Chapter 1 – That Strange Dream

The dream started the same way it always did.

A summer afternoon. Cicadas screaming in the trees. Two kids on a wooden bench behind the school, backpacks dumped at their feet. The sky was the kind of orange that only existed in memories.

“If we were reincarnated in a world of magic, what would you like to be?”

The girl beside me kicked her sneakers against the bench. Serene always asked questions like that. She lived for them.

“Well, I’d like to be a hero, but not just any hero.”

I remember saying it as I meant it. I probably did.

Serene tilted her head. Her smile slid sideways, the way it always did right before she said something weird.

“If you want to be the hero, I’ll be your villain.”

The cicadas stopped, just for a second. Then I woke up.

The ceiling was wrong.

Dark wood. Carved beams. A crystal chandelier dangling above me like a small, expensive threat. I stared at it for a long time, waiting for it to start making sense.

It didn’t.

My body felt wrong, too. Longer. Heavier. The hands resting on the silk sheets weren’t mine. Pale skin. Long fingers. A silver ring on the pinky with a small black stone set in the middle.

I sat up slowly.

The room was massive. Velvet curtains, the color of dried blood. A wardrobe taller than my old refrigerator. A full-length mirror leaned against the wall across from the bed.

I looked into it.

A boy looked back. Maybe sixteen. Snow-white hair fell over eyes the color of red wine. His face was the kind of pretty that made you suspicious. Sharp jaw. Dark lashes. A mouth that probably never smiled without meaning something underneath.

I lifted my hand. He lifted his.

“Okay. That’s me.”

I sat there for a long moment. Just breathing.

Then it hit me, all at once, like a brick through a window.

I knew this room. I knew this hair. I knew the stupid silver pinky ring.

I’d read about him.

Alex Vandermere. Third son of a duke. Antagonist of arc one. Hypnosis user. Sleazy. Cruel. Universally hated in the comments section.

Dead by chapter twelve.

I got out of bed slowly.

My knees almost folded. I grabbed the bedpost to stay upright. The wood was real. The cold marble floor was real. The faint smell of lavender drifting from somewhere down the hall was very, very real.

This wasn’t a dream.

I walked to the window and pulled the curtain back. A garden stretched out below. Trimmed hedges. A fountain shaped like some kind of rearing horse. A guy in actual armor stood by the gate, looking deeply, professionally bored.

A real magic world.

My hands started shaking. I pressed them flat against the cold glass to make them stop. It didn’t really work.

“I’m going to die.”

The words came out flat. Like I was reading them off a grocery list.

I knew exactly how, too. The hero kills him. Cuts him in half outside the academy gates, about three weeks into the new school year. The fans loved that scene. There was fan art.

Three weeks.

I had three weeks.

I sat down on the floor.

Not gracefully. My legs just stopped working, and gravity took the wheel. My back hit the side of the bed.

The dream came back to me in pieces. Serene on the bench. Her sideways smile. If you want to be the hero, I’ll be your villain.

I let out a laugh.

It wasn’t a happy laugh. It was the laugh of a guy who had just realized the universe had a sense of humor, and the entire punchline was him.

“A villain. Of course.”

I stared up at the chandelier.

Then something weird started happening inside my chest.

The fear was still there. Cold. Heavy. Sitting on top of me like a cat that hated me personally. But underneath it, something else began to stir. Slow at first. Then faster. Warmer.

Excitement.

That was new.

I stood up.

I walked back to the mirror and looked at the boy with the wine-red eyes.

“Three weeks.”

He didn’t answer—Smart of him.

In the novel, Alex was a side antagonist. Forgettable. A speed bump on the hero’s leveling curve. He had hypnosis magic, which the readers always called lame because it didn’t make explosions or pretty light shows.

I tilted my head, slow and careful.

Hypnosis.

The ability to make someone believe whatever I wanted them to believe.

The author wrote it as weak power because they didn’t think about it for more than five minutes. Hypnosis isn’t weak. Hypnosis is the scariest ability on the entire list. You don’t need to be stronger than your enemy if your enemy thinks you’re his best friend.

I smiled.

It was the same smile from the mirror. Sharp at the corners. A little unhinged.

A small voice in the back of my head spoke up.

It sounded suspiciously like Serene.

You’re going to die in three weeks.

“Maybe. Or maybe I become something nobody saw coming.”

The hero of the novel was named Kael—golden hair. Holy sword. Speech patterns yanked straight out of a cereal commercial. Every reader on every forum worshipped him. I used to worship him, too.

Now he was the guy on a direct collision course with my neck.

Cute.

I walked back to the window. The guard was still there. Still bored. Still very, very real.

I pressed my forehead against the cold glass.

“Kael. I’m going to ruin your story.”

The words hung in the air for a second. They felt good. Way too good. Like I’d been waiting my whole life to say them out loud.

A plan started forming in my head.

I didn’t have raw power. Alex’s mana pool was mid at best, according to the wiki I’d doom-scrolled at three in the morning more than once. I didn’t have allies. The Vandermere family openly hated him. I didn’t have time.

But I had information.

I knew every plot beat. Every trap. Every villain Kael would face. Every weakness in his sword style. Every secret the academy was hiding under its very expensive marble floors.

That was a weapon.

A bigger one than any flame spell.

I stepped back from the window. My reflection followed me in the mirror, all sharp lines and silver hair. The chuuni energy was unreal. I looked like the kind of guy who monologued in the rain and meant it.

I kind of loved it.

That was probably a bad sign.

“Step one. Don’t die.”

I started pacing.

“Step two. Get strong. Quietly.”

The word quietly mattered. Alex was supposed to be loud. Cocky. Stupid. The whole point of his character was to be obvious.

So I’d be the exact opposite.

If everyone expected the villain to bark, I’d learn to whisper. If everyone expected hypnosis to be a cheap parlor trick, I’d sharpen it into a scalpel.

“Step three.”

I stopped pacing.

“Surpass the hero.”

The room went quiet around me. Even the lavender smell seemed to hold its breath. Somewhere far below, a tall clock ticked. The guard outside shifted his weight on the gravel.

I knew it was crazy. I knew it was the kind of thing a delusional teenager whispered into a mirror at two in the morning, right before failing a math test the next day.

I didn’t care.

If I were going to die at sixteen in a fantasy world I never asked to be in, I wasn’t going out as a footnote. I was going out as the thing the genre forgot to fear.

A laugh slipped out of me.

Soft. Low. Not entirely sane.

It sounded exactly like a villain laugh, which, honestly, tracked.

I caught my reflection laughing too. He looked like he was having a great time. He looked like he had ideas.

I bowed to him. He bowed back.

“Pleased to meet you, Alex.”

The boy in the mirror smiled wider.

For one second, it didn’t even feel like a reflection. It felt like a partner.

That was when the door knocked.

Three sharp, polite raps. Crisp. Practiced. Firm.

A girl’s voice came through the woods. Cool. Trained. The kind of voice that belonged to someone who had been doing her job since before I was born in either world.

“Young master. Breakfast is ready.”

I froze.

My hand was still raised in the middle of my dramatic mirror bow.

I lowered it very slowly, like a guy who had just been caught doing something deeply embarrassing, which I had.

The voice came again. A shade firmer.

“Young master. The duke is waiting.”

I stared at the door.

Three weeks to live. A hero on a direct collision course with my neck. A power everyone underestimated. A house full of people who already wanted me gone.

And step one of my brand-new world-domination plan was apparently being late for breakfast.

I exhaled.

Then I smiled—the same sharp smile from the mirror.

“I’m coming.”

The door knocked again.