This novel was first released on October 10th, 2025, and was taken down four weeks later. It had 38 chapters here in webnovel and roughly 40,000 words, all deleted by me.
During that time, I received a few messages in my DMs, mostly pointing out issues with my English. None of it was said in bad faith, and honestly, it helped more than it hurt. Having those mistakes pointed out made me more aware of them, so thank you to those who took the time to do that. You know who you are.
This version went through about two months of revision. In that period, I read several Victorian novels and completely fell in love with the way they're written, the rhythm, the tone, the weight of the language. Naturally, this rewrite ended up being influenced by that style, even if imperfectly. Jane Eyre in particular had a big impact, and I genuinely recommend it.
If you happened to read the original version, that's completely fine. This is a new angle on the story, and one I plan to stick with until the end.
It will still retain some elements of the first version, but more organized.
Writing like this is honestly difficult for me as an ESL writer, so I've decided to upload chapters only once they reach a satisfactory state. I'm hoping to release updates by the end of each month, but I'll be taking my time with editing and polishing each chapter.
This was released in RoyalRoad December 24th 2025, but in webnovel it's January 1, 2026.