The script changed that night. New scenes bled through the margins in rust-colored ink.

Elara lifted the detonator. Her hand was steady.

She found the key—a brass thing etched with a labyrinth—in the lining of her coat. She didn’t remember putting it there. The gala was a whirlwind of silk and lies, a sea of anonymous faces. The man with the scarab pin was waiting by the poisoned fountain. He didn’t speak. He simply took the key, pressed a single, gloved finger to her masked lips, and whispered the line that wasn’t in the script.

On the night of the Clockwork Tower gala, Elara wore the fox mask and the liquid mercury gown. She found the detonator in her clutch purse, just as the script predicted. She also found a second item: a small glass vial she’d stolen from Julian’s old study days ago, during Act One.

She found Julian on the rooftop observatory. He wore a crow mask, but she’d recognize the cruel tilt of his smile anywhere. He was admiring the city lights, waiting for the explosion that would frame her, that would bring her down to his level of beautiful ruin.

And for the first time, she signed her own name.

Elara was a ghostwriter of confessionals, a woman who made a living penning other people’s secrets. She’d never had a dangerous one of her own. But this script—this anonymous, terrifyingly specific blueprint for her own life—was a secret that could kill her.