The theater was full again.
No posters. No invitations.Yet every velvet seat was taken—as if the city itself had obeyed her unspoken summons.
Ezra returned tonight, but not by chance.
This time… he chose to come.
His coat was darker now, almost black—a hunter's hue.And though his footsteps made no sound, the air shifted. Thickened.She was already expecting him.
Then—the lights dimmed.And darkness fell like a curtain.
A single spotlight flared to life.
But the stage was empty.
Livia was not where she was supposed to be.
She was among them.
Gasps whispered across the room.
She moved like smoke through the rows—draped in midnight silk, her eyes rimmed in obsidian shadow, one hand cradling a glass orb that pulsed faintly, like a dying heart caught mid-beat.
She stopped beside a woman in pearls.
"You," Livia said softly.
But not to the woman.
To her shadow.
The room stilled. Breathless.
Livia crouched. Tilted her head.
"This one doesn't belong to you," she murmured.
Then she reached down… and plucked the shadow clean off the floor.
The woman collapsed—unharmed. Simply unconscious.
But the shadow in Livia's hand writhed. Twitched.Alive.
The orb shimmered as she let the darkness curl inside it like ink in water.Then, gently, she tipped it to the stage.
The shadow slithered away. Into the curtains. Gone.
She stood.
Turned.
Faced them all with that wicked, slow smile.
"You keep secrets in strange places," she whispered."And I keep finding them."
The audience dared not breathe.Only one word passed between lips.
Livia.
Up in the balcony, Ezra watched.
No applause. No movement.Just the flicker of something behind his eyes.
Admiration?Or a warning?
Hard to tell.
The room felt colder now—not in temperature, but in pressure.As if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Livia stepped into the center of the stage, and stood perfectly still.A flame pretending to behave.
Her gaze swept the seats.Then paused.
Just a fraction too long—on the balcony.
She knew.
"Some of you," she said, her voice like silk over glass, "still believe you're the puppeteer."
A few chuckles. Nervous.
"But what if your strings…"She let the pause stretch."…are already tangled in someone else's fingers?"
Then the lights dimmed again.
Shadows danced across the walls—not hers. The audience's.
But they were wrong.
Mismatched. Warped.One of them moved when no one else did.
A tall shadow. Still. Watching.
Livia didn't look up.
But her voice reached.
"To the man who always knows the trick…"She smiled."I hope you brought your own mirror tonight."
A hush fell, razor-sharp.
"Because mine," she said, lifting the orb just slightly, "doesn't lie."
Her smile deepened.
"Some illusions are born from fear," she said. "Others… from pride."
No applause followed.
Only silence.
Only breath.
From the wings, Alden stood watching.
Unmoving. Unblinking.
A tailored silhouette in the dark, gloved hands resting on a silver-handled cane.
He didn't speak. Didn't need to.
He wasn't part of the act.
He was the reason the act existed at all.
And as Livia turned her smile on the crowd's unease…Alden's lips curled. Just slightly.
Not approval. Not command.
Recognition.