My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

There was a long, awful silence as Ulrich stared down at Hermione crouching beneath his desk.

The moment she understood that he had finally seen her, heat rushed so strongly into her face that it felt painful. Her cheeks burned. Her eyes stung at once, turning wet with shame before she could stop it. She had really thought, stupidly, that she might manage to stay hidden until the end. He had looked so absorbed in his own thoughts when he came in, so distant and cold and focused on that paper in his hands, that for one foolish stretch of time she had believed she might escape notice.

And then he had spoken of their mother.

Of all things.

Of all moments.

And that was when she had moved, when her body betrayed her, when she got caught in the most humiliating way possible, curled like some thief under his desk, listening to words that had no business striking her that hard.

She wanted the floor to open and swallow her whole.

The silence did not break.

It only dragged on, unbearably, while Ulrich stood there and looked at her with that blank, unreadable expression of his. There was no raised voice. No question. No visible anger. Somehow, that made it worse. Much worse. His face had that still, flat look that seemed to ask whether she was serious, whether this was truly what he had returned to find in his office. Hermione would have preferred scolding. She would have preferred a cold lecture. She would have preferred almost anything over that quiet stare.

Ulrich’s gaze stayed on her for another moment before it lifted.

If Hermione were here, then the other two could not be far.

His eyes moved across the room quickly, and it took him almost no time at all to notice the details that ruined the rest of them. A strip of Esther’s skirt had been caught in the cupboard door and remained visible to anyone actually looking. Near the window, Airam’s pumps showed beneath the curtain, her shadow faintly outlined through the fabric. She was standing so still she might have thought that stiffness alone made her disappear.

It did not.

Ulrich pushed his chair back with a soft scrape and rose to his feet.

The sound made Hermione flinch.

She crawled out from beneath the desk as slowly as possible, every movement stiff with humiliation, and stood up without looking at him. Her hands twisted into the fabric of her skirt. She kept her face turned away, though that did nothing to cool it.

"I—It’s your fault," she mumbled.

Ulrich said nothing.

That made her face grow even hotter.

"You took forever to come back," she went on. "So we just came here, and then... and then you suddenly started talking about mother, and I..."

Her words thinned out into nothing. She could not finish. Saying any more would only make it worse.

The cupboard door opened a crack.

Then Esther stepped out completely, both hands clasped in front of her, her posture small and painfully guilty. Her eyes flicked toward Ulrich, then immediately downward again. She looked as though she expected judgment to fall on her any second.

"I—I am sorry, Lord Ulrich..." She said meekly.

Her voice shook. She looked close to tears already.

The curtain shifted next.

Airam emerged with far less hesitation than the other two. She was not embarrassed so much as annoyed, and most of that annoyance was directed at Hermione. She looked at her younger sister with plain criticism.

"You should have hidden better," she said. "He would not have found us otherwise."

Hermione snapped her head toward her. "As if!"

It was just a question of time, she was sure of it!

Airam ignored her and turned to Ulrich instead. Her eyes narrowed slightly.

"What about our mother?" She asked.

Esther, despite her distress, immediately looked up too. The fear on her face did not disappear, but curiosity slipped through it. Ulrich had just spoken Anna-Maria’s name. That alone was enough to catch all three of them.

Ulrich sat back down in his chair. He rested one arm on the armrest and tapped a finger against the wood once, then again, his gaze returning to Hermione.

"I was wondering," he said, "what your mother would think if she saw you as you are now."

Hermione’s breath caught.

His eyes stayed on her.

"Disappointment," he added after a beat, "might be the accurate word."

Hermione went scarlet.

For one instant she simply stood there, too stunned to speak, the humiliation from before flaring into a hot, furious mix of anger and shame that made her chest tighten. Her lips pressed into a thin line. She refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

"Hmph!"

She spun on her heel and stormed out of the room before anything in her face betrayed her any further.

"B—Big sister!" Esther gasped and hurried after her at once, forgetting her apology, forgetting her fear, forgetting everything but the need to follow.

The room fell quieter after they left.

Airam stayed where she was.

She did not rush out with them. She stood in front of Ulrich instead, watching him. Ulrich looked back at her without speaking. Neither of them moved for several seconds.

Airam did not lower her gaze first out of submission.

She turned away only when she chose to.

At the door, she stopped and spoke without looking back. "The next time you leave and do not return for that long, we are leaving."

It was a threat, though a weak one. Or perhaps not weak, simply impossible to carry out in any meaningful way. Ulrich knew it. Airam likely knew it too. Still, she said it because she wanted him to understand something.

They had not been at ease.

Not for a single second.

After that, she walked out to join her sisters.

Ulrich remained seated, his eyes resting on the doorway long after she disappeared beyond it.

They weren’t comfortable in the capital as expected. In his territory, within the protection of his estate, they had become bolder. More comfortable. More willing to argue, complain, explore, and provoke. Here, in the heart of a kingdom that would happily condemn them if their nature became public, that confidence frayed.

He had adopted them.

He had given them his name.

He had wrapped them in nobility and protection and a life that should have stood far above anything they once had.

But the truth had not changed.

They were still witches.

And titles, however useful, were not what kept them safe.

No.

Their best protection always remained Ulrich himself.

◊◊◊

By the time the afternoon settled over the mansion, lunch had already been prepared and laid out. The servants moved quickly, placing dishes across the table, filling glasses, adjusting silverware, then withdrawing before they could become part of the room’s attention. The meal itself was generous with warm bread, roasted meat cut into neat portions, butter-soft vegetables glazed with herbs, pale soup still steaming in its bowl, but none of it softened the mood.

Ulrich sat at the table with the three sisters.

He had not joined them out of tenderness or habit. The meal was one last preparation before the evening event, a final chance to put his expectations in front of them while they still had the privacy to hear it clearly. His presence pressed against the room harder than the quiet did. Even Esther, who had started the meal with careful hands and a hopeful attempt at normal composure, lost any appetite she might have had once Ulrich began to speak.

"Keep your voice low," he said, setting his utensils down with care. "Do not shout. Do not raise your tone because someone provokes you. Do not speak unless there is a reason to. If you are asked a question, answer it. If someone insults you, ignore it. They are not worth answering."

Hermione looked up at once, already irritated. "So we just take insults?"

Ulrich turned his eyes on her.

"A great deal of attention will be on you tonight," he said. "The purpose is simple. You are to make them reject the image they already have of witches."

He paused there, letting the words settle.

"They think witches are violent, crude, and unstable. They think you lack discipline. They think you belong in the woods, not in a hall beside nobles. Are you planning to confirm that for them?"

Hermione’s mouth closed.

Her fingers tightened around the fork in her hand. She wanted to snap back at him. He knew that. That was likely why he asked the question in that way. It forced her to choose between pride and sense, and she hated when he did that.

"It is a royal event," Ulrich continued. "That alone will restrain some of them. Most will not dare make a scene in front of the court unless they think they can survive the consequences. That does not mean they will show restraint in smaller ways. You may be cornered. Tested. Mocked. Spoken to as though you are curiosities instead of guests. If that happens, you will deal with it intelligently."

His gaze moved over all three of them.

"The last two years were not wasted. Elana and Linnea spent years teaching you how to speak, how to carry yourselves, how to answer without stumbling, how to remain composed when someone wants a reaction from you. Do not make that effort worthless."

At that, Esther straightened in her seat and nodded seriously.

"We will not disappoint you, Lord Ulrich," she said.

Hermione rolled her eyes and stabbed at a piece of food she had barely touched. "We are not stupid."

Ulrich did not respond to the interruption, so she went on.

"But if things get out of control," she said, "and they keep insulting us, we still do nothing?"

"We beat them," Airam said, before Ulrich could answer.

The reply came so simply that Esther nearly dropped her spoon.

Ulrich turned to Airam at once. "No."

Airam kept eating.

"If they touch Esther or Hermione, I will cripple them," she said again stubbornly.

Hermione looked half-offended and half-pleased by that. Esther looked panicked.

Ulrich watched Airam for a brief moment. There had been a time when that answer would have been worse. A great deal worse. The fact that she had stopped at ’cripple’ them and had not gone further was, by Airam’s standards, progress.

"You will not need to," Ulrich said. "I will be there for you."

He said it calmly, without flourish, as though it were an obvious fact rather than a reassurance.

His short and misleading words, however, had once again more effect than anything else he had said so far.

Esther lowered her eyes at once, and a timid flush spread over her cheeks. "T—Thank you..."

Hermione made an annoyed sound under her breath and looked away, though the warmth in her own face betrayed her faster than she would have liked. She disliked how easily Esther was swayed by his words but also her own light reaction.

Airam only shrugged and reached for more food.

To her, promises mattered less than what happened when the moment came.

Ulrich resumed speaking.

For the next ten minutes, he went over the evening in patient, exhausting detail. He reminded them how to greet titled guests. How long to hold eye contact before it turned into a challenge. Which questions were harmless, which were traps, and which insults were bait dressed up as curiosity. He told Hermione not to argue with people who wanted a scandal more than a conversation. He told Esther not to apologize for existing in the room. He told Airam, with great emphasis, that glaring at nobles as though deciding where to stab them was not acceptable court behavior.

That earned the faintest narrowing of Airam’s eyes.

Hermione suffered through the lecture with visible fatigue. Every few moments she shifted in her chair, sighed, or gave Ulrich the kind of look that suggested she had understood him five minutes ago and deeply wished he would stop talking. Esther, by contrast, listened to every word as though she were memorizing sacred instructions that would decide all their futures by nightfall. Airam seemed inattentive at first glance, focused mainly on finishing her meal, but now and then her gaze flicked toward Ulrich at exactly the right points to show she was hearing more than she pretended.

In the end, none of them enjoyed the food.

Not Esther, who was too nervous to taste half of what she put in her mouth.

Not Hermione, whose appetite had been strangled by annoyance and anticipation in equal measure.

Not Airam, who ate enough but with the air of someone enduring delay before something more interesting.

And not Ulrich himself, who had spent the meal sharpening their nerves on purpose because comfort would do them no good where they were going.

When the last dish had been cleared and the final instructions had been given, the meal ended without warmth or leisure.

Then all four of them left the table and headed off to prepare for the evening event.

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