Chapter 33 · The Two Maeves

The curtain rose without a hand touching it.

It climbed in a slow, shuddering ripple, shedding dust and strips of old velvet. Beyond it, the main stage waited beneath a ceiling of darkness. The crown-shaped lights hung above the center platform, their bulbs cold and pale, like teeth in a dead mouth.

Maeve stopped at the edge of the stage.

Her left side burned where the silver thread had cut through her uniform. Blood had soaked the seam of her jacket and cooled against her ribs. Every breath pulled the wound open a little farther. Beside her, Eli staggered, one hand pressed to his abdomen, the other clenched so tightly that his knuckles had gone white.

Orla caught his shoulder before he fell.

“Don’t look at her,” Orla said.

Maeve’s gaze remained fixed on the woman standing beneath the crown lights.

The other Maeve wore her jacket. Not a similar jacket. Maeve’s jacket—the navy fabric, the torn cuff, the faint coffee stain near the right pocket. Even the hospital ID clipped to the zipper was hers.

But the face inside it was too calm.

The double held a script in both hands.