The man looked down at me.
"He breathes loudly."
The woman beside him glanced at my face.
"He has your lungs, Benedict."
Benedict frowned.
"That explains the noise."
She smiled and brushed a finger across my cheek.
"And your jaw."
He looked at me for another moment.
"He’ll adapt."
"You’re sure?"
"We secured the southern perimeter."
The woman raised an eyebrow.
"You secured it yourself?"
"Yes."
"The Duke of Cantabile does not check perimeters personally."
"He does today."
There was something in the way he said it that made her stop arguing.
I had no idea what a southern perimeter was.
I did, however, understand the word Duke.
Duke.
My tiny brain practically caught fire.
Royalty?
Seriously?
I had been a middle manager five minutes ago. Now I was apparently somebody’s aristocratic infant.
I tried to twist away from Benedict, but my neck immediately informed me that such ambitions were several months ahead of schedule.
I screamed.
The chandelier screamed back.
A champagne glass exploded somewhere behind us.
Benedict stared at the shattered glass.
Then he looked at me.
"Acceptable."
Acceptable?
I had just weaponized my own crying.
And apparently, this man considered that a good thing.
The woman sighed and held out her arms.
"Give him to me."
Benedict passed me over.
The moment I touched her, the tension in my tiny body began to disappear.
"What did you do?" Benedict asked.
"Nothing."
"You stopped him."
"I hummed."
He looked at her.
"You call that humming?"
She smiled.
"You call what he did crying?"
For the first time, Benedict’s expression softened.
"Fair point."
Then she began humming again.
My eyelids grew heavy.
Wonderful.
Apparently, my new mother had a built in shutdown button.
Hours later, I woke to the sound of the nursery door opening.
A figure entered.
I stared.
Then stared harder.
No.
Absolutely not.
That was a skeleton.
A literal skeleton.
He wore an immaculate tailcoat, carried a silver tray, and had a porcelain tea set balanced on one hand.
A scythe rested across his back.
Because apparently this family had decided that having a skeleton butler was perfectly normal.
The skeleton stopped beside my crib.
"The young master is awake."
His voice scraped across the room like dry leaves.
I immediately closed my eyes.
Maybe if I pretended to be asleep, he would leave.
"You breathe too fast for sleep."
I froze.
"Your heart is racing as well."
I slowly opened one eye.
The skeleton was still staring at me.
Fantastic.
Even the undead could tell when I was lying.
He placed the tray on the table.
"Tea will be served when her ladyship returns."
He straightened.
"I am Grim."
He paused.
"If you require assistance, gurgle twice."
I blinked.
"I will do my best to interpret the pitch."
He bowed.
Then he walked away.
The door clicked shut.
I stared at it.
What the fuck had I been reincarnated into?
For the next three days, I learned one very important fact.
This family was insane.
Everything made noise.
The walls hummed.
The floor whispered.
Footsteps continued echoing long after people had left the room.
Even the stones seemed to carry some kind of distant song.
And whenever Duchess Nicole spoke somewhere in the hallway, my bottle rattled.
Apparently, sound wasn’t just sound here.
It had weight.
It had force.
It could hurt.
So I developed a strategy.
Keep quiet.
Stay unnoticed.
Observe everyone.
The Duke was clearly the head of the family. He came into the nursery once a day, listened to my breathing, stamped a piece of parchment, and left.
The Duchess handled everything else.
Food.
Baths.
Sleep.
And those terrifying lullabies.
The servants were another problem.
I eventually learned the family name.
Uno.
They called us the Sound Family.
And they were terrified of making noise.
One afternoon, I watched a maid trip over a rug.
A vase slipped from a table.
She caught it.
Not a single sound escaped her.
She landed on her feet, fixed her uniform, placed the vase back where it belonged, and walked away.
I stared after her.
That wasn’t housekeeping.
That was military training.
My strategy became even simpler.
Be the quietest baby in the history of reincarnation.
Keep my head down.
Don’t attract attention.
Don’t reveal anything.
For once in my life, I was going to be good at staying under the radar.
That plan survived for exactly four days.
Then a pink dog walked into my nursery.
He had a black patch over one eye and a tail that looked like someone had broken it and decided to leave it that way.
He sniffed my crib.
I stared at him.
He stared back.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then the dog opened his mouth.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
My soul nearly left my body.
The scream hit me like a physical wall.
My tiny teeth rattled.
My ears rang.
The nursery door exploded inward.
Splinters flew across the room.
And standing in the doorway was my mother.
Duchess Nicole.
Her eyes were glowing white.
The air itself seemed to tighten around her.
She looked at the dog.
"Courage."
The dog trembled.
Nicole’s voice remained perfectly calm.
"What did you find?"
Courage pointed at me.
Nicole looked at my crib.
Then at him.
Then back at me.
"He’s a baby."
Courage whimpered.
Nicole sighed.
"Honestly, Nigel."
Nigel?
Wait.
That was my name.
Nigel Uno.
She walked over and picked me up.
The moment I was in her arms, the pressure in the room disappeared.
Courage backed toward the ruined doorway.
Nicole glanced at him.
"Stop screaming at my son."
The dog gave a tiny whine.
"He screams at the wind," she added.
I looked at the dog.
The dog looked at me.
And suddenly I understood something.
He was afraid of me.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
If the dog had already noticed something strange about me, then my quiet little survival plan was finished anyway.
I needed to establish dominance.
So I took a deep breath.
Nicole looked down at me.
"Nigel?"
Too late.
I screamed.
Not like a baby.
I pushed every bit of air I could through my tiny lungs.
The sound left my throat as a concentrated blast.
The dog flew backward.
Three feet.
He landed on the hardwood floor, scrambled upright, and disappeared around the corner.
Silence.
Nicole stared at the empty hallway.
Then she looked down at me.
I stared back.
Her lips slowly curled into a smile.
It wasn’t a normal mother’s smile.
It was the smile of someone who had just discovered something wonderful.
"Benedict."
Her voice carried through the entire castle.
"I think you should come upstairs."
Heavy footsteps sounded somewhere below.
Nicole looked at me again.
"He has your projection."
The footsteps stopped.
Then they started coming faster.
I closed my eyes.
My throat felt like I’d swallowed a handful of broken glass.
My head was pounding.
Every nerve in my neck screamed at me.
So much for staying quiet.
I had just learned the first rule of this world.
Sound was power.
And power had a price.
My survival plan needed work.
Staying unnoticed wasn’t going to be enough.
Not in a house where the pets screamed, the maids moved like assassins, my mother could destroy a door without raising her voice, and my father apparently considered sonic explosions a promising developmental milestone.
I sighed internally.
Fine.
If I couldn’t stay quiet...
I’d just have to get louder.