Lena woke with a strangled gasp, her lungs burning as if she had been drowning in the dark.
The cold beneath her was the first thing she noticed. Not the soft, familiar feel of her bed or the cushion of her office chair, but something hard and unwelcoming. Stone.
A dull ache throbbed through her skull, her mind still sluggish, heavy with the remnants of something she couldn't quite place a finger on.
Her hand shifted against the ground and touched something wet.
She inhaled sharply and blinked through the haze, lifting her fingers to get a better look. Even in the dim light, the dark streaks smeared across her pale skin were unmistakably crimson.
Blood. A jolt of panic surged through her. She wasn't injured—was she?
Her hands moved quickly over her body, searching for pain, a tear in her skin, anything to explain it. But everything felt whole. No cuts. No wounds.
So if it wasn't hers, then whose was it?
Her heart pounded as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Her mind reached for logic, searching for a reasonable explanation, anything that could ground her. Then, through the rising fog of confusion, a name escaped her lips—hoarse, but laced with unmistakable irritation.
"Margot… I know this is you."
She let out a sharp breath and closed her eyes for a moment, hoping the stillness would help her think. When she opened them again, the unease had only grown stronger. What kind of joke was this? The cold stone, the unnatural silence, the unsettling familiarity of the place—it all felt staged, deliberate. A setup.
"This isn't funny," she muttered. "I'm not continuing the book." The words felt heavy, as though saying them aloud would make them true. "So whatever this is, just—enough."
Silence answered her. No laughter. No teasing voice floating out of the shadows. No sign of Margot stepping out with that familiar look of exasperation she wore whenever she tried to coax Lena into writing again. Just silence. And it lasted too long.
Something was wrong.
Unease pressed against her ribs as she slowly pushed herself upright, her muscles aching with a raw, unfamiliar stiffness. The weight in her limbs felt strange. The way her body moved—stranger still. The ache wasn't just physical. It settled deeper, rooted in something she couldn't name.
She looked down. The gown draped over her wasn't hers. Long, elegant, and torn in places, the dark fabric pooled around her in luxurious folds, heavy and foreign. Her breath caught.
Only then did she fully register her surroundings. Shards of broken glass glinted across the floor. Banners, once proud, now hung in tatters from high stone walls. At the far end of the room stood a throne, fractured and leaning, stripped of its former glory.
Bodies lay scattered across the stone. Soldiers in armor, others in robes—none of them moving. Their eyes were open but lifeless, fixed on something beyond her.
Lena's stomach turned. She knew this scene. Every detail.
Panic rose fast and sharp in her throat. She spun, instinct driving her before thought could catch up, but something caught the edge of her vision and froze her in place.
A mirror. Or what had once been one.
It lay shattered across the floor, broken shards catching the dying light of the torches that still flickered weakly along the walls. In the fractured pieces, she saw her reflection. And her world tilted.
The woman staring back was not her.
Long, dark hair spilled over pale shoulders. Eyes the color of amethyst burned with a glow that wasn't natural. Her features were sharper, colder, inhuman. Blood streaked across porcelain skin, framing a face Lena recognized from her own pages.
Selene.
Her breath caught, and her hands trembled as she reached up, fingertips brushing the contours of her face. It wasn't hers. Not the shape of her cheekbones, not the curve of her jaw. But in the shattered mirror, the reflection moved with her, every motion perfectly mirrored, as if mocking her disbelief.
"No," she said quietly, the word curling from her mouth in a voice that didn't belong to her. It was lower, more velvety, laced with something sharp and dangerous.
A surge of panic roared through her, hot and blinding, threatening to pull her under. She stumbled back, but there was nowhere to go.
She wasn't just in the mock version— as she had assumed— of Selene Ravenscourt's chamber.
She was in Selene Ravencourt's body.
She stepped back from the mirror slowly, cautiously, as if one wrong movement might shatter the illusion—and let something worse crawl through.
This couldn't be happening.
She refused to believe it was happening.
Another step. Then another. Her breath came shallow and fast, her lungs too busy panicking to do their actual job. She pressed a palm to her forehead and closed her eyes.
No torches. No blood. No ruined palace.
Maybe she had fallen asleep at her desk mid-revision, brain fried from too many plot holes and too little caffeine. Maybe this was just her imagination staging a full-blown mutiny in her REM cycle.
She slapped herself in hopes it would help her wake up or shake her back from whatever delusion this was.
Her eyes flicked open. Still the same cracked stone walls. Still the smell of smoke and iron. Still the uncomfortable weight of a corset she definitely never purchased.
Still Selene Ravencourt staring back at her from the mirror.
"Nope," she whispered, voice tipping toward a laugh that never quite made it out. "Nope, I reject this reality and substitute my own."
Nothing changed.
The silence pressed in. The kind of quiet that made you feel watched even when you were alone.
Then she heard a sound. Small at first. Barely more than a breath.
Lena froze.
She turned her head slightly, listening, telling herself it was nothing. Just old stone settling. Just her imagination playing catch-up with the chaos.
But then she heard it again. Clearer this time.
Voices.
She turned to the nearest window, forcing herself forward. Her legs felt shaky, but she didn't stop.
The courtyard outside was packed. Torches lit the crowd in flickering orange. There were hundreds—maybe thousands—chanting, yelling, cheering.
She couldn't make out what they were saying at first. But then a phrase cut through everything.
"The Witch-Queen is dead!"
Her breath hitched.
They were celebrating her death.
Right. That was how it was supposed to go. The villain dies. The world rejoices.
Only now, she wasn't the one cheering.
Now she was the corpse that forgot to stay dead.
Her fingers curled against the stone windowsill.
Panic immediately set in as she realized what this could mean if she was indeed, inside her story and the body of the villain.
They would come for her… possibly, kill her.
A sharp noise echoed from behind. Lena whirled just in time to hear heavy pounding against the door, each slam rattling the iron frame. Dust and splinters began to sift through the cracks.
Her hands trembled, her heart hammering. Maybe she could reason with them. Maybe she could explain—plead that she was not who they thought. Maybe they'd listen.
The door exploded inward.
Knights flooded into the chamber, golden armor gleaming under the flickering torchlight. Lena barely had a moment to react before one of them locked eyes with her. The man blinked, staggered back two steps, his face draining of color, fear flashing in his eyes.
She opened her mouth, desperate to calm him, to deny she was Selene. But before she could say a word, he shouted, his voice echoing off the stone walls.
"The witch is alive! Make sure she doesn't leave this place alive! We can take her! We must stop her once and for all!"
He lunged forward with his spear. Instinct took over. Lena's—Selene's—hand shot out, gripping the weapon as if fused to it. In a blur, the sharp that was pointed at her, vanished from her end to the knight's direction. Without meaning to, she shoved the spear forward. It plunged deep into the man's throat.
Horror crashed over her as the realization hit. She jumped back, hands flying to her mouth to stifle a gasp.
There was no time to dwell.
More knights poured in, rushing toward her with cold determination, weapons raised to end the "evil queen" once and for all. They didn't know who she really was, and they wouldn't stop to hear.
Her lips moved before her mind could catch up.
Words spilled out, urgent and sharp, raw magic bursting from her fingertips—dark, hot, and wild.
The air twisted and snapped, making her disappear from there to another location.
Lena didn't reappear in a peaceful clearing or quiet corridor.
She hit the ground hard, gravel biting into her palms. The sting barely registered—she was alive. That was something. But the moment she looked up, she realized this wasn't just anywhere.
Noise swelled around her. Lanterns swung overhead, voices haggled, music drifted. She was at the edge of a bustling trade square—Ebonmire's main evening market. Vendors, smoke, food, and firelight surrounded her. Somehow, she'd landed in a shadowed alley tucked between two stalls.
At first, no one noticed.
She stood slowly, trying to get her bearings. Her legs trembled. A burning pain throbbed beneath her ribs, but she couldn't afford to stop—not here, not when knights might already be hunting her.
Just as she tried to settle her nerves and think clearly, she heard the cries.
"The Witch-Queen lives!"
"She's here!"
"Find her!"
Every muscle in Lena's body locked. She ducked deeper into the alley, scanning for an exit. Knights were already flooding the square. Someone must have seen her fall.
She glanced around, desperate for anything that could help her blend in. A rack of cloaks hung outside a home nearby, fluttering gently in the wind. She crept toward it, heart pounding, just about to grab one—when she froze.
A family stood behind the window.
A mother. A father. Two children. All of them motionless, wide-eyed, staring directly at her. The father clutched his daughter. The mother held a kitchen knife, but her hands shook too badly to lift it.
Lena's stomach dropped.
They weren't surprised. They were terrified.
Is this what people saw when they looked at Selene? Not a queen. Not even a woman. Just a monster?
God. What had she done?
She had simply created Selene because she needed someone to be the villain in her story. But now that she was in the villain's body, she didn't find the experience as fulfilling as she had imagined.
This was definitely what she had planned when she decided to end the book to go explore her own life.
She didn't mean to end up here at all. She just wanted her life back. Not inside a character's body—and definitely not this one.
If she'd ended up in the heroine's place, maybe it would've been different. But she had written Selene as the cruelest of them all. The most hated. The one they'd burn alive without hesitation.
The family began shouting—pleading for their lives while calling for help.
And then the crowd turned.
Screams rose as Lena bolted through the square, people pointing, knights giving chase. The noise followed her like fire.
She ran.
Dodged carts. Leapt over crates. Ignored the pain in her side. She didn't know where she was going—until instinct kicked in.
There was a path. One no one used. A stretch of forest beyond the city, avoided even by the brave.
But Selene walked it often.
Because that path led to them.
The monsters.
Her mates.
Just the word sent a jolt through Lena's chest. Her mouth dried. Her spine stiffened. It was like someone had flipped a switch.
And suddenly, she had an idea.
They were dangerous—cursed, volatile, furious. But they were her best shot. She knew where they were kept. If she got there first—before anyone else found her—she might still have a chance.
She remembered how Selene had controlled them. How she'd written Selene using the bond to manipulate them, bend them, grow stronger.
"Maybe I could do the same," Lena whispered.
It wasn't much. But maybe pretending to be Selene could get her somewhere—could get her out.
She brushed dirt and leaves from the strange gown clinging to her and forced herself to walk.
Selene wouldn't fall apart. She wouldn't look scared or lost.
So Lena didn't either.
She turned her back on the palace— on the story that was supposed to end with her death— and moved toward the one place no one would follow. The tower.
Where four monsters waited in chains.