Once upon a time, a princess was accused of murder by a spurned suitor. The king decreed the matter would be settled through trial by combat and so, a knight arrived on a boat drawn by swans to defend her honor. In return for his service, she promised to never question his true identity.

The two were happily wed and lived peacefully for a time. But alas, the princess ultimately broke her vow, so her swan knight vanished forever.1


Autor's hands stumbled over the piano keys, grasping in vain for a melody. His finger slipped and landed on a discordant note. Wincing, he squinted at the bloodied crumpled sheet music, the crimson having blurred the notes and lines. He'd been attempting for the last hour to decipher the instrumentation, to translate the story without words.

On different parchment, Autor transcribed the music he unraveled. It was scored for a variety of instruments from flutes to clarinets to harps–that much he could figure out. The bits and pieces of songs he'd figured out sounded vaguely familiar, the fragments of a tale to be spun together. It might've resembled Romantic opera, but he couldn't be certain.

Autor flipped through the stacks of music books he'd gathered atop the piano. He searched through symphonies and ballets and operas for any remotely similar compositions. One hand slowly tapped out notes on the piano as he tried to figure out more of the bloodied melody. It was in march tempo with a joyous chorus repeated.

His eyes widened and he flipped through his reference collection until he reached a particular opera. Lohengrin. It was composed of three acts and featured the eponymous Swan Knight from German medieval romances. A beautiful tale that ultimately ended in tragedy with the fallen knight on a boat pulled by swans.

Or should've. The final page had been slashed, ruined. How could it approach an end without its conclusion?

Not to mention that there were multiple endings. Multiple renditions had reworked the tale and rewrote its end. In some, the knight lived but vanished when his beloved broke her vow to him, leaving her alone with her regret. Rarely it was a happy ending with the two of them together.

Lohengrin had also been the knight featured in Drosselmeyer's The Prince and the Raven, the one fated to be slashed in two. The one whose role Fakir was meant to carry out.

Autor bookmarked the page. Even in the library copy, the final page had been ripped out. The original must've either been sealed away or destroyed. The tale was now lost in limbo, its gears halted, unable to proceed.

Unless–

Autor's hands trembled and the books slipped from his grasp. A new story was beginning, having escaped from its book. Awoken from its slumber, it'd now taken root in Gold Crown town. That must've been what enabled Drosselmeyer's return. Spinning words were what brought him his power and magic.

That explained the talking animals. Classmates whom he swore were human began to suddenly appear as snakes and cats and who knew what else. Just yesterday, a fellow piano student in the music division had turned into a penguin. Yet nobody batted an eye. To them, things simply were as they were.

Autor gathered his materials to head to the library. Lohengrin was an ancient tale, its roots dating back to 12th century epics of the Holy Grail. The older the story, the more retellings it inspired, the more powerful it grew. Drosselmeyer must've found an opening in the stalled tale.

Stories couldn't be stopped forever. One day, the clocks would start ticking, the gears churning, and the story would regain momentum. There was no choice but to let it play out.

But Autor knew only of one group that tore endings from stories: the Bookmen. They were an ancient conspiracy in Gold Crown, vigilantes who cut off the hands of story-spinners. For years, they hunted down generations of the family that could rewrite reality until only Fakir was left.

Drosselmeyer had been one of their victims. One fateful knight, the Bookmen dragged him to his grave and chopped off his hands. Whether that drove him to madness or he was already mad, it didn't stop him. He continued to spin stories from beyond death and without any other story-spinners to combat his powers, there was little people could do to stop him.

Autor claimed a table to pile his collection of books, then stepped into a secluded room. Shadows gathered gloomily in the corners; the only light source came from a small glass window on the other side. Shelves overflowing with dusty tomes loomed around him. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling and bugs flickered across the stone floor. His polished white shoes clacked against the ground.

Shrouded in darkness, another boy faced away from him. His thick dark hair was tied back in a low ponytail that resembled crow feathers. He was dressed in the typical academy uniform: crisp blue jacket, pressed white pants. He leaned against the ladder and had his head buried in a novel, which had on the cover swirling gold letters was the title Tannhauser.

"Fakir?" Author's voice was swallowed up in the dark.

Fakir barely looked up and instead slammed the book shut, tossing it to a growing pile on the floor. "All of these have the endings torn out."

Autor rifled through the pile, shifting through titles like Der Ring des Nibelungen and The Green Knight. "Doing research, I see?"

"And what of it?" Fakir didn't move from the ladder. In the corner, the lighting cast a shadow over his face, splitting it in two. Half light, half dark. Heavy bangs fell over his eyes.

"I've had a breakthrough." Autor straightened his glasses, forcing his usual smug confidence into the words.

"Well get on with it. Most of your information is useless."

He flinched at the venom in Fakir's words. He knew the other boy to be ill-tempered, usually brash and blunt, but never cruel. As much as they frustrated each other, Autor understood Fakir had good intentions. But now his words were only a weapon to destroy.

"The music sheets i've showed you earlier." He raised his clutch of papers. "It's the score for the Lohengrin opera."

At Fakir's empty expression, he continued. "The ending was also destroyed. But I think that's how Drosselmeyer's returned. Tearing out the end only stalls the stories for some time and soon enough, they'll want to move forward. Drosselmeyer feeds off that power."

"So we'll destroy the entire tale."

Autor's mouth fell open at the boldness of his words. "No! We don't know what'll happen. That could throw the world off balance, especially now that the magic of stories is so heavily-woven through the town."

"I know how they end, all those stories."

"Surely there's no way. That's too many books for you to possibly understand."

Yet the truth of Fakir's words rang throughout him. Ripping out pages wouldn't prevent the tale forever—endings were never truly erased. Stories demanded a conclusion, and this tale that was taking over the town would demand one sooner or later.

"I know," Fakir repeated. His voice was eerily calm. "I can see them, call them forth. Can you?"

Autor's throat dried. The ending from Lohengrin he knew before the last page had been destroyed—what was it? What happened to the Swan Knight? He couldn't remember. There was fog over his mind, shrouding his memories, a curtain suddenly draped over the truth.

"I thought so." Fakir's head tilted toward Autor. The shadows danced across his face, emphasizing his features. He was all sharp angles and hard edges, no softness in him, with blackening eyes. His mouth curled into a sneer. "After all, you're just the bookkeeper."

Bookkeeper. Autor flinched. He couldn't deny it. He was no good except for safeguarding manuscripts, the gatekeeper between reality and fiction of the tales story-spinners spun. Was that all he could do, with his meticulous research into Drosselmeyer and the bloodline's history? To stand at the gate of such tremendous power, so close, yet never allowed in this sacred world of rewriting reality.

After all Autor had done to keep Fakir's writings safe, to fastidiously recreate Drosselmeyer's writing study, this was what he received in thanks? His shoulders trembled and he exited the room. Away from Fakir, he slammed his hands on a desk, willing them to stop shaking.

The absolute nerve of that arrogant fool! So what if he'd been blessed with a special ability? So what if he could command reality? If it weren't for Autor, he would've never learned of it.

Autor reminded himself of Fakir's missing heart. Spinning stories was a dangerous thing. Every word had a cost. When it was born, the story became a creature of its own, one that demanded pain and suffering. At times, it even hungered for blood. It was harder to write, even harder still to control a creation. Fakir had sacrificed his humanity for that duck girl.

Fakir was, in every literal sense, partially heartless.

"A broken heart," Autor mused to himself.

Could it be fixed? The prince's had, but he'd been purely a storybook character, wholly Drosselmeyer's creation. Fakir was human through and through. How long could he survive without his heart?

Autor walked to the writing study, which he'd so carefully built in Drosselmeyer's memory. It'd been meticulously recreated down to every last detail: the paper from decade-old reeds, the blue-black ink with a 7 to 3 ratio, the quill crafted from a feather of a white swan that crossed the sea three times. He glared at the current one on the desk, made instead from the feather of Fakir's beloved duck.

Overhead hung a black iron chandelier. It was a simple circle that balanced six candles. At the furthest wall was a faded red rocking chair and wooden table, stacked with a smaller bookshelf and covered in piles of preserved books. To the right sat a globe and pile of maps and a bronze telescope. To the left was a rusted measuring tool, two sticks ending in sharp points. Three towering bookshelves flanked the table on both sides, filled to the brim with even more tomes and papers.

To the left wall was the writing desk Fakir now used, covered in crumpled papers and balled-up sheets. Clicking his tongue, Autor smoothed one out the best he could, careful not to smear the ink lest he damage the tale. He set about neatly arranging everything, starting with stacking Fakir's manuscript into a tidy pile. He straightened the two quill holders, which were a glossy dark green, crafted to resemble frogs. He laid out fresh parchment laid out along with a cup of tea. Three parts Darjeeling and one part Assam—Drosselmeyer's favorite blend. Autor was certain it helped fuel writing inspiration.

The writing study was a holy place, a shrine to his favorite author that he fastidiously reconstructed from hours of research. A story-spinner, one of Drosselmeyer's grandsons, had saved his father's life. When his father was a young boy, he'd become lost in a never-ending forest. Caught between two sides of good and evil, there was no way to escape. The only way out was through a fairy tale and so a story-spinner appeared to guide the boy out into the light.

Ever since, Autor's father was deeply devoted to Drosselmeyer and his descendants, ready to serve them every step of the way. Growing up, Autor developed a fanatical obsession with rewriting reality, fed on a steady diet of fairy tales and legends. He would stand by the side of the current story-spinner, just as his father had.

Autor unrolled the family tree he'd illustrated. Branches were marked in question marks, names crossed out in X's. He'd eliminated every possible option until only Fakir was left. The last story-spinner. The Bookmen had hunted all of them down.

He stood over the giant stretch of parchment, Fakir's name circled in crisp black ink. The lucky bastard. His eyes shifted to the branch leading left of Fakir. A sibling. There was no name, only a foreboding X. Nothing to remember him by.

Autor had long failed to find a name for this lost brother, only that he died young, before Fakir was born. Fakir had no memory of him and then his parents were long dead from being devoured by crows. The rest of the story-spinners had been buried near Drosselmeyer or cremated. Their ashes were contained in the tarnished bronze urn hidden behind rolls of parchment.

Autor examined the family tree once more, the tips of his fingers brushing over the names so meticulously printed in his own handwriting. Each stroke he'd created himself. This precious information–it was all his. If not for him, the story-spinners would've been lost to history.

He was certain he was connected to the family tree in some way. He placed a hand over the name Klingsor2. The one who'd saved his father. Autor knew deep down he was connected to that branch. He just didn't have the evidence to prove how.

Tick tock.

Autor swore he could hear the steady ticking of a clock and the whoosh of a pendulum back and forth. It seemed to reverberate throughout his mind and around him, like a heartbeat humming beneath the town. The heart of the tale.


1. Based off Lohengrin, a romantic opera by Richard Wagner, in which the titular character is the Knight of the Swan.

2. Derived from the evil magician Klingsor in Parsifal, another Richard Wagner opera recounting the Arthurian knight.