The theatre hadn't changed.
Not the shape of it, nor the smell. The wax-stained curtains still hung like tired ghosts, the illusion panels flickered uselessly, and the boards creaked in familiar protest under Perry's boots.
But something had shifted.
Not in the place.
In the air.
The audience was gone, but the watchers had arrived.
Not the kind that cheered or clapped. The kind that waited.
Waited to see which direction the curtain would fall.
Perry stood beneath the spotlight rig—long dead, long silent. The scene of the crime hadn't cleaned itself, but the evidence no longer hid. It simply waited to be seen.
He already knew how the victim had died.
Now, it was time to find out who had needed him to.
The power conduits beneath the stage still hummed. Not with activity, but with the echo of tampering.
Perry knelt beside the main surge glyph, flicking his thumb along the conduit's seal. A smudge of chalk—burnt at the edges. Someone had rotated the intake crystal. A clumsy job. The locking notch hadn't realigned cleanly, and a thread of static still hissed between the connection points.
Sabotage, done by someone who understood the risk—but not the design.
The burn pattern, the position, the incomplete rune from the performance—all of it had pointed to a multi-handed job. A collaboration, perhaps. At least two, maybe three people covering for one another. That had been his working theory.
But theories were only scaffolds. Weak ones collapsed early.
And this one?
It was starting to lean.
He found Mareth, the lead performer, near the edge of the theatre pit—sitting on an overturned crate, smoking a too-short pipe with a rhythm that looked forced.
"I suppose you've come to ask if I remember anything new," Mareth said, not looking up.
Perry didn't answer. He just stepped closer, watching the way the man's foot tapped the crate leg—not in time with anything.
"Nothing's changed," Mareth added. "I was on stage, he was beside me, then... he wasn't."
Perry walked past him and stopped beside the edge of the pit. He stared down.
"Stage illusions rely on timing," he said quietly.
Mareth squinted. "So?"
"So someone altered the glyph cadence." Perry turned slightly, just enough to see Mareth's shoulders stiffen. "Off by half a pulse."
"Doesn't prove it was me."
"I never said it did."
Mareth shifted. "You think I set it up?"
"I think someone did. Someone who didn't know enough to realign the notch, but knew just enough to place the trigger."
"And you think that's me?"
"I don't think anything. I test."
Mareth's face twitched. "You don't talk like a Bureau dog."
"I don't fetch like one either."
Outside the theatre, near the equipment storage, Perry found the prop technician again—Gessa. She was on her knees, scraping wax from a lighting crystal.
"You're persistent," she muttered as he approached.
"I have a quota," Perry said, crouching beside her.
"You think I helped him?"
"I think you knew something was wrong."
She wiped her forehead with the back of her glove—already scorched from earlier work.
"Something was always wrong," she said. "Jaron kept changing things. The others didn't question him because he had... pull."
Perry raised an eyebrow. "With whom?"
She paused. "With Lord Derran."
"Of course."
Perry stood.
"And when things went wrong, what did you do?"
"What I always do. Covered the mess."
"Then we're on the same side," Perry said. "I'm just covering a bigger one."
The suspect circle was drawn—not literally, but by silence.
They gathered backstage at his request, though none of them said it was his request. He had spoken to no one. Yet, somehow, all five came.
Lord Derran stood off to the side, arms folded, the tension in his jaw betraying his calm.
Mareth leaned against a wall, coat wrinkled, fingers twitching with something unsmoked.
Gessa remained near the props, as if pretending to work might make her less visible.
Two junior performers lingered near the exit—part witness, part furniture.
Perry stood in the center.
The empty centre of the stage felt like a court, and he its single judge. No jury. No appeal.
"This'll be short," he said, eyes scanning them. "I already know who killed Jaron Vale."
No one responded.
That was the first sign.
If it had been a collaboration, someone would've flinched at the accusation—not in guilt, but fear of betrayal.
But there was no exchange of glances.
Only silence.
"Let's start with the method," Perry said. "Jaron's death wasn't an accident. It wasn't a failed spell or stage trick gone wrong. It was premeditated. Executed using an altered glyph sequence designed to bypass the fallback anchor. That's why his body survived intact while his soul vanished."
He paused.
"This was not something he did to himself. The glyph was drawn incomplete—but not sloppy. A performer would finish the anchor. A saboteur would leave it open."
Derran scoffed. "You expect us to believe you found this on... chalk?"
Perry smiled slightly. "I don't expect anything. I verify."
He stepped closer to the noble.
"The fire glyph residue from the back panel—still detectable despite cleaning. Your boots carried that wax. You said you toured the backstage after the show."
"I did."
"No one else remembers letting you in."
Derran's eyes narrowed. "They forgot."
"Unlikely. This group couldn't forget a misaligned curtain, let alone a noble trampling the fuse board."
Mareth's voice cracked in. "He was always back there. Jaron said Derran liked watching rehearsals."
"From the wings, maybe," Perry said. "But the runes were triggered from the technician's panel. Not the wing."
Gessa shifted.
"You're accusing the wrong man," she said.
"No," Perry said, "I'm finally accusing the only one."
He turned to face Derran fully.
"You sabotaged the glyph. You arranged the false surge. You wrote yourself into the contract the week before the show."
Derran's jaw twitched. "That proves nothing."
Perry pulled a scroll from his coat. "This proves motive. Jaron cut you out of the next act—he filed for sole ownership. This contract reinstates your claim only if he dies before the season ends."
Eyes widened.
"Fabricated."
"Not quite," Perry said. "Notarized. Witnessed. And signed. By your own aide."
Derran stepped forward, voice low. "You're reaching."
"Am I?" Perry didn't move. "Then explain why only you had access to the override sequence."
"There was no override!"
Perry let a single strip of rune paper fall from his hand.
Burnt. Curled. Lined with residue.
Pulled from the surge box.
"I know what chalk looks like. Yours was cut with silver-thread ash. Expensive. Rare. Custom-made for your old illusionist partner. The same one who died three years ago—using the exact same failed glyph."
Derran's lips parted.
Then closed again.
A pause stretched.
A beat too long.
Mareth broke the silence. "You... killed him?"
"No," Perry said. "He erased him."
Derran moved.
It wasn't a blur—it was deliberate.
Straight for Perry, dagger already unsheathed.
The moment froze.
The blade plunged forward, impossibly fast—
—and then bent midair.
A shimmer flashed between them. Steel met air, then resistance. Like glass. No impact. No scream.
Just a recoil.
Derran stumbled back, weapon spinning from his grasp.
Mareth cursed. Gessa gasped. Even the stagehands flinched.
"What... in the hells was that?" Derran hissed, clutching his wrist.
Perry didn't blink.
"That," he said, "was a mistake."
"You're not even armed!"
"I'm always protected."
The noble's voice cracked. "You used magic! That's illegal—your kind aren't licensed for defense glyphs!"
"I didn't cast anything," Perry said. "I simply investigated."
They dragged Derran out in silence, shackled and silent.
No confession came. No admission. Only resistance—and the sound of a door shutting behind him.
Later, Gessa approached.
"You said... someone helped him. Someone drew the glyph."
Perry looked up. "I was wrong."
"You thought it was a group."
"I always assume more hands than one."
"Why?"
"Because most people are cowards."
Gessa laughed faintly. "And if they're not?"
"Then they're dangerous."
She paused. "You know... I thought you'd be louder. More righteous."
"I'm not here to be righteous," he said. "I'm here to solve crimes."
She nodded slowly.
"And what are you when the crimes are solved?"
He walked past her, coat brushing the chalked floor.
"A man with one less problem.'