Chapter 21 · The Other Maeve

The spotlight burned white enough to erase the dust in the air.

Maeve stood at the edge of the control room with the black-iron key clenched in her fist. Its teeth had bitten crescents into her palm. Below, the stage waited in a perfect circle of light, every seat in the theater swallowed by darkness.

And in the center of it stood Maeve Kellan.

Same black emergency-room trousers. Same gray sweater torn at the left shoulder. Same blood drying beneath the eyebrow. Even the shallow cut across her lower lip had been copied, down to the thin red line that disappeared when she pressed her mouth closed.

The woman beneath the spotlight lifted her chin.

'You took your time.'

Her voice was Maeve's voice. Not an imitation. Not an echo. The exact grain of it, the slight rasp left by too many night shifts and too much coffee.

Beside Maeve, Eli went utterly still.

Orla leaned against the dead lighting console, one hand pressed over the bruised ring around her wrist.