“Scene 10,” Elara whispered, as his eyes went blank. “The mastermind forgets. He walks to the edge. He believes, with all his heart, that he is alone. And he steps.”

Scene 9: Dangerously Yours. The mastermind is someone you loved. Someone you buried. The explosion at the Clockwork Tower will be blamed on the anarchist cell. You will be holding the detonator. You will not remember pulling the trigger.

The masquerade was his stage. Every instruction, every anonymous delivery, had been a brushstroke in a portrait of her destruction. She would become his unwitting weapon, his alibi, his final, beautiful pawn.

She turned and walked away, the detonator dangling from her fingers. Behind her, she heard a single, confused footstep on gravel, then nothing but the wind.