Why two names? You’ll find out soon
Violet is fifteen, at the time of this book. She is also a mean girl. She blatantly breaks rules all of the time and gets away with it because people like her. She has a very intense rivalry with Celia and is Helena’s only friend, although neither of them would admit it.
oh boy, this is going to be long.
So her name was originally Vera Prescott and she was born to a pretty wealthy family. She used to spend time with Alexis (Anya’s younger cousin) and she would see Anya around. One time she caught Anya attempting to copy the way they were drinking tea and just gave her some pointers and left.
Vera was born out of wedlock. When she was 11 (and Anya was fourteen) someone found out and told everyone. Her parents banished her in the hopes that people would forget. They told everyone she died.
Vera, understandably, was pissed. So she decided that she was not going to go away. In fact, she was going to get married to someone rich so they’d always have to see her around. She eventually ends up at the Red Daisy under the name Violet Manchineel.
Now’s probably a good time to mention the two names. So getting your name changed legally is close to impossible because the legal records are also what people believe the gods see about you. So if you change your name, that’s like hiding from the gods. But there is a workaround, mostly for women getting married. The clerk will write that the old name is dead and write new papers for your current name. Basically, if you were named Jane Prescott and got married to John Doe, they would mark Jane Prescott as dead and then create a new set of papers for Jane Doe, wife of John Doe. Vera pretended she was getting married and her husband couldn’t make it. And since there’s no rule against putting a different first name on the papers, she became Violet Manchineel legally. This was definitely unnecessary, but she was trying to make a point.
Anyway, then Helena shows up, and I need to describe this from Violet’s perspective so you see how weird it is.
Imagine you are twelve years old and the most anticipated girl from the Blue Rose shows up at your door. Is she lost? No. She wants to talk to you.
She says she’s heard that you know how to make your face look like the rich girls.
That is something you can do, having grown up rich.
She asks if you heard about the tragedy that happened last Debut, when a boy died.
You were like three rooms away from the boy who had died.
She says they are having trouble finding someone to take his room and asks if you would be willing to.
You’ve already died once, as far as the law is concerned.
She says she can get you into Debut if you take Antony’s bed. She says she can get you into the Blue Rose, if you do her makeup.
You’re pretty sure that wasn’t the deal she was supposed to offer, but you respect ambition. You two aren’t that different.
Violet didn’t even know how right she was.
