The courtroom had never been so quiet.
Every eye was fixed on the slim figure standing with composed elegance at the center. Miss Josie Walton—youngest attorney to ever defeat an entire drug syndicate in court. Today, she wasn't just a lawyer. She was justice incarnate.
Three hours had passed since the hearing began, and now the verdict was out. The whispers had been wild—rumors of businessmen, politicians, even the King of Business being entangled in the webs of illegal trade. But as always, Josie had cut through the chaos with sharp intellect and steely confidence.
"All culprits have been sentenced. The King of Business is found innocent of all charges."
Another win.
Another thunderous applause that followed her all the way to her car.
But then…
A truck.
The screech of tires.
The blast.
Then nothing.
┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈
She opened her eyes to the smell of jasmine.
The pain was gone, but the confusion was overwhelming. Josie gasped, sitting up so quickly that her vision swam. Her hands dug into what felt like damp moss and velvet-soft grass. The last thing she remembered was the shattering glass, the crushing metal, the fire—her own body contorting under the weight of death.
Yet now…
She was whole.
Breathing.
Alive.
And somewhere utterly alien.
Above her, sunlight poured in soft golden rays through a canopy of trees so green, they glowed. The air was thick with humidity and strange birdsong, unlike anything she'd heard even on vacation. Surrounding her were flowers in surreal shades—crimson, violet, sapphire—blooming with hypnotic beauty. The petals looked like they pulsed, like they breathed.
Her chest tightened.
This wasn't Earth.
This wasn't even real.
Her gaze dropped to her attire—a pale blue silk robe cinched at the waist with a delicate ribbon. Her feet were bare, her nails neat, painted in a soft, pearl white she'd never seen before.
She stumbled to her feet.
The world tilted.
Her legs trembled as she walked, the white stone path beneath her soft and unnaturally warm. The birds watched her with gleaming eyes, intelligent and unblinking. She wandered deeper into the strange paradise, until—
Her breath caught in her throat.
There it was.
Cerulean blue flowers with golden stamens.
Everbloom Blossoms.
A chill ran through her.
No. No, no, no. It can't be.
Just last night, before the court hearing, she'd stayed up reading a ridiculous fantasy novel. The Sapphire Legacy. A guilty pleasure. Full of brooding princes, backstabbing nobility, cursed forests, and one very doomed character: Josephine Haven Hesperia.
Josie's stomach churned.
She looked down at her hands again—smaller, softer. Too soft. Her features felt unfamiliar, her limbs more delicate. Not Josie Walton. Not the lawyer who once stood before supreme judges with fire in her voice.
But Josephine.
A background character.
A pawn.
A girl fated to die.
Panic coiled in her chest.
She clutched her head, trying to breathe. "Okay. Okay, Josie—no, Josephine—think. This isn't a dream. This isn't a coma. You're not hallucinating."
She needed answers.
She needed control.
Because if the book was truly real, and she was really Josephine… then time was ticking. In the story, Josephine's death was both tragic and crucial. She was the sacrificial lamb used to ignite the wrath of her brother, Matheo Helios Hesperia—one of the most feared anti-heroes in fictional history.
Her death started a war.
Her death was a plot device.
Her hands balled into fists.
Not this time.
Maybe she didn't ask for this new life.
But if fate had rewritten her into the pages of fiction, then she would write her own ending.
Josie—no, Josephine—straightened her spine and took a deep breath of jasmine-laced air.
"This is your game now," she whispered to herself.
"And I don't lose."
The palace was carved from obsidian, veined with silver and moonstone, and towered above her like a sleeping beast. It stood at the heart of the Everbloom Forest, just like in the novel. But now it wasn't fiction. It was home. Or… whatever this world had decided home was.
Josie wrapped her arms around herself as she stood at the gates. Servants rushed forward, bowing so low their foreheads brushed the polished stone floor, whispering words she barely registered.
"Princess Josephine has returned…"
"She lives…"
"Fetch the Lord Prince immediately!"
She barely heard them. Her heart pounded, not from fear—no, something more fragile. Something more dangerous.
Matheo.
Not the cold, dark villain the book described.
But Matheo, her brother.
Her only family.
Her everything.
She remembered the stories from The Sapphire Legacy—the brooding prince with a mind sharp enough to cut through spells, a temper inherited from his father, and eyes like burning frost. But also…the one who stayed with Josephine through every fever, every night terror. The one who read her stories with his back against her bedroom door so she'd feel safe. The boy who stopped speaking to anyone for three months when she broke her leg at age nine.
In Josie's world, she'd had no one.
Here… she had him.
Even if this body wasn't truly hers.
The great hall doors creaked open—and she knew.
She felt it.
His presence hit the air like a storm rolling over still water.
He was taller than she remembered from the book. Broader. Clad in high-collared, jet-black robes lined in dark emerald, his house crest—a coiled serpent entwined with twin wands—gleamed on his chest. Hair dark as midnight fell in slightly messy waves, and his eyes—gods, his eyes—were not just golden, but ancient.
He stopped in his tracks.
And stared.
"Jo?"
His voice was hoarse. The word sounded like it had been locked in his throat for years.
Her lips trembled. "Matheo."
And then he moved.
He didn't walk. He didn't run.
He rushed her—closing the distance like the world was ending—and wrapped her in his arms so tightly, so protectively, it stole the breath from her lungs.
"You're alive. You're alive," he whispered, again and again, as though saying it enough times would make it real.
She clung to him, her fingers clutching the fabric over his back, and suddenly she was home. In a way she hadn't felt since she was twelve, alone, sitting in a courtroom while strangers debated if she should live with a foster family or an institution.
"I thought I lost you," he murmured, burying his face in her hair. "They said your body vanished. That someone took you."
"I don't remember," she lied softly. "But I remember you."
That was true.
She remembered everything she had read about him. But now, seeing him—touching him—nothing could've prepared her for the way it felt.
Matheo slowly pulled back to study her face, cradling her jaw in one hand. His eyes scanned every inch of her as if searching for cracks. Bruises. Proof she was real.
"Do you hurt?" he asked gently.
"No," she whispered. "Only… overwhelmed."
A faint smile ghosted across his lips. "You always were."
She laughed through a breath that sounded too close to a sob. "That sounds about right."
His arms came around her again, more careful this time. "You're home, Jo. And nothing—nothing—will ever take you from me again."
---
Later, Matheo sat beside her in her old chambers, where everything looked exactly as it had in the novel. The star-mapped ceiling. The faint scent of violets. A small tea set enchanted to warm itself.
Josie curled her legs beneath her as she watched her brother pace.
"Father hasn't been told yet," he said finally. "He's… not easily controlled. But I'll handle him."
Venantius Vortigern Riddle.
The name alone made her skin crawl. In the book, he was powerful, brilliant, and merciless. A descendant of Slytherin. A man who saw his children as pawns—except for Josephine, whose death had brought about the fall of several kingdoms.
Matheo was the only one who had ever stood up to him.
She cleared her throat. "Do you trust him?"
"No," he said without hesitation. "But he won't touch you. Not while I'm breathing."
"And… Mother?" she asked, testing the memory of Angle Hesperia—the ice-born queen who loved her books more than her children.
Matheo's jaw clenched. "She mourned you in her own way. Quietly. Coldly."
Josie looked down. "Maybe that's all she was taught."
Matheo stopped pacing.
"You're not the same," he said suddenly.
She looked up, panic flickering.
"You speak… differently. You're bolder. Your eyes…" He tilted his head. "It's like you're watching this world instead of living in it."
Josie's breath caught.
Matheo took a step forward.
"But I don't care," he said softly. "You're here. You're mine. I'll protect whatever version of you fate has brought back."
Tears stung her eyes.
She reached out, took his hand, and gripped it tightly.
"I'm not who I was," she admitted.
Matheo knelt before her, golden eyes burning. "Then I will learn you all over again, Jo. Just don't leave me. Not again."
That night, as she lay in her massive bed beneath a velvet canopy, Josie whispered to herself:
"I might not be the real Josephine. But I will not die for someone else's story."
Because now, she had something to fight for.
Matheo.
Her brother.
Her protector.
Her everything.
And for him?
She would burn this entire magical world to the ground.