Mara caught Rowan’s wrist before he could pull her back from the door.
The telephone rang a fifth time.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because the stairs are narrow, the light is wrong, and somebody down there wants us to come closer.”
“That describes most of Morrowglass.”
His eyes stayed on the seam beneath the doors. “Then you should know better.”
The dragging stopped.
For a moment the only sound was the telephone, ringing into the dark below. The old instrument had no visible cord. Its black receiver trembled on the hook, the bell striking with a thin, patient violence.
Mara looked at Rowan’s hand around her wrist. He had not tightened his grip. He was not restraining her so much as holding the joint steady, as if she were a piece of equipment that had begun to slip its bracket.
She pulled free.
The telephone rang again.
“Stay here,” he said.
“No.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“That is unfortunate. I’ve become difficult to manage.”
He gave her a flat look, then reached for the door. Before opening it, he ran his palm along the frame, checked the latch, and crouched to examine the strip of light. His fingers came away dusty.
“Fresh,” he said.
“Dust is not a timestamp.”
“On this floor it is.”
He opened the door two inches. A draft moved through the room, cold and mineral, carrying the smell of wet concrete and old electrical insulation. The corridor below was lit by a single work lamp at the foot of the stairs. Its shade had been turned toward the wall.
Mara took the flashlight from the console and passed it to him.
Rowan looked at the light, then at her. “You’re coming.”
“You said stay here.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Your employment prospects are improving already.”
He went first.
The stairs beneath Stage Twelve had been built for men carrying film cans, not for people with sense. They descended between walls of poured concrete, the steps shallow and slick. Mara kept one hand on the rail. Rowan kept one hand behind him, not touching her, but close enough to catch her if the rail failed.
She noticed because he did not look back while doing it.
At the bottom, the work lamp showed a smear of black grease across the floor and a trail of crushed paper. Something heavy had been dragged toward the archive passage. The marks ended at a steel door standing open by the width of a hand.
The telephone sat on a shelf beside it.
Its ringing had stopped.
Rowan lifted the receiver. “Line’s dead.”
Mara looked at the base. No wire. The telephone was an old prop, one of the pieces left behind after Alden had converted the under-stage rooms into a private storage system. Its bell had rung because the archive wanted attention, or because somebody had arranged for them to believe it had.
The second possibility was more useful.
“Don’t touch anything else,” she said.
Rowan glanced at her. “You say that after touching the door, the rail, and me.”
“None of those were evidence when I touched them.”
He almost smiled. It stopped before becoming one.
The steel door opened into the private vault. The shelves stood in two long rows, their labels painted in Alden’s small, slanted hand. The air inside was colder than the corridor. A refrigeration unit ticked somewhere behind the walls.
Mara entered and counted.
One shelf. Two. Three.
The cans were undisturbed until the last bay, where a rectangle of dust showed on the metal shelf. A can had been removed. The label beneath the dust read:
NFC — FINAL NIGHT / CAMERA NEGATIVE / MASTER.
Her breath caught, but she kept her face still.
Rowan’s beam moved across the empty space. “That important?”
“It is the negative for NIGHT OF THE FINAL CALL.”
“Which means?”
“It means the picture cannot be finished without it.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Mara studied the shelf. The dust had been disturbed cleanly. No torn label. No scattered cans. Whoever took it had known where to reach and had not needed to search.
“It contains the final night,” she said. “The night Alden died.”
Rowan lowered the flashlight.
The vault seemed to contract around them. The refrigeration unit clicked again, then stopped.
Mara had heard three versions of Alden Vey’s final night. June’s version ended with rain, a locked soundstage, and a car leaving before dawn. Celeste’s version, given during an interview after his death, had ended with Alden working late and refusing to be sensible. Dorian’s version had ended with a debt payment and a signature.
None of them had mentioned a camera.
Rowan set the telephone receiver back on its cradle. “When was this last checked?”
“Iris would know.”
“Would she?”
Mara turned toward him. “You’re welcome to accuse her after we get out of the cold.”
“I’m not accusing her.”
“You’re standing like you are.”
“I stand like this when a door is open.”
A red indicator glowed on the small access panel beside the shelves. Mara moved closer. The display had changed since they entered.
CUSTODIAN ACCESS: ACTIVE.
Below it, a second line pulsed in amber:
REMOVAL AUTHORIZED.
She did not touch the panel.
Rowan read the message over her shoulder. “That’s yours.”
“It is an archive status.”
“It says authorized.”
“Not by whom.”
The panel gave a soft mechanical click. A narrow slot opened beneath the display and pushed out a strip of thermal paper.
Mara took it before it fell.
The paper showed a time, a location, and an access designation.
11:18 P.M. PRIVATE VAULT / BAY FOUR CUSTODIAN: M. ROOK WITNESS: R. SAYE
Rowan read the line twice.
“Convenient,” he said.
Mara folded the paper once. “The witness designation is false.”
“You were here with me.”
“Exactly.”
“You think the archive is lying?”
“I think someone has made it tell the truth badly.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor above them.
Rowan turned off the flashlight. The vault went black except for the amber panel. Mara heard him move, quick and quiet, toward the door. He caught her elbow and drew her between two shelving units. His body blocked the gap. The metal pressed cold against her shoulder.
A voice carried down the stairwell.
“Mara?”
Iris Bell.
Rowan leaned close enough that Mara felt the movement of his breath against her hair. “Don’t answer.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were thinking about it.”
“I was evaluating whether she had brought anyone.”
“Same thing.”
Iris came down the stairs alone. Her boots struck each step with a deliberate weight. The work lamp threw her shadow long across the corridor before she appeared in the doorway, one hand holding a ring of keys and the other gripping a canvas document case.
She saw the open vault.
Then she saw Mara.
Her expression did not change, but the keys stopped moving.
“Who opened this?” Iris asked.
“The door was open,” Mara said.
“That answer has been used by every thief since doors were invented.”
Rowan stepped out from between the shelves. “We found the master negative missing.”
Iris looked at him. “You were told to stay above.”
“I’m collecting bad instructions.”
“Then add this one. Leave.”
Mara held out the thermal strip. “The removal was logged under my custodian access.”
Iris took the paper. Her eyes moved over it once. She did not ask where Mara had found it.
“Damn,” she said.
The word landed harder than alarm would have.
“What?” Mara asked.
Iris folded the paper back along Mara’s crease. “The archive is not supposed to print a witness until both parties confirm the removal.”
“Both parties?” Rowan said.
“Custodian and witness.”
“I did not confirm anything.”
“I know.”
The silence that followed belonged to the machinery. Somewhere inside the wall, a relay clicked over and began to hum.
Mara looked at Iris’s canvas case. “What is that?”
“Your immediate problem.”
Iris opened it.
Inside lay a stack of production reports, three hard drives, a set of keys, and a red envelope sealed with Morrowglass wax. The seal had been broken.
“Dorian’s security team came to post ten minutes ago,” Iris said. “They have a warrant from the studio board to inventory the private vault. I delayed them by telling them the cooling system was unstable.”
“Is it?”
“No. But it will be if they keep asking.”
Rowan took one step toward the case. “How long?”
“Four minutes, perhaps five.”
“Why bring this down here?” Mara asked.
“Because the archive’s index has been altered, and I wanted the paper trail somewhere the men with the warrant would not search first.”
Mara opened the red envelope. Inside was a typed notice bearing Dorian Pike’s signature.
TEMPORARY SUSPENSION OF IRIS BELL. PENDING INVESTIGATION INTO UNAUTHORIZED REMOVAL OF STUDIO PROPERTY.
The property was named beneath the heading.
NFC — FINAL NIGHT / CAMERA NEGATIVE / MASTER.
Mara looked up. “They’re blaming you.”
Iris snorted. “They are valuing the opportunity to blame me. The investigation is decorative.”
“Did you remove it?” Rowan asked.
Iris’s gaze sharpened. “If I had removed Alden’s final negative, you would not be reading the receipt.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No. It is an insult. You should recognise the difference.”
Another sound came from above: the heavy scrape of the vault door being forced wider.
Iris shut the case. “You both need to go.”
Mara did not move. “Where?”
“Back through the service passage. It comes out behind the costume warehouse.”
“And you?”
“I am going to be found here with a convenient amount of evidence.”
“That will cost you your position.”
“My position has been costing me for years.”
Iris pressed the canvas case into Mara’s hands. The weight of the drives pulled at her wrist.
“Take these to Stage Nine,” Iris said. “Do not give them to Celeste. Do not give them to Dorian. If Nico Rusk asks, tell him post has eaten the picture.”
“Why Nico?”
“Because he will understand that as a challenge and leave you alone.”
The forced door above shrieked against its hinges.
Rowan reached for Mara’s shoulder, then stopped before touching her. “Move.”
Mara held the case against her ribs. “Iris—”
“Finish the picture,” Iris said. “You heard me before.”
“No. You said decide which copy survives.”
Iris’s mouth tightened. “Then decide quickly.”
She turned toward the vault entrance.
Mara caught her sleeve. “If the negative is gone, what exactly are we finishing?”
Iris looked at her hand on the fabric, then at her face.
“The version they expect to find,” she said.
She pulled free and walked into the corridor.
Rowan opened the service passage, a narrow gap behind the refrigeration unit. A panel swung inward on concealed hinges. Blackness waited beyond it, smelling of plaster, mildew, and old costume glue.
Mara followed him inside. He shut the panel just as voices reached the bottom of the stairs.
The passage was too narrow for them to walk side by side. Mara went first, carrying Iris’s case. Rowan came behind, one hand braced against the wall, his other holding the flashlight low so the beam would not show through the seams.
After ten yards, Mara stopped.
“What?” Rowan whispered.
She pointed down.
A strip of film lay across the passage floor, its perforations torn on one side. The emulsion caught the flashlight in a dull silver flicker.
Rowan crouched. “Don’t touch it.”
Mara did not. She bent close enough to read the frame numbers.
The strip was not from NIGHT OF THE FINAL CALL. It was raw leader, marked in grease pencil with a single word.
ROOK.
Rowan saw it too.
His hand closed around the flashlight until the casing creaked.
Behind them, the vault door slammed open.
Ahead, beyond the passage wall, a projector began to run. Its motor coughed, caught, and threw a wavering rectangle of light through a crack in the plaster.
On the wall appeared a woman’s profile.
Mara knew the coat. She knew the angle of the head. She knew the pale oval of her own face, younger by perhaps twenty years and filmed from across a rain-blackened street.
Rowan looked at her, not at the image.
“Who is that?” he asked.
The projector clicked into focus.
The woman on the wall turned toward the camera.
And Mara’s mother began to speak.