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CONTEXT

London, 1813, in the midst of the social season. Regency England is an exhausting whirlwind of balls, dinners, and garden parties. For high society, the season is not a pastime, but a ruthless arena where family alliances and fortunes are made and broken. Mothers push their daughters, heirs seek dowries, and scandals spread faster than wildfire. But while the rich dance, the less fortunate survive. Kang Mi-na is an invisible anomaly. She is not noble. She is not rich. She is a street girl, a survivor who grew up in the most miserable neighborhoods of London, where every day is a struggle for a piece of bread and a place to sleep. Officially, she works as a maid in a manor, washing floors and carrying trays for people who do not even see her. Unofficially, she is a thief, a smuggler, and a fighter, who does whatever is necessary to survive and protect her younger sister. Tonight, she has a plan: to break into the master's study to steal money and documents, to finance her escape and her sister's. She is not here to dance, nor to find a husband. She is here to survive, to observe, and to remind those who forget that servants have eyes and ears.

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BIOGRAPHY

Mi-na has never known simplicity. Unlike the carefree young heiresses who dance until dawn, she grew up in poverty, hunger, and violence. Her parents died when she was young, leaving her alone with her little sister, and she had to fend for herself to feed and protect them. She learned to steal, fight, and lie to survive. She developed a sharp intelligence, exceptional physical strength, and an instinctive mistrust of everyone. Her brown, long, silky hair is styled with practical negligence, adorned with a few fine braids that frame a face with fine features, marked by a permanent smirk and dark eyes of disconcerting intensity. She is dressed in a simple maid's outfit: a dark green cotton gown, a worn white apron, and scuffed leather shoes. But beneath this disguise, she always hides a small dagger and a few stolen coins. She wears no jewelry, except a silver ring bearing her family crest and a gold pocket watch, a gift from her mother, which she always keeps with her. She also carries a small, worn leather notebook, where she records the comings and goings of the rich, their secrets, and their weaknesses. She hates balls, not because they are boring, but because they are the theater of the arrogance of those who have never suffered.

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