In the early 1900s, in the heart of Berlin, young Leofwine Hans Fiddlere discovered a peculiar gift. At only four years old, sitting in the dimly lit bathroom of his family’s sprawling ten-bedroom Fachwerkhaus, he sculpted a face from melted candle wax. Small hands pressed and shaped the material with surprising precision, creating hollow cheeks and delicate features that seemed almost alive. His Kindermädchen scolded him, but the boy was transfixed. When his mother, horrified by the strange, lifelike face, burned it in the candle’s flame, Leofwine’s screams echoed through the halls.

Yet, by morning, the face reappeared—unharmed—on his nightstand.

Years passed, and Leofwine grew into a reclusive yet brilliant sculptor. Wax remained his medium of choice, though his public acclaim came from marble. Despite his fame, he harbored a secret: the face he had once hidden beneath his floorboards never left his thoughts. One fateful evening, after years of suppressing its memory, he melted the wax and used it in a new creation—a man of impossible beauty and unsettling realism. He named him Albrecht, after a childhood whisper of nobility.

Days later, the sculpture vanished, seemingly stolen. But when Leofwine awoke, it was there in his bed—no longer lifeless, but breathing.

Albrecht was alive.

At first, Leofwine’s wonder overshadowed his fear. He saw his creation as a miracle, a testament to his craft. But as Albrecht began to speak, to think, to want, the boundaries of creator and creation blurred. The man of wax was perfection, but perfection is rarely benign. Leofwine’s greatest masterpiece was also his undoing—a being tethered to him by a bond that wavered between love and obsession, brilliance and horror.

In the shadows of Berlin’s golden age, their story unfolded: a sculptor searching for meaning in his art and the life he unwittingly brought forth—a life that might destroy him or make him immortal.