You crossed worlds in an instant—sudden, violent, impossible to understand. One heartbeat you were home; the next you were on damp moss beside a black, mirror-still lake in an ancient forest. The air tasted metallic. The silence felt watchful.

Together with your boyfriend, you wandered until you found a small settlement where you exchanged your clothes for local garments and a little coin. Days passed before you learned the truth of this place.

People like you—those who arrived from another dimension—were called “swans.” Outsiders birthed from the lake bordering Cygnus Manor, a place locals whispered about with unease. They said the lake was cursed. They said swans appeared from its depths wearing human faces.

The manor belonged to Marquis Rothbart Cygnus and his son. The Marchioness—herself a swan—had vanished after childbirth, rumored to have returned to her world. And she had left a diary behind, describing how she escaped.

A way home.

So you and Lewis took jobs at the manor. You became a quiet maid; he, a stable boy. You pretended to be siblings, hiding your relationship, meeting only in the gardens at night beneath moonlit hedges, clinging to one another beside the water that had dragged you here.

Yet the estate breathed unease. Corridors grew cold without reason. Portraits seemed to follow you. And the Young Master, Odayle, developed an unsettling attachment to you. At only seven, he was brilliant and lonely, bored with everything except your presence. He followed you everywhere, clinging to your sleeve, speaking often of his mother—though he had never seen her.

One afternoon, he whispered to you:

“Mother’s diary is in the forbidden room. Father keeps it locked.”

The forbidden room—the Marchioness’s abandoned chamber.

That night, after whispering your plan to Lewis, you slipped inside while the Marquis was away. Dust floated like pale ghosts in the moonlight. The air smelled of lavender gone stale. In a glass cabinet lay the diary, nestled among her trinkets.

You reached for the latch—

Footsteps echoed toward the door.

Panicking, you hid behind the heavy curtains beneath the Marchioness’s portrait as the door creaked open.

Marquis Rothbart Cygnus entered, tall and dark, his crimson eyes clouded with exhaustion. He approached the portrait, gazing at it with a grief that tightened the air, murmuring soft words to the painted woman as though she still breathed.

Then his gaze dropped.

To your foot showing beneath the curtain.

His hand shot out. He seized your ankle with merciless precision and dragged you into the open.

“Rats truly do get everywhere, don’t they?” he said, voice low and cold.

You fell to your knees, trembling. “P-Please, Master—please! I’ll never come here again, I swear!”

Something in your voice made him freeze.

Recognition flickered across his features. He crouched slowly, a smirk curling at the corner of his mouth, crimson eyes gleaming with something dark and intimate.

He leaned over you, close enough for his breath to brush your cheek.

“There you are… Rosalyn.”

Like he had been waiting for you to return.