Don't get my hopes up

Grace sighed as she walked through the streets of the Upper Ring, listening to the talks of the newlyweds. Of course they would. If a Winter got married, it was immediately big news, bigger news than if someone else would get married. It was beyond Grace why people even bothered to talk about it. It wasn’t that big of a news that people got married, right? Marriage. Grace scoffed. If there was one thing in her life she would never do, then it was getting married with someone. So far her father hadn’t arranged a marriage for her, but she wouldn’t put it past him to do such a thing to keep her under his control. She had made it very clear that she wasn’t intending on taking over his company and had attended law school instead, which was a decision he wasn’t happy with. Grace was pretty sure that the reason he didn’t openly complain about it was that law school was at least a proper job. But she knew he would try eventually to get his way. He always did.
 
As she walked passed a group of women standing together, she did her best to hold in her breath. She hated the scents of the expensive, sweet parfums drifting from them, wondering why someone even would bother to wear such a scent. They screamed rich, but so did Grace. It was because she didn’t have a choice. She felt like she didn’t belong in the Upper Ring. Hell, she didn’t even belong in Ashmoor, not with the fact that she was a druid who could brew poisoning potions. That was a fact no one knew about and she intended on people not finding out, because the Church would surely either ban her or kill her. If her father had any say in the matter, it would probably be the latter. Sometimes Grace imagined how it would be like to brew a poisoning potion and mix it up either with his drinks or his food. She would imagine how his eyes would bulge out of his skull and how he would turn blue, looking at her just as helplessly as she had all those years when he beat the crap out of her. The thoughts were so malicious that Grace had to suppress a shiver.
 
By walking around here, she couldn’t entirely avoid encountering people she didn’t want to engage in a conversation with. One of them was the Carnegie family, another rich family which name was known around here, just like hers. Well, Syder wasn’t entirely known to everyone, but her father had built up his financial company over the years, so it should ring a bell to some people in the Upper Ring. Grace didn’t give a fuck about that. She plastered on a fake smile as she approached the man, who she believed was called Augustus. Or Augistinus. She didn’t care. Nor would she ever.