"You don’t know the meaning of fear until it applauds you."

The theatre wasn’t new, but it looked it—if you squinted. Behind the golden trim and velvet curtains lay walls that remembered screams. The chandelier overhead trembled not from wind, but from memory. A forgotten opera house, half-restored and bathed in illusion.

Tonight, it was full. Not with rats or dust, but with laughter.

They came in pearls and fox fur. Elites of the city who whispered in salons and drank scandal like wine. They came for the girl they called "The Lunatic Magician."

She took the stage without fanfare, without music. Her shadow came first, stretching unnaturally tall against the red curtain. Then came her grin.

Livia.

Dressed in mourning black, corset tight, with gloves stained in red ink. Her eyes glinted with a mad confidence that made even the skeptics lean forward.

"Good evening," she purred, her voice silk and static. "Have you ever wondered how much of your mind belongs to you?"

The crowd giggled. Then gasped. Then fell quiet as she raised a mirror to a nobleman in the front row. His reflection blinked before he did. It whispered something only he could hear. He began to cry.

The audience applauded.

High above, in the balcony shadows, someone did not clap.

Ezra vayne...

A tall figure draped in a dark coat, his features sharp, like the edge of a well-honed blade. His eyes, a pale blue that seemed to pierce through the illusions of the world, were fixed upon Livia with a mixture of intrigue and disdain. His hair, once a deep chestnut, was now streaked with silver, though age had done little to dull his piercing gaze. The refined lines of his face were framed by an almost surgical precision, a testament to years of discipline, both in his craft and in his mind. He was a man whose very presence exuded control—control over others, control over himself, and most importantly, control over the tricks of the human mind.

A master of mentalism, Ezra had seen it all. He was a British virtuoso, a man whose reputation had crossed borders, whispered in the parlors of the elite and the alleyways of London’s darkest corners. He had made his name by pulling the most obscure thoughts from people's minds, reading their every move before they even knew what they'd done. He had performed feats of such precision that even the most seasoned sceptics were left in awe. No illusion, no sleight of hand, no trickery was beyond his grasp. He knew the limits of the mind and the body like the back of his hand.

So why was he here, sitting in the dark, watching this girl—a newcomer, an enigma wrapped in black—performing mental feats that no one had heard of? Why had he, a man who could predict the fall of a coin with the accuracy of a clock, felt the stirrings of something foreign as he watched Livia take the stage?

It was the subtlety of her performance, the way she made you question not only the tricks she performed but also the very nature of your own reality. Ezra wasn’t accustomed to being tricked. But her, she wasn’t playing by the usual rules. She was manipulating perception itself, weaving her dark art with such precision that it unsettled even someone like him.

He had not paid for his seat. He had not needed to.

His mind was too sharp to be dulled by spectacle. He'd seen every trick in the book—and written half of them.

Yet here he was, leaning forward.

She had no wires. No assistants. No gimmicks he could see.

Mentalism, perhaps.

Or something more honest.

Something monstrous.

As the final act unfolded—a spectacle of lights and voices that left the audience in hysterical applause—Ezra didn’t stand to join the ovation. He remained rooted to his chair, his fingers tight around the armrests, his eyes not leaving the darkened stage where Livia had vanished into thin air.

His pride was unshaken.

But his curiosity? That was another matter.

Ezra knew better than to be curious about things like this. It was dangerous. Curiosity had a habit of unraveling the fabric of one's own existence, pulling at the threads of the world until everything fell apart. But the thing that fascinated him the most was how effortlessly Livia controlled the crowd, how she bent their minds to her will with nothing but a look.

"I’ll admit," Ezra muttered under his breath, his voice carrying only to himself, "you're good. Too good."

His curiosity was bleeding.

"Let’s see what your illusion looks like... when I tear the veil."

Ezra stood slowly, adjusting the cuffs of his finely tailored shirt. His mind was already racing, formulating a plan to uncover the truth behind her act. He had to understand it. He couldn’t allow her to be better than him—not in this world, not in this game of deception and truth. And so, with every step he took toward the exit, a quiet promise formed in his chest: he would find her, and when he did, he would expose her for what she truly was.

For a man like Ezra, there was no room for anything unknown. 

Ezra, feeling he had seen enough, began to rise from his seat, his mind already sharpening plans to unravel Livia’s illusions. He had no more interest in the charade. Yet, just as he turned toward the exit, he felt something.

Her eyes.

Livia's gaze met his from across the room—sharp, knowing. A sudden chill crept up Ezra’s spine as the realization hit him: she knew he was there. She had been aware of him all along.

For the first time, the control slipped from his hands. The game had changed.

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