The night was breathing again.

All across Blackglass, the fog receded—
 not vanishing,
 but folding inward,
 like lungs preparing for a final gasp.

The city was still.

Too still.

As if even the shadows were holding their breath.

Lira stood at the center of the old conservatory’s great hall.

Moonlight filtered through cracked stained glass.
 She held the mask of her childhood in her hand—splintered, trembling.

She had remembered.

The ceremony.
 The vows.
 The silver cage around the Wolf.

And one phrase, spoken by a voice too familiar to name:

“You may forget your role,
 but your soul never will.”

Behind her, footsteps.

She didn’t turn.

She knew it was Edrick.

And when he spoke, it wasn’t as a detective.

But as the boy he used to be.

“We wrote the ending wrong.”

Lira nodded slowly.

“We thought if we forgot,
 it would die with us.”

“But it didn’t.”

They looked at each other for the first time
 as two people who had loved one another
 before they had names.

Between them, a silver thread shimmered.

Thin. Fragile.
 Still alive.

Edrick reached out.

Lira did the same.

Their hands met in the middle.

And the thread pulsed.

Suddenly—
 the mirrors in the room cracked at once.

A howl echoed through the broken glass.

The Wolf was awake.

And he wasn’t alone.

In a hidden theater beneath the earth,
 the Harlequin walked across the empty stage.

He wore no mask now.
 Because he wore them all.

Behind him, puppets twitched in silence.

Lira.
 Edrick.
 The Wolf.
 Even himself.

Each carved from wood.
 Each hanging from threads of memory and guilt.

He turned to the empty auditorium and bowed.

“The vows are broken.”
 “The wolves are loose.”
 “And the final act…”

He raised his hands.

A curtain fell behind him—crimson, heavy, real.

“…begins at dawn.”

Back in the conservatory, Edrick and Lira stood in silence.

The silver thread now wrapped around both their wrists.

Not tight.

But unbreakable.

A vow reborn.

And far above them, through the shattered ceiling,

the moon bled white across the city.