Chapter 19 · Beyond the Missing Page

The knife fell.

Maeve saw the edge descend toward Mara’s throat, silver beneath the stage lights, and for one impossible second the entire theater held its breath with her.

Then she moved.

“Elias!”

She lunged across the circle of light. Her shoulder struck his wrist just as the blade reached skin. The knife veered, carving a bright line across Mara’s collarbone instead of opening her throat. Black blood welled beneath the cut.

Eli staggered backward with a strangled cry. His fingers remained locked around the hilt.

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t say it.” Maeve caught his face between both hands. His skin was cold, his pupils blown wide with terror. “Whatever it wants you to say, don’t say it.”

Behind him, the theater groaned.

The ruined balconies leaned inward. Rows of dead velvet seats turned toward the stage like open mouths. Above the proscenium, the Curator’s broken mirror-face flickered in fragments, each shard reflecting a different expression: rage, delight, hunger.

Henry Bell’s scream tore through the rafters.

The red light inside his chest flared so violently that the audience ducked. For an instant Maeve could see every rib beneath his skin, every vein lit like burning wire.