Chapter 18 · The Understudy's Verdict

The scream came through the dark like a wire pulled tight.

“Maeve—”

Jonah’s voice cracked in the middle of her name. Behind it came the frantic electronic chirp of a monitor, fast and thin, then one long, unbroken tone.

Maeve’s lungs locked.

The emergency room was still visible beyond the stage, flattened into a flickering projection: blue curtains where the trauma bay doors should have been, nurses moving like shadows behind glass, the white line on Jonah’s monitor refusing to rise. The image shook once. A black drop fell from the ceiling and struck the floor between Maeve’s shoes.

Ink spread across the boards.

GUILTY, it wrote.

The letters crawled toward her.

“No,” Maeve whispered.

The Curator stood beneath the balcony in his immaculate gray coat, one gloved hand resting on the rail. Red light leaked through Henry Bell’s skin behind him, pulsing from his throat to his fingertips. Henry’s mouth hung open, but the sound coming from it was Jonah’s voice.

“Please,” Jonah begged through Henry’s teeth. “Don’t let me die.”

Maeve flinched as if someone had slapped her.

The Curator smiled without warmth. “There. You hear the balance correcting itself.