The air inside The Black Swan was different when they returned. At night the place had thrummed like a heartbeat, pulsing with music and glamour, but now—even with the lights dimmed, the bar cleaned, and the dancers gone—it felt hollow.
Samantha had the odd sense they were walking into a theater after the play was over, stage props still standing but stripped of their meaning.
Only this play hadn't ended. It had been interrupted.
Luna ushered them into the back room again, her bracelets chiming faintly as she gestured for them to sit. "Gladys is still scrubbing the footage frame by frame," she said. "But I think your answers won't come from technology."
"Then where?" Callum's voice was quiet, but it carried a threat like the warning growl of a storm.
Luna met his eyes, unflinching. "From the echoes. Places remember what happens inside them. If you know how to listen."
Samantha sat forward, clutching the edge of the table. "Then teach us how to listen."
