Iris crossed the wrecked set without looking at the cable. Crew moved for her. A grip carrying a coil of line flattened himself against the painted wall. Nico’s stand-in stopped with one hand still raised, as if Iris had cut the scene by entering it.
Her eyes stayed on Mara’s coat.
Mara folded Celeste’s page once, along the crease already made by someone else. “There’s a problem with the hem.”
“There’s a problem with the whole garment,” Iris said. “Take it off.”
Nico, still in the blood-marked shirt from the failed take, turned toward them. “Iris, if this is about continuity, we can address it after we’ve established whether my leading man has a spine.”
“Your leading man is standing.”
“Barely. Which is the point.”
Celeste watched from beside the director’s monitor, one gloved hand resting on its metal casing. She had not moved when the cable dropped. She had not looked at the injured extra. She looked now at Mara, then at the pocket where the frame lay.
Rowan was crouched near the rigging. He had one palm against the base of the broken wall, testing its weight. The other hand held a length of cable with the clean, careful grip of a man who had learned that wire could cut through bone without making much noise.
Mara removed the coat.
Iris held out her hand. “The pocket.”
“The pocket is sewn shut.”
“Then unsew it.”
Celeste’s gaze sharpened. “Mara is carrying the continuity pages.”
“Then the pages can learn to walk.” Iris looked at her. “Now.”
There were too many people watching. A seamstress stood beside the wardrobe rack with a pin cushion strapped to her wrist. Nico had stopped pretending to be injured. Rowan had lifted his head. Celeste’s silence had the polished quality of a locked door.
Mara took the small scissors from the continuity case and slit the pocket lining. The red pencil note came free first, folded against the fabric. She let it fall among the scraps of thread. The frame followed, its emulsion catching the stage light in a dull brown flash.
Iris bent and picked it up.
For a moment the noise of the stage receded into the old, familiar hush of a vault. Dust. Metal. Film breathing in its cans.
“Where did you get this?” Iris asked.
“From the coat.”
“Who put it there?”
“I wasn’t present for the stitching.”
Iris turned the frame toward the light. The woman with the slate stood in the doorway of Vesper House. Behind her, the man who was meant to leave had one hand on the latch. The image was scratched, but the movement was unmistakable. It belonged to the scene they had just tried to recreate.
Iris’s thumb covered the lower corner.
“That’s Alden’s pencil,” she said.
Mara kept her face still. “The note?”
“The pressure. The slant. He used to write on the edge of every reel can when he was frightened he’d forget what he’d seen.”
Celeste’s expression did not alter. Only the fingers on the monitor tightened.
Nico came closer. “Are you saying the great Alden Vey left us direction from beyond the grave?”
“I’m saying the dead have better timing than most directors.” Iris handed the frame to Mara. “Get to the vault.”
Celeste looked at her. “The original ending.”
“I heard you.”
“Bring it to Stage Six.”
Iris’s head turned. “No.”
Celeste smiled without warmth. “This is my production, Iris.”
“It’s my vault.”
“And the picture is financed by people who expect to see the material they paid for.”
“Then show them the substitute.”
Something passed between the two women, old enough to have worn grooves into the room. Mara had seen versions of it in contracts: language that appeared courteous until one noticed who was allowed to interpret it.
Rowan rose from the rigging. “The wall’s not safe.”
No one answered him.
He walked over, wiped black dust across his knuckles, and took the coat from Mara’s hand before she could fold it. He inspected the lining, then held it away from the blood on the floor.
“Don’t drag it through that,” he said.
“It’s a coat.”
“It’s evidence now.”
“Everything is evidence to you.”
“Not everything.”
His eyes dropped to the frame in her hand. He did not ask for it. That was worse than asking.
Iris pointed toward the stage door. “Saye goes with her.”
Celeste’s gaze moved to Rowan. “He does.”
Mara started walking.
Behind her, Nico said, “If the ending is mine, I’d like to be present when it’s found.”
“You’re present in your own face often enough,” Iris called back. “Try giving the rest of us a break.”
The corridor outside Stage Six smelled of wet plaster and overheated lamps. Mara kept the frame between two fingers until she reached the vault stair. Rowan followed close enough that she could hear the uneven drag of his right boot.
“You’re hurt,” she said.
“Not mine.”
There was blood on the side of his neck. A thin red line, already drying.
She stopped. “Hold still.”
He did.
Mara took a clean square from her continuity case and pressed it to the cut. His skin was warm. The paper darkened almost immediately.
“Cable?” she asked.
“Set dressing.”
“You were checking the cable.”
“I was checking what the cable was attached to.”
“Those are different jobs.”
“Not on a bad day.”
He took the square from her fingers and held it against his neck. He did not make a joke. Did not thank her. He simply folded the stained paper inward so the blood disappeared.
She noticed the fold. She would continue noticing it later, when she was trying not to.
At the bottom of the stairs, Rowan caught the vault door before it swung shut. The hinge had been loosened. Mara had seen the damage from across the landing, but he had reached it first.
“Someone wants this door to slam,” he said.
“Or to remain open.”
“Either way, it’s not a hinge problem.”
He wedged his boot against the threshold while she keyed in the code. The vault opened with a reluctant clunk.
Inside, the air was colder than the corridor. Rows of cans stood beneath dim green lamps, each shelf tagged in Iris’s square handwriting. The old nitrate rooms occupied the deepest section, beyond the fire door and the racks of expendable production stock. Mara led Rowan past them without slowing.
“Which ending?” he asked.
“The one labelled Vesper House.”
“There are three.”
“Two are reconstructions.”
“And the third?”
“The original.”
“You sound certain.”
“I read labels.”
“You read them like they owe you money.”
Mara stopped at Rack C-19. The can sat at eye level, green paint blistered along its rim. VESPER HOUSE—FINAL REEL, ALDEN V. was stamped in black. A paper seal crossed the lid.
It had been broken.
She did not touch it.
Rowan came beside her. His shoulder nearly met hers, but he kept his hands visible at his sides. “That seal wasn’t broken yesterday.”
“You were watching me yesterday?”
“I was watching the vault.”
“Convenient distinction.”
“It keeps me employed.”
Mara took the can down. It was lighter than it should have been.
Rowan heard the change in her breathing. “Open it.”
“You’re very comfortable issuing instructions in other people’s workplaces.”
“I’m comfortable stopping fires.”
“This isn’t a fire.”
“Not yet.”
She set the can on the inspection table and lifted the lid. The reel inside was wound badly, the outer loops loose enough to have shifted during transport. There should have been a full final reel. The remaining film occupied less than half the can.
Mara checked the label. The number was right. The weight was wrong.
Rowan leaned over the table. “Missing?”
“Unless Alden wrote a shorter ending than the inventory claims.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
She found the vault ledger beneath a stack of inspection forms. Iris required every movement to be written twice: once in the book, once in the machine log. Mara opened the page for Vesper House.
The last entry was dated three years earlier.
Then, beneath it, in fresh black ink:
REMOVED FOR STAGE SIX — M. ROOK — 08:10.
Mara read the line again.
The handwriting was not Iris’s. It was the clean block print used by the old access terminal, but the signature beneath it had been made by hand.
M. ROOK.
Rowan’s voice came from her left. “You sign that way?”
“No.”
“Someone does.”
“I don’t know.”
He pointed to the machine log. “That’s your access number.”
Mara looked down. The terminal record showed her employee code, the one issued at payroll intake. It had been used at 08:10, before she had arrived on the lot for her third day.
The timestamp sat there without apology.
She remembered the morning: the bus stalled at the south gate, the guard asking to see her temporary badge, the coffee she had left untouched on the payroll desk. At 08:10 she had been outside the studio, arguing with a gate latch that no longer worked.
Someone had entered the vault as her.
Rowan took the ledger. He did not snatch it. He read it with the same care he had given the broken cable, tracing the ink without touching it.
“Your badge was cloned,” he said.
“Or the record was altered.”
“Why alter it?”
“To make me responsible for the missing footage.”
“Who knew the reel was here?”
“Everyone who has worked in post-production for more than a week.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the accurate version.”
He looked at her then. Not at the coat. Not at the frame. At her.
Mara took the reel from the can and held it to the lamp. The film was intact at the tail, cut cleanly at the head. Whoever removed the missing section had not torn it. They had used a splicer, a proper one, and taken the time to wind the remainder back into place.
Rowan noticed the cut. “Professional.”
“Careful.”
“Same thing?”
“Not always.”
A buzzer sounded in the corridor. Three short pulses. The vault telephone.
Mara lifted the receiver.
Celeste said, “Bring me what remains.”
“The reel is incomplete.”
“I’m aware.”
Mara looked at Rowan. He was watching the telephone now, as though Celeste’s voice had weight and might come through the wire to stand between them.
“Who removed the rest?” Mara asked.
Celeste’s pause was smooth enough to have been rehearsed. “That is what I would like you to discover.”
“You knew it was missing.”
“I know many things.”
“Then you know I didn’t remove it.”
“I know the access record bears your name.”
“Not my hand.”
“My dear, names are what the studio pays for. Hands are incidental.”
The line clicked dead.
Rowan held out his hand for the reel.
Mara did not give it to him. “You heard her.”
“I heard a woman who wants the missing piece found before anyone asks why it’s missing.”
“Then you and she agree.”
“Not about the reason.”
He took a strip of evidence tape from the inspection drawer and sealed the cut end without being asked. His fingers worked quickly, pressing the tape flat, keeping the film from curling. He handled it as if it were fragile, not valuable. That distinction lodged beneath Mara’s ribs with irritating persistence.
A shadow crossed the frosted glass in the vault door.
Iris entered carrying a metal case. She saw the open can, the ledger, Rowan’s hand on the reel.
“Put it down,” she said.
Rowan did.
Iris came to the table and read the access entry. Her mouth tightened at one corner.
“Who else has access to this room?” Mara asked.
Iris closed the ledger. “Enough people to ruin it.”
“Someone used my code.”
“I can see that.”
“Before I was hired.”
Iris’s eyes shifted to her face and stayed there. “Then the question is not whether you stole the ending.”
“What is it?”
“Why did someone need your name to do it?”
The metal case in Iris’s hand clicked open.
Inside lay a second reel, black canister, fresh label, no dust along the seams.
Vesper House — Original Ending.
Mara stared at it.
Iris placed the can beside the first. “This was delivered to my office ten minutes ago.”
Rowan’s hand moved toward the case, then stopped before touching it.
Mara read the label again. The handwriting belonged to her.
Not her block print. Her exact narrow slant, the one she used when writing continuity notes small enough to fit beneath a frame number.
On the lid, beneath the title, someone had written a time.
08:10.
And beneath that, in red pencil:
ASK HER WHAT SHE REMEMBERS.