The Villainess and the Baker's Daughter

Synopsis

Nine-year-old Vivien knows exactly how her story ends, because she read it in another life: the sickly heroine dies, and the crown prince mourns her. So she skips the prince entirely and sets out to befriend the cold, black-haired girl in the duke's villa on the hill, the future villainess whose rare constitution can drain the mana that is killing her. But Rachel Edwin has been taught that everyone leaves, the emperor's inspectors are already asking questions in the village, and the nanny at the duke's side has spent five years quietly building a plan of her own.