her and wants to marry her and take her away from her entire horrible family. He then takes her to a hotel to wash and rest in a safe place. Marin arrives at the hotel with some of Vio's stuff and news about what's going on back at the ducal mansion. Apparently the duke got punched, either by the chef or Yulan (or possibly both? I hope it's both). Vio is calming down, Marin is calming down, Yulan is coldly furious with the duke and determined to get Vio away from the whole shemozzle and the ducal mansion is in chaos as the servants are in revolt at Vio's treatment. And it's only 6 or 7 in the evening. We still have 6 hours to go. What next?

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