If you go down to the woods today...

Former con artist Jean-Marc Charming Arundel--Prince Charming, to his friends--has an appointment to keep with a demon. Travelling through an ancient woodland haunted by wolves and bears, he flees a sudden storm into a beautiful mansion. There, he finds himself an unwilling guest of a fearsome beast: a noblewoman transformed by a fairy curse, as much a prisoner in the house as he.

Charming and his two fellow "guests," Johannes and Wilhelm, must attend on the Beast in strangely romantic settings--reading books by the fire, picnicking in a menagerie, a formal dinner--for which they are rewarded with mysterious gifts of red roses. But to what end? And when will they be freed? The clock is ticking, and more than just his own life depends on it...