Seraphine’s eyelids fluttered open to sunlight spilling across the canopy. For a long moment, she lay still, disoriented, her mind catching up with the fact that she was in bed at all.

She wondered if everything was a dream, thinking she was awake now. And yes, she was. Everything that happened before was not a dream, nor a nightmare. She was not hallucinating either. She had really transmigrated into a new world. A story? Perhaps. She no longer knew. But with the clarity of this new day, she confirmed one thing. She was no longer in her original world. Maybe not even on Earth.

The last thing she remembered was ink. The frantic writing, the tears spilling onto the pages, the sting in her fingers as ink and blood blurred together–

Her gaze snapped to her right hand, held up before her eyes. Bandaged. Carefully wrapped, the sting dulled but still present when she flexed her fingers.

She bolted upright. The room was spotless. No ink stains on the carpet, no broken quill, no trace of her collapse. Only sunlight streaming through pale curtains and the faint scent of fresh linen.

Then her heart lurched. The notebook–!

She threw back the coverlet, ignoring her protesting muscles, and stumbled toward the dressing table. Two journals lay stacked neatly on its polished surface. She snatched up the top one and flipped through it, her pulse quickening–

Her breath rushed out in shaky relief. It was hers. The one Alisea had given her last night. Pages filled with her own handwriting, her own memories. Mina’s memories.

She set it down gently, almost reverently. If she lost this, she would lose herself.

Her gaze slid to the second book. The one filled with the scrawled, fevered words of the other Seraphine. She opened it.

The notes were still there. Every page as it had been. Relief surged so fiercely through her body that a smile broke across her lips before she could stop it.

Weakened by the release of tension, her body trembled. She retreated back to bed before she collapsed, clutching her own journal tightly to her chest. While both books were important, she wanted her memories close.

Leaning back against the cushions, she sat upright, her head swimming with thoughts. She should be writing. She should record everything while she still could. About the world she knew, the clues she had gathered, every detail that might help her survive. Yesterday’s frantic scrawl was nearly unreadable, but today… she would write neatly, carefully.

She felt tired. Maybe after another nap–

Knock. Knock.

“Milady? Are you awake?”

Alisea’s voice spilled into the room, warm and bright, like sunlight after rain.

Seraphine hastily tucked her journal under her cushion. “Yes. Come in.”

The door opened, and in swept Alisea, her long black hair shining in the morning light, viridian eyes lighting up when they landed on her mistress. Relief softened her smile.

“You frightened me half to death last night,” she said, her tone airy but edged with genuine concern. “I found you slumped over the desk, ink everywhere. You wouldn’t wake, no matter how I shook you! So I changed you into a new nightdress, treated your poor fingers, and tucked you into bed myself.”

Seraphine blinked. “You… did all that?”

–But how? Changing into a new nightdress must have been a whole ordeal. I must’ve been quite heavy as well.

She noticed that indeed her nightdress was a different but similar kind. One easy to slip on overhead perhaps. No stains of ink or blood were seen.

Alisea puffed her cheeks, folding her arms with exaggerated indignation. “Of course I did. This is the least I could do as my lady’s maid. You mustn’t push yourself so hard, Lady Seraphine.”

A weak laugh escaped Seraphine’s lips. For a moment, the weight on her chest eased.

“I also tidied your desk,” Alisea went on, gesturing toward the table. “Your journals were scattered everywhere, so I stacked them together. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dare peek inside them. Your secrets are safe.”

Seraphine froze.

–Was she telling the truth? Why mention it at all?

Though Alisea’s smile seemed genuine, reassurance written plainly in her expression, a shadow of doubt lingered.

Seraphine forced a nod, her throat too tight to respond.

Alisea, as expressive as always, didn’t notice her mistress’ unease. She patted Seraphine’s bandaged hand lightly, then smiled. “I’ll have breakfast brought up. Please, rest in bed for now. I’ll tell Their Graces that you cannot join them at table.”

“Alright. Please relay my apologies,” Seraphine managed.

When Alisea left, silence thickened in the chamber. She reached for her journal, her comfort.

Seraphine clutched the journal so hard her knuckles whitened. Her chest rose and fell too quickly, every breath scraping her throat dry. Relief and dread tangled together, a storm she couldn’t calm. Relief, because she still had her memories, still had herself. Dread, because she didn’t know for how long. For now, at least, time hadn’t stolen her yet. But how much longer could she count on that?

She forced herself to steady her breathing, her fingers tightening on the leather cover. This notebook was her lifeline. She needed to write everything down. Anything. No matter how small, that might help her survive, before her memories slipped away. She couldn’t trust her mind to hold steady.

“Ah. Seraphine’s notebook.”

She murmured as she remembered the existence of the other journal. She glanced upon the journal, laying on the dressing table. The one she left behind. Of course, that one was important as well. She would have to study it carefully and piece together every scrap of information hidden within its pages.

–The magic circles alone… they were a clue.

A frightening, thrilling clue. She dragged a shaky breath in, her lips parting.

Magic. This world had magic.

The thought sent a shiver down her arms. She didn’t know yet whether that meant a high, terrifying level of power or just a faint whisper of spells and charms. That, too, she would have to find out.

Her other clue was in this world, Seraphine’s parents were alive. Not only alive, but they looked at her with love, not distance. She could feel it in the way they looked at her, in the way they worried. Even the servants, none of them sneered. No secret malice in their eyes, no hidden mockery in their gestures.

Her throat tightened. She almost laughed. For a so-called villainess, she was treated almost too kindly. How many stories had she read where the girl in her position was reviled, neglected, or cruelly cast aside?

Her lips trembled. “I… am in a story, right?” she whispered, the words spilling out before she could stop them. But even as the sound left her mouth, doubt coiled tight in her gut. What if that wasn’t true anymore? What if this was something else entirely?

She turned the thought over and over in her mind, tracing the edges of her reality. She hadn’t been summoned here in her own body like the heroes often were. She wasn’t reborn as a baby in some new world. No, she was living inside someone else. That had to mean this was a story. Didn’t it?

Yet she couldn’t recall any tale where the villainess herself was the summoner. That alone twisted the rules. Did that change her role entirely? Was there even a role for her to begin with?

Her thoughts snagged suddenly on a thread of possibility.

If there really was a magic spell that brought her here, did that mean there might be a way to reverse it?

Her heart fluttered, a spark of warmth breaking through the haze. Maybe, just maybe, this was the first step toward going home.

There had been no magic in her original world, but here there was a chance. She would have to learn. She would have to grasp every shred of knowledge, no matter the cost.

But how?

She dug her teeth into her lip until she tasted blood, frustration gnawing at her. She couldn’t simply ask about magic. That would be too strange, too suspicious.

An excuse. She needed an excuse.

Then the idea hit her. She froze in place, her eyes widened as if it was so obvious. It was simple and devastating.

Amnesia.

Why hadn’t she thought of it earlier?

The pieces fell into place in her mind. She had collapsed. The servants had seen her distraught and unwell. If she claimed her mind had broken under the weight of it, would they believe her?

It wasn’t impossible. She remembered reading about dissociative amnesia once, a rare kind born from emotional shock or trauma. She was no doctor, but maybe she could still use that little information to her advantage. The real Seraphine might have been unstable before. The servants’ worried looks hinted at it.

Yes. She could spin this into something believable. Her strange behavior, her confusion, she could explain it all.

That was it. She could use that.

Still, a knot of doubt tugged at her chest. Her hands tightened around her journal, her palms damp. Amnesia didn’t usually change personality. Would they notice the differences? She could only pray her own nature wasn’t too far from the original’s. People changed over time, didn’t they? She could lean on that, bend it to her advantage.

But the fear remained. What if they discovered the truth?

She hugged the journal tighter, a shiver running through her. What would they do if they realized she wasn’t the Seraphine they loved, but an intruder in her skin.

Would they kill her?

Her stomach dropped. The thought chilled her to the bone. She hadn’t asked for this, hadn’t chosen it. She didn’t deserve execution for a crime she hadn’t committed. But would anyone believe that? It would only sound like excuses to escape death.

Her eyes flicked to the notebook resting innocently on the dressing table. A dangerous temptation. If she showed them what the real Seraphine had written, perhaps they would understand. Perhaps they would see the truth.

Or they would take it from her. Strip away her only shield, her only guide.

She blinked hard, tears burning hot but refusing to fall. No. She couldn’t risk it. Not yet. She had to decipher it first, wring every secret from its pages before anyone else laid eyes on it.

Her mouth twisted into a grim smile. Amnesia was such a tired, cliché excuse. She knew it. But what else did she have? She couldn’t sit back and play the role of some pampered noble’s daughter. This was survival. And she had no guarantees she would make it.

A pang of guilt settled in her chest. She didn’t want to deceive them, not her current parents, not anyone. But she couldn’t let this farce drag on forever. She especially couldn’t let Lucien believe in something that wasn’t true. His affection toward her was too warm, too sincere. She couldn’t bear to give him hope she could never return.

The engagement had to end. Today.

She squeezed the journal until her hands shook again.

But how in the world was she supposed to begin–

A soft knock sounded against the door.

“Seraphine?”

Her father’s voice. Deep, steady, yet laced with worry.

The moment the sound reached her ears, pain lanced through her skull. She gasped, clutching the side of her head as though it might split open. Images that weren’t hers, names that weren’t hers, burned into her mind.

Edmund Wilmore du Fane.

Her body tensed, a shiver crawling down her spine. She tasted iron at the back of her throat, her vision swimming with spots. And then, with cruel insistence, another name pushed through.

Isolde Geneviève du Fane.

Her chest heaved as though she had run miles. Cold sweat dampened her temples, and she pressed trembling fingers against her mouth to keep from crying out. The names pounded against her skull like a heartbeat not her own.

Why? Why did knowing their names hurt so much? And why now? She already saw them yesterday.

Her father’s voice came again, closer now, a faint scrape of the door handle turning. “Sera? Are you okay? May I come in?”

She forced herself upright, even though her legs shook beneath the weight of the headache. She couldn’t let him see her like this, nor with her journal. She hid her journal swiftly safely beneath the pillow, her one anchor to herself. No one could know about that. No one could touch it.

Her throat was dry when she tried to speak, the words rasping out. “…Father?”

The door opened slowly. Seraphine expected her father, but instead both her parents stepped inside together.

Duke Edmund filled the doorway first, tall and broad-shouldered, his presence heavy with restrained worry. His eyes, deep hue of both cool violet and indigo blue, sharp but softened now with fear, locked onto hers as though drinking in proof she still breathed.

Beside him, Duchess Isolde moved like a wraith in pale blue silk. Her pale ash-blonde hair, unbound and falling in loose waves, framed her fair face, which looked even paler than usual, yet her complexion looked better and more refreshed than yesterday. There was an elegance in her every step, but her lips trembled as though a single word could shatter her composure.

“Mother?”

The word slipped from Seraphine’s lips before she could help it. Shock widened her eyes. “You should be resting. The childbirth–” She faltered, her gaze flicking to her mother’s form. “And the twins. It was dangerous enough with them being born early…”

“Hush, child.” Isolde said, her voice soft yet firm, refusing to waver. “I would not be in bed while my own daughter lies unwell. As for your brothers…” her lips curved faintly, almost in disbelief, “they thrive. And I… I feel stronger than I ought to. As though sleep itself restored me more than it ever has before. Do not burden yourself with worry for us.”

Her hand, delicate and trembling, reached for Seraphine’s cheek. “Don’t worry about Adrian and Julian, they are in good hands with their nanny and Alisea. Please, think more of yourself.”

Seraphine’s throat tightened painfully. She forced herself not to recoil, not from the touch but from the sudden guilt that spiked through her chest. Her secret throbbed like a bruise. She covered her mother’s hand with her own, trembling fingers curling over her knuckles.

“I…” The words caught, thin and brittle. “There is something you both must know.”

Edmund stepped closer, his hand braced against the bedpost, the other steadying Isolde. His eyes bore into hers, dark and searching. “What is it, my dear?” His voice, though low, carried the weight of a man who feared the answer.

Her lips parted, but silence fought her. She tasted dryness on her tongue, felt the hammering pulse in her throat. The blanket twisted between her fingers, her hands trembling despite her will. Tears brimmed, unfallen, burning her lashes.

At last, she forced it out. “I do not remember. I… can’t remember anything besides yesterday.”

Edmund’s eyes narrowed, Isolde gasped, and the world seemed to shatter around her in a single, frozen heartbeat.

Nothing would ever be the same again.