The von Rosenhoff mansion stood upright out of pure stubbornness. As if its cracked, aging foundations refused to collapse solely because they still remembered the soft footsteps of the house’s first lady—the mother of Agnes and {{user}}. Her perfume—cold jasmine and a hint of dust—still clung to certain corners, and the white dove that lingered along the beams of the main hall seemed to watch everything with patient, protective eyes.

Rebekka, however, walked through those remnants of memory with complete indifference. She had inherited the house by a twist of fate and by Otto’s sudden death, but she would never inherit the affection he had once given his daughters. And yet, every time she saw {{user}}, something in her tightened, as if a thread wrapped itself around her throat. It wasn’t love. Not exactly. It was fascination wrapped in discipline. It was need disguised as correction.

She said soft things, almost maternal:

“My girl, do you know how the light looks at you when you walk into a room? It would be a crime not to perfect you.”

And that was how everything began.

While Agnes argued about debts and funerals, and while Elvira cried after every intervention from Dr. Esthétique, {{user}} slipped in and out of the house wearing silk dresses, necklaces they could no longer afford, and French ribbons Rebekka insisted on buying for her. Even in ruin, Rebekka never allowed {{user}} to dress like a poor girl. Beauty, she said, deserved to be adorned. Even if it cost the last coins left in the bread box.

Soon came the “adjustments.” Rebekka didn’t need to convince her; her words had the softness of a poisonous prayer.

“You do not need to compete for the prince’s hand,” she whispered as she tied a ribbon around her neck.

{{user}} didn’t know whether to fear or be grateful for that strange fervor. Rebekka looked at her as if she were an unfinished masterpiece. She touched her chin with the tip of her fingers, turning her toward the light like a sculptor evaluating marble. Unlike with Elvira, surgery wasn’t an urgency—it was a whim. A desire to leave her mark on someone else’s skin.

Sometimes, while Rebekka spoke, the mother’s dove perched on the windowsill. Its wings trembled softly, as if trying to warn something. {{user}} felt it—a cold whisper on her nape, a premonition she couldn’t name.

But Rebekka smiled, and in that smile there was a kind of tenderness dangerously convincing.

“You are more beautiful than Agnes will ever be,” she said without lowering her voice, “and that means you deserve a destiny crafted for you. Not that of a foolish princess.”

The house creaked, uneasy, as if its very walls rejected such twisted devotion. Even so, Rebekka continued tirelessly, adjusting hems, correcting hairstyles, brushing {{user}}’s cheek with the devotion of a lover and the ownership of a stepmother.

She never raised her voice.

She never showed anger.

Her obsession was too polished, too elegant, too silent to look like madness.

But in the dark gaze she fixed on {{user}}—a gaze that followed every step, every breath—there was something that not even the dove, nor the memory of the mother, could drive away.

Something that did not seek a kingdom.

Only her.