The theatre didn't remember the applause.
It remembered the silence that followed.
Dust still hung in the air, curling like invisible thread through collapsed curtains and cracked illusion panels. Lanterns flickered even when untouched. Chalk lines still lingered faintly on the stage, drawn and half-erased like forgotten sentences.
The crowd was gone, the rumors dispersing like mist. But the building kept the truth, pressed deep into the grain of the boards and the wiring of runes.
Perry stepped inside again without warning.
No need to knock. The space wasn't waiting to be polite—it was waiting to be read.
He wasn't here to ask more questions. Not yet. This time, he listened to the room itself.
The stage floor creaked beneath his boots as he crossed toward the center. Same place the victim had bowed. Same place he had collapsed, lifeless, with no visible wound, no smoke, no sign of magic.
And yet…
The wood here groaned slightly different. Not louder. Not deeper. Just… wrong.
Too hollow.
He knelt slowly. His fingers brushed the floorboards near the center of the collapse.
There it was—a faint circle drawn in silver dust. Not paint. Not ordinary chalk. Rune dust. Specific. Expensive. The kind used in temporary arcane constructions designed to activate once and vanish.
But this one hadn't vanished.
It hadn't even activated.
He leaned closer. The glyphwork around the edges was clean. Too clean. Each line was methodical—until the outer curve. There, the circle broke, just before the final sigil.
No anchor rune.
Not erased. Not smudged. Just never drawn.
That wasn't an accident.
No anchor meant the spell wouldn't bind to the caster. It wouldn't lock on anyone, unless someone else walked into it and triggered it.
A trap.
Not drawn in haste. Drawn with intent. And left incomplete on purpose.
Perry stood, boots silent on the wood.
Someone else was meant to finish this.
Someone who died in the center of it.
Jaron Vale wasn't the caster.
The control room under the stage buzzed faintly with residual energy.
Not enough to activate anything dangerous. But enough to suggest the aftermath of a spell used wrong—or used at the wrong time.
Perry didn't announce himself.
No one else was present.
He moved with care along the low-ceilinged room, hands behind his back. Rows of conduit panels lined the walls like neglected ribs. Rune fuses pulsed inside them—softly, evenly.
Except one.
Third panel to the left.
A resonance glyph blinked—soft, blue, and out of rhythm.
He crouched.
One… two… skip.
One… two… skip.
Cadence interruption.
Spellcasters knew to avoid rhythm breaks—it caused misfires, power loss, instability.
This wasn't random.
He looked behind the socket.
Tiny scrape marks lined the edge of the conduit crystal. A sign of forced rotation.
Orientation glyphs didn't match.
Someone had inserted the crystal upside down, twisted it, and wedged it into place.
The misalignment wouldn't have stopped the spell—but it would've corrupted the effect. Distorted it.
No professional would do this.
Technicians didn't guess.
This wasn't a mistake. It was improvisation.
And it wasn't from someone who belonged down here.
He stood and left the room without touching a thing. The resonance glyph pulsed behind him, like a metronome that couldn't keep time.
The prop storage room was cleaner than it had any right to be.
Neatly folded cloths. Labeled crates. Rune tags on every shelf.
Too neat.
Perry moved past boxes of stage ash, fake weapons, and illusion frames until he reached the wall pegs.
Gloves hung there—some for fire acts, some for handling illusions.
Except one pair.
Set aside. Barely clinging to the hook. Fingers curled like something had burned them from inside.
He lifted them.
Gray-stained fingertips.
Not white chalk. Metallic. Residue from quick-burn arcane ink. Burned through seams on the right index and thumb.
He set them under the faintest lantern light. They shimmered—subtle silver threading along the palm.
Not theatre gloves. Rune work gloves.
Why were they stored here?
The illusionist had said he wore no gloves during the performance.
And the burns weren't stage burns. They were too narrow. Too focused. Glyph residue.
He turned the gloves over again.
The inside lining was still warm. Recently used.
He didn't move them further. Just let them hang again—carefully, as if setting them back would let the lie keep sleeping.
Then he left.
He found the illusionist muttering behind a thread curtain in the rehearsal wing.
"Always us," he snapped, to no one. "Always the cast. Never the bloody nobles or their bored enchanters."
Perry stepped in without introduction.
The man turned—and stopped mid-grumble.
Perry said nothing.
Just set the gloves down on a cracked piano bench.
The illusionist stared at them like they'd just been lit.
"They're not mine."
"You said you stayed onstage the whole time," Perry said, tone mild.
"I did."
"You'd have no reason to touch the fuse chamber, then."
The man's lips twitched. He crossed his arms.
Left over right.
Yesterday, it had been the other way.
People don't reverse their habits unless they're trying not to seem familiar. Or guilty.
"Just say what you're implying," the illusionist said.
Perry looked at the gloves.
Then back at him.
"I don't imply."
He turned and left.
The rune technician—Gessa—stood near the central lighting board, running a thin cloth across her toolkit. Her coat was half-buttoned. She didn't look surprised to see him.
"You're back."
"Didn't know I left an impression."
"You're Bureau. You all leave the same one."
He gestured toward the prop cabinet across the room.
"You said you were inside that during the performance?"
"Part of the immersion effect."
Perry stepped closer.
"Funny. The velvet inside had no indentations. Dust layer undisturbed. Even the hinge pins had old rust. No one's opened that box in three days."
Gessa didn't move.
"You were behind it," he said, voice even. "Triggered the glyph from the fuse channel."
Still no reply.
Perry glanced at her gloves.
Burnt—lightly, but specifically—on the pads of her index and middle fingers.
That only happened when someone activated a delay-tuned spell manually, no buffer layer.
Stage illusion spells never required that.
But sabotage did.
He turned to leave.
"You're not going to ask why?" she said behind him.
"I don't ask questions when I already have the answer."
Lord Derran returned at noon.
Of course he did. Nobles didn't like being out of the loop. Especially when the loop had their name near it.
"What now?" he said, brushing dust off his sleeve.
Perry tilted his head toward the audience row.
"Walk with me."
Derran blinked, annoyed, but followed.
They passed the curtain line. Down to the trapdoor. Around to the stage's rear edge.
No one else in sight.
Perry stopped beside the faint silver glyph.
Half-erased. Still humming beneath the floorboards like breath through a cracked window.
"Step here a moment."
"Why?"
"No reason."
The noble scowled. Then stepped forward.
The air shimmered.
Soft. Faint. But visible.
A whisper of energy, pulling toward his right boot.
Derran recoiled. Fast.
"What—what in damnation is that?"
"A failed anchor lock. Residual glyph echo."
"You tricked me."
"You walked."
"You could've warned me!"
"You weren't in danger."
Derran wiped his palms on his coat. "I was never on this side of the stage!"
"You've said that before."
He turned and left the noble alone in the dimming light.
That evening, Perry returned to his quarters and laid the gloves, the burned conduit drawing, and a torn strip of rune paper on the desk.
He didn't arrange them.
Just let them sit.
Gloves. Mismatched rune crystals. Silver ash.
There wasn't a clear shape to the crime.
Not yet.
But he saw the shadows.
One person tampered with the rune ignition.
Another had the motive.
Another had the placement.
And yet the spell hadn't activated on its own.
That meant it had been triggered—manually.
He leaned back.
Three people lied.
Only one stood to gain from Jaron's death.
It wasn't about vengeance.
It wasn't about chaos.
It was about what came after.
Perry closed his eyes for a moment.
A name floated in the back of his mind.
Not because of what had been said.
But because of who had said nothing when it mattered.
The System didn't speak.
Not this time.
Even it knew this puzzle was nearly complete.
And Perry didn't need confirmation anymore.
Only proof.