The painting kept staring at them.
 Even though they were the ones looking at it.

Edrick couldn’t tear his eyes away from the canvas.
 Their deaths were there—painted with a master’s precision and a prophet’s cruelty.
 Lira, sprawled in a dark puddle.
 Him, hunched over her, a broken mask in his hand.

“It’s a threat. But also a prediction,” Lira said, her voice tighter than usual.

Edrick clenched his jaw. “Or a provocation. He’s telling us he knows our every move.”

In the studio’s heavy silence, the painting seemed to breathe.

Tomas Valner sat still, hands in his lap, the red threads of his sewn eyes tense like harp strings.

“Have you ever seen the man with the mask take it off?” Edrick asked.

The painter tilted his head. “No. But he asked me a question.
 ‘How many endings are you willing to paint… before one is your own?’”

It felt like speaking with a dream. Or a nightmare you didn’t know you had.

Then Tomas added softly, “There’s another painting. I’ve never shown it.
 It’s… the fourth.”

Edrick and Lira exchanged a look.

“Where is it?” she asked.

“Hidden. I sealed it behind a wall.
 Because every night… I dream of a stranger’s death.
 And that painting… is the only one I haven’t painted yet.”

They found it behind a wooden panel, sealed with rusty nails.
 They pried it loose carefully.

It was unfinished.

It showed a figure in flames, holding a broken mask.
 But what made it haunting was this:
 in the arms of the burning figure… was a child.

Edrick whispered, “Those who die forgotten… return as ghosts.”

On the back of the canvas, a shaky inscription:

“Those who die forgotten… return as ghosts.”

Lira touched the painting.

And the vision devoured her.

A forest burning.
 A child screaming among the flames.
 And then—a masked figure taking his hand.

“Come,” it said. “Let’s write a new ending.”

The vision snapped shut with a thud—
 a book fell from a shelf.

No one had touched it.

Edrick returned to the first canvas—the one with the victims.
 He inspected the frame and found an engraving hidden in the wood:

“Act I – Victim.
 Act II – Killer.
 Act III – Observer.
 Act IV – The Harlequin.”

Edrick straightened slowly. “He’s building a play. With roles.
 And we… we’re cast members.”

They stepped into the alley from the painting.
 It was raining lightly. The air was frozen—like before a storm.

Everything matched: the angle of the streetlight, the placement of the manhole, the faint reflection in a closed shop window.

Lira touched the wet asphalt. “This is the place.”

Edrick stared into the void. “And only one detail is missing.”

“What?”

“The body.”

In the distance, the bells of the city began to ring.

One chime. Two.

Twelve in total, the Harlequin had written.

Lira turned to Edrick.

“It’s beginning. His performance… starts now.”