She wakes up, her cheek pressed against the cold floor. She feels sick and groggy, still reeling from the effects of her panic attack. Her head hurt; everything hurt.

To make matters worse, there was a bright light shining in her eyes. She rolls to the other side, sinking back into the darkness. She was not ready to be awake.

But that incessant vibrating noise said otherwise. Her eyes snap open. She sits up, irritated, and turns around, expecting to see her phone. Instead, she sees the lantern she carried down the stairs last night and remembers that she’s in another dimension carrying out a quest.

What time was it? If it was still night, she could explore the manor like she originally intended to. But then she remembers one more crucial detail: she was trapped in the stairwell. The door she entered through was closed, shut by some mysterious force. And the door before her now was also locked.

She was like a rodent stuck in a mousetrap, faced with a conundrum she didn’t know how to solve. All she had was this stupid vibrating lantern. Only it wasn’t just a stupid lantern. A lightbulb goes off in her head.

“Key,” she said, staring at the lamp. Immediately, the fire in the lantern fizzles out. The metal of the lantern starts to glow, turning to liquid. It moves with a mind of its own, twisting, turning, and shifting until it settles into her palm as a small metal key.

She fumbles in the dark, feeling around for the keyhole. The key itself was still warm in her hands, like a living, small metal animal. Once she finds the hole, she inserts the key and hears the door unlock with a satisfying click.

She pushes the door open and enters a dark room. As luck would have it, it was still nighttime. Her fingers tighten around the vibrating key. The demon was still in the room and judging by the shadows, he was sound asleep in bed.

She tiptoes closer to the demon, the key vibrating with greater intensity. Excitement courses through her veins. She was finally going to complete her quest.

“Dagger,” she whispers, staring at the key. The key stays as it was, still vibrating in her hand. She begins to panic. Why wasn’t the magic working? She thinks back to all the objects the dagger had transformed into. Bracelet. Lantern. Key. Three transformations. She had burnt out the multi-tool.

She stands over the demon’s body now, her palms getting clammier by the second. How was she going to kill him? She had no clue how to properly murder someone with a real weapon, much less a key.

She looks around the room, searching for a proper weapon. Maybe she could kill him with something else and smear his blood on the key. Lillian had said that the demon’s blood had to be spilled on the dagger but she didn’t exactly specify how she should do it.

She tiptoes over to the demon’s desk, her eyes scanning for something pointy. She opens one of the drawers and spots a letter opener. Perfect. She grabs the handle of the blade, relieved that her plan was still in action. Then, she walks over to the bed, steeling her nerves.

The demon was dozing peacefully, snug under his covers. Up close, he looks just like an ordinary man. She almost feels guilty for wanting to kill him.

You mean it. You almost feel guilty for killing it. This is a demon. Killing it is a good thing.

But the longer she stands over him, the less sure she is of the good of her quest. She recognizes him as the young lord in the garden from earlier in the day, the one she was sure she had seen before entering the dimension. Asleep, he looks so vulnerable and innocent, nothing like the stern man she had heard in the garden. It also didn’t hurt that he was beautiful, with long lashes, full lips, and a strong jawline. Those features, combined with his wavy dark hair, made him look like a peaceful sleeping angel.

Snap out of it! He’s a demon, a servant of evil. Are you really going to let a handsome, sleeping man be the reason why you can’t see your family again?

Her grip around the letter opener tightens. She was doing this for a better life. Hell, she was even doing this to cure her cat’s cancer. So what if she spilled a little blood?

She raises the blade over her head, prepared to end the demon’s life. Just as she was going to plunge the blade into his chest, a hard object hits her over the head, knocking her out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

When she regains consciousness again, she finds herself strapped to a chair, arms and legs restrained by metal shackles. She makes no move to try to free herself, her head pounding with pain.

Where am I?

She blinks a few times, attempting to clear her vision. Her surroundings were a gray blur, the walls refusing to come into focus. She closes her eyes and waits for the room to stop spinning.

“We know you’re awake,” said a stern voice. “There’s no use in pretending to be asleep.”

She keeps her eyes closed. Her head still hurts.

“Suit yourself,” said the voice, “but you’ll need to answer my questions.”

She opens her eyes, wanting to face her captor, headache, and all. Who was this strange, demanding man?

She finds herself facing the young lord from last night. He looks more handsome in the daylight if that was even possible, the sun giving his head a soft halo. His lone silver eye stares at her, trying to decipher her intentions. She had seen heavy bags under that eye. Now that she was finally able to see his face fully, she was certain that she knew where she had seen him before. Years ago, on a foggy morning in middle school, she had hallucinated him on her way to the bus stop. Next to him, the taller man from the garden stares at her, trying to get into her head. He too is handsome, but his beauty is harsher, with his high cheekbones framing his sharp eyes.

“So the Sleeping Beauty awakens,” the Lord said, moving closer to her. She glares at him, noting the sarcasm in his voice. He laughs, the sound bouncing off the stone walls. She narrows her eyes at him. He wasn’t this arrogant back then.

“I should be the one angry at you,” he said. “After all, my butler caught you standing over me with a letter opener, trying to kill me.” He points to the tall man next to him, who was still giving her a stone-cold stare.

She stays silent. What could she say? Her plan had failed and now she was in the clutches of a demon.

“You’re not even denying it,” the Lord said. “And here I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.” She searches his face for some flicker of recognition to see if he remembered her. Still, he stares at her as if she were a stranger. Considering that he was her hallucination, she wasn’t surprised. For some reason, she felt disappointed.

“I wasn’t trying to kill you,” she said. Nicole didn’t usually tell such bald-faced lies, but there was something about the way the Lord was talking down to her that triggered a nerve.

“Then what were you doing in my room, hm? You came in through a door that I couldn’t even open,” he said, dangling the key in front of her. She watches the key buzz in his hands. She was surprised he hadn’t dropped it.

He places the key in his butler’s hands. She smirks. So he wasn’t able to hold it for long. But then, she notices something else. The key was also vibrating in the butler’s hands. Her eyes widened. There were two demons in this dimension?!

“Answer me,” the Lord demands. “What were you doing in my room? And how did you get the key for that door?”

“I snuck in here,” she admits. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I was starving and tired and it didn’t seem like anyone was home.”

He looks at her warily. “That was a few days ago. You’ve been planning to kill me for a while.”

Her face heats up. How did he see through her so easily? “I snuck in yesterday. And I wasn’t trying to kill you,” she insists. Not just you. The both of you. At least I think there’s only two of you.

“Then why were you about to stab my Lord?” the butler asks, chiming in with his velvety voice. “You were holding that letter opener like a weapon. And we know you’re the one emptying our ice box every night. We found the food in your room.”

She blushes again. They got her there. But maybe she could still tell a lie to make herself seem harmless. Think Nicole! Why were you holding the knife like that, huh?

“Because I wanted somewhere more permanent to stay,” she blurts. “I thought if I killed him, he would never get the chance to kick me out of here.”

The Lord raises his eyebrow. The butler narrows his eyes with suspicion.

“They beat me no matter where I go,” she rambled, continuing with her story. “So I had to run away. I tried staying at an orphanage, but he found me there too.”

“He?” the Lord asks.

“My dad,” she said, pretending to hang her head with shame. “He likes the bottle too much. He wasted all the family money and he wanted to sell my teeth.”

“And you thought killing me would solve this?” He crosses his arms.

“I just wanted a real home,” she whispers, hoping he’d fall for her act.

“Why didn’t you just ask then?” He kneels to her eye level.

“Because they always send me back to him,” she said. “He’ll wash up and pretend to be a good father to take me home. Then when the doors close, he hits me again. No one ever believes me.”

He looks at her thoughtfully. “And the key? How did you get that?”

“I found it in the secret room,” she said. “I’ve been living there and taking food from the kitchen.”

“How did you find the secret room?” His tone shifts, becoming more serious. She wondered what was so special about the hidden room.

“The cat led me there,” she answered honestly. The butler turned his head.

“You’re telling me that a cat brought you to a secret room in my manor that no one has used in decades? Do you really expect me to believe that?” The Lord shakes his head.

“You can ask the cat,” she retorts.

“Our cat would never let an intruder into the house,” the butler said. “It left horrible scratches on the last thief.”

“Meow,” the cat said, appearing at Nicole’s feet. It begins to rub itself against her legs, nagging her to pet him.

The Lord sits down, exasperated. “I knew we should’ve gotten rid of the cat.”

The butler looks at her, mildly surprised. “Mr. Whiskers usually hates strangers.” He kneels down to the floor and begins cooing for the cat to come over to him.

The black cat ignores him, scratching at her shackles. The butler looks crestfallen. She bites back a fit of laughter. Who knew the cat would come to her rescue again?

“So the cat led you to the secret room,” the Lord said, defeated. “I almost died because of our traitorous cat.” He places his head in his hands, fed up with the situation.

“We’re still keeping it,” the butler said. “It’s the only thing that brings me joy living here.”

The Lord lets out a huge sigh. “That cat almost got me killed.”

“Almost,” the butler said. “You’re still here, living and breathing.”

“You wouldn’t even be living if it wasn’t for me,” the Lord said.

“I could say the same to you, my Lord,” the butler responds. The two men stare each other down, tension forming between them. Then they burst out laughing, slapping each other on the shoulder.

The Lord faces Nicole. He examines her, staring at her sneaker, jeans, and hoodie. The outfit was strange and it clearly didn’t belong to this country or this era. Her clothes seemed entirely alien to him. She could see the gears turning in his head, trying to process all this.

“If I let you stay here, will you try not to murder me?” he asks her.

She blinks, not quite believing what she was hearing. “If you let me stay, I’ll have no reason to kill you.”

“I won’t let you stay for free, of course. You’ll need to help around the manor as a maid. If you complete your tasks properly, then I have no choice but to allow you to live here. Do we have a deal?” He tilts his head to the side, waiting for her answer.

“Deal,” she said. “I’ll be your maid.”

She didn’t understand why the Lord was being so merciful, but if it meant staying in the manor and completing her quest, she wasn’t going to question him.

Maybe he believed my story and took pity on me. Maybe my lie wasn’t so bad after all.

“But before I hire you,” the Lord said, moving to remove her shackles, “I have to ask. What’s your name?”

“Sadie Smith,” she said, blurting the first thing that came to mind. “And what’s your name?”

He smiles. “Sadie. How short and sweet.” And totally not made up at all. He removes her shackles. “You can just call me Cedric.”

She stands up, rubbing her wrists. “Isn’t it rude for me to call you by your first name?”

“It will be much easier for you to work for me if you didn’t know my last name,” he said. “But if you feel that is too informal, you may simply refer to me as ‘the Lord.’”

She wonders what was so special about the Lord’s last name but knew better than to press. He was the one holding all the cards now and it was a miracle he didn’t punish her for what she did. But now, she had a bigger problem on her hands.

There were two demons to slay and the weapon she needed to kill them was in their hands. If only there was some way to reach Lillian and fix all this. She sighs. Time to suck it up and be this handsome lord’s maid.