Prologue

The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the cracked asphalt of the strip mall parking lot, its warmth fading as clouds rolled in with the promise of rain. It was one of those days that lingered somewhere between the seasons, the air too chilly for spring but too soft for winter.

Dennis shifted the car into park and looked over at Elaina, her fingers already working the clasp on her purse. She was radiant in that casual, effortless way---tight curls pulled into a loose bun, gold hoops catching the light, and a confident smile that always seemed to know something he didn’t.

“I’ll only be an hour, maybe a little more,” she said, nodding toward Salon Nouveau, tucked between a shoe repair shop and a vape store. Her eyes flicked to the other end of the plaza. “Why don’t you wait in there?” she added, pointing to a modest storefront with faded green lettering: The Book Nook.

Dennis followed her gaze. The bookstore looked old, but not run-down---just quiet. The kind of place where the carpet muffled your footsteps and the air smelled like paper and dust. A bell above the door jingled faintly as a customer exited, clutching a paperback and a coffee in a paper cup.

He smirked. “You trying to get rid of me?”

“I’m trying to keep you from sitting in the salon pretending you’re not bored out of your mind,” Elaina said, already opening the door. “Go browse. Find something weird and literary. Maybe a book on how to be a better fiancé.”

“Is that even in print?” he joked, but she was already halfway out of the car, blowing him a kiss over her shoulder before disappearing into the salon with the soft tinkle of a bell.

Dennis sighed and stepped out into the wind, his boots scuffing the pavement. He glanced at The Book Nook again. It looked harmless enough. Maybe even interesting. The kind of place he never would’ve stepped into if not for her.

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and started walking.

Chapter 1.

Phillip always trusted his gut, and his gut had been screaming about Elaina from the moment Dennis introduced her. She was beautiful, sure---graceful and quick-witted, with a disarming laugh---but something behind her eyes never sat right with him. Calculating. Like she was always sizing people up, including Dennis, and tucking their usefulness into tidy boxes.

Dennis, ever the romantic, couldn’t see it. He talked about her like she was sunlight made flesh, like she'd rescued him from some bland, colorless existence. And maybe she had, Phillip allowed. But being rescued didn’t mean you were being led somewhere safe.

The mail arrived late that afternoon, tossed haphazardly through Phillip's rusted mail slot. He was halfway through a lukewarm energy drink and a string of conspiracy theory videos when the strange package slid across his hardwood floor. It wasn’t from Amazon, or any other place he recognized. No return address. Just his name---Phillip Greaves---written in an elegant script, the ink slightly raised, as if it had been penned by hand.

He opened it slowly.

Inside was a book. Thick and bound in soft, cracked leather. No title on the cover. Just a symbol pressed into it---a shape that looked like a mirror and a flame intertwined.

Phillip flipped it open. The scent of old paper and cloves hit him immediately. The pages were filled with dense handwriting, symbols, incantations, diagrams of celestial alignments. His eyebrows shot up. A book of spells. Real ones, it seemed. None of that New Age nonsense, but the sort of thing you didn’t say aloud unless you meant it.

He should’ve laughed. Should’ve tossed it aside and gone back to his videos. But a whisper of an idea---wild and dangerous---took root in the back of his mind. And it stayed.

---

It was past midnight when he found the spell.

"The Veil of Shifting Flesh"---a transformative enchantment said to alter not only appearance, but biology. He read it once. Twice. A third time, slower. A full-body transformation into another identity, with a built-in mental buffer to help the caster move naturally in their new form. Temporary. Reversible. Complicated, but doable.

Phillip closed the book, his mind spinning.

Elaina would never break up with Dennis. She was too proud, too clever, too invested in the image they made together. But Dennis... he was loyal to a fault. He’d never believe anything Phillip said outright, not without evidence. Proof.

So Phillip began to sketch out the plan.

He would become someone else. A woman. Beautiful, charismatic, mysterious. Someone Dennis could fall for. Someone Elaina would see as a threat. And when everything began to crack---when Dennis finally saw the differences between love and infatuation, between enchantment and control---Phillip would reveal the truth.

He wasn’t doing this to hurt Dennis. He was doing this to save him.

That’s what he told himself, anyway.

Phillip gathered the ingredients over the next three days. Some were easy---lavender, salt, a mirror he’d already cracked years ago. Others were... harder. A vial of blood. A lock of hair. The breath of a sleeping stranger. But he got them.

On the fourth night, beneath the waxing moon, he drew the symbols in a circle around him and spoke the words aloud.

The spell burned.

It wasn’t gentle magic. It tore and mended, reformed and rewrote. Bones shifted. Skin pulled. Muscles tightened. His scream was caught in a throat that no longer belonged to him.

When the smoke cleared and the mirror steadied, a woman stared back.

She was stunning---shoulder-length auburn hair, green eyes like glass, lips curved just slightly in bemused defiance. Familiar, but new. A version of himself turned inside out and made mesmerizing.

She blinked, testing her reflection.

Phillip was gone.

In his place stood Faye.

And Faye had work to do.

Chapter 2.

The transformation had worked perfectly---at least on the surface.

Phillip stood in front of the mirror, staring at the reflection of a stranger. Smooth skin. Soft curves. Long, dark lashes. A jawline more delicate than he remembered. His own eyes, yes---but framed by a face that no longer belonged to Phillip.

The name was Faye now.

He turned to the side in the full-length mirror, adjusting the strap of his top. He looked stunning---objectively so. But he didn’t feel like a woman. Not really.

He crossed one leg over the other and tried to strike a flirtatious pose. Too stiff. He adjusted his voice, lifting it higher, smoother. Too forced. He walked across the room in heels. Wobbly. Mechanical. He tried to giggle naturally. Cringe.

"God, I’m a man in a costume, he thought. This will never work.

He tried again. And again. He replayed conversations in his head. Imagined Dennis’s reactions. His suspicions. What if Dennis figured it out right away? What if he laughed?

“No,” Phillip whispered. “Not good enough.”

Desperate, he turned to the book again---the old, strange volume that had come without a return address, just a weathered card inside that read "For when your heart demands more than courage."

He flipped through pages of glyphs, enchantments, old ink pressed into time. Then he found it: