The scent of cedar shavings and scorched starch always hung heavy over the Wardrobe Pavilion, but this morning smelled of metal. Raw shears. Cut yarn.
Mireia rounded the partition by the fitting stalls, clutching her small box of mother-of-pearl buttons. On the central mannequin, the ivory crepe gown—the one Bastian had chosen specifically for the third-act salon scene—lay in limp, slashed tatters. Long, deliberate vertical cuts ran from the bodice down to the scalloped hem, exposing the horsehair crinoline underneath like bare ribs.
Timo sat on an upturned wicker trunk, chewing a liquorice root down to yellow splinters. "I stepped out for three minutes," he hissed, spitting a fiber onto the sawdust floor. "Three. To sign for the dry-ice canisters at Stage Nine. I come back, and somebody’s treated thirty yards of imported satin like fish bait."
Mireia dropped her thimble box. It clattered against the parquet, scattering brass pins. She walked slowly toward the ruined form, her fingers grazing the sliced edges. The cuts were frayed, jagged, yet strangely dynamic in the draft from the bay doors. The white silk hung in sweeping, desperate strips over the stark black petticoat below.
"A sacrifice," Mireia whispered, the blood rising hot in her ears.
"Don't start poeticizing it!" Timo barked, jumping up so fast his pocket watch swung wildly against his denim smock. "It's sabotage, Mireia! Malice! Vandalism! We have five hours before camera tests on the piazza set!"
"No, Timo, look at it." Mireia turned around, her cheeks flushed with sudden, reverent wonder. Her fingers traced the rough hems where threads blossomed like cobwebs. "Remember what Zita told me last night? About the blood sacrifice? The test?"
"She was threatening to skin you, you sweet idiot!"
"She wasn't! She knows I'm too timid. She knows I play the salon mistress like a sheltered porcelain doll because I'm afraid to get dirty. The salon gets raided during the riots in Act Four! The character loses her home, her pride, everything!" Mireia loosened the laces of her cotton work smock with feverish speed. "Zita never ruined it. She broke the mold for me. She knew I lacked the courage to take a razor to such fine cloth myself."
"Wait—Mireia, stop, don't put that monstrosity on—"
Ten minutes later, Mireia stepped into the blinding sun of Backlot Alley B.
The slashed silk billowed around her shins. Where the waist had been sliced open, she had woven a length of frayed black binding tape from her sewing apron, cinching the silhouette into an aggressive, exposed hour-glass. The hanging ribbons of ivory crepe caught the coastal wind coming off Cinta Bay, dancing like phantom wings over her soot-dusted leather work boots.
A pair of background extras—girls painted up for a cabaret scene in feather boas—stopped dead in the lane.
"Is that... the new silhouette from the Vieri production?" one murmured, staring open-mouthed at the exposed stays.
"Look at the hem," the other whispered, leaning in. "It’s raw edge. Destructured elegance. It looks like a wounded swan."
By the time Mireia reached the courtyard outside Stage Four, four young dancers from the chorus line had already taken penknives to the hems of their calico skirts, knotting the sliced ribbons with feverish chic. The word skipped across the stone pavers like wind through dry pine: *Director Vieri's substitute has brought down the old Parisian silhouette. Rags are the new royalty.*
Then the double soundstage doors banged back against the brickwork.
Bastian Vieri stood in the threshold, an unlit filter cigarette between two fingers, his leather binder tucked under one arm. His gaze swept the courtyard, dropping like an anchor straight onto Mireia. His brow pulled down into a sharp, rigid slant.
"What happened to the third-act wardrobe?" Bastian’s voice was low, yet it cut through the bustle of grips and carpenters like a whip crack. He crossed the stone flags with long strides, stopping two paces from her. His molar clicked as his teeth locked shut. "Who touched that silk? Timo! Who went into the Pavilion?"
"Bastian, please!" Mireia stepped forward, raising both hands, her eyes shining with pure, innocent gratitude. "Don't be angry! It was a gift!"
From the shade of the arcades, Zita Morvan had just appeared, wrapped in a plush fox-fur collar despite the morning warmth, holding a porcelain cup of black coffee. Her lips were parted in anticipation of a breakdown—until she saw the crowd of admiring extras circling the second-cast girl.
[WARNING: Target 'Mireia Canto' is experiencing peak artistic inspiration and communal adoration.]
[ECLIPSE SYSTEM PENALTY TRIGGERED.]
[Stolen vitality draining. Cellular decay applied to hair follicle pigment.]
Zita gasped, nearly dropping her saucer. A savage, burning throb ripped across the crown of her scalp, as if boiling grease had been poured along her part. Right above her left ear, a thick, silver-gray ribbon of hair bloomed into existence, draining the jet-black dye in an agonizing five-second sizzle.
"Zita planned it all," Mireia announced to the entire backlot, her voice bright with sincere admiration as she gestured toward the frozen lead actress. "I was playing the salon scene too safe, too delicate. Miss Morvan saw right through my weakness. She taught me that true cinema requires destruction! She sacrificed the silk to give my character her spine!"
A chorus of murmurs erupted among the assembled crew. Two assistant directors began clapping. "Brilliant method work," one shouted. "Only Morvan would have the guts to teach a replacement through shock therapy!"
Zita stood rigid, her porcelain cup rattling against the saucer. Her knuckles were white. The new, coarse streak of gray hair caught the harsh glare of the key-lights overhead. She forced her crimson lips into a stretched, brittle smile that looked carved out of dry chalk.
"Of course, darling," Zita managed, each syllable scraping past her teeth like broken glass. "Anything... to help the art."
[WARNING: Subject Morvan's life-clock reduced by four months.]
[Charm threshold: DANGEROUSLY UNSTABLE.]
Zita turned on her heel and fled toward her dressing trailer, slamming the heavy wooden door behind her with a crack like thunder.
Bastian refrained from clapping. He never glanced at Zita's retreating back. His dark eyes remained fixed entirely on Mireia, raking over the bare slivers of skin visible through the slashed bodice, reading the truth behind the blade marks she overlooked.
He caught Mireia firmly by the wrist.
Before she could laugh or thank him, he dragged her through the side entrance of Stage Four, through a thick maze of velvet curtains, and pushed her into the cramped, pitch-black cavern of the archival prop closet. The heavy soundproof door shut with a heavy click, plunging them into sudden stillness.
The only light filtered through the wooden slats of a vent high up on the brick wall, slicing across the darkness in thin golden bars. The room smelled of old lacquer, mothballs, and Bastian’s dry, clove-scented tobacco.
He maintained his grip on her wrist. Instead, he pulled a yellow tailor’s tape from his vest pocket with his free hand.
"Stand still," he ordered, his voice low, gravelly, and entirely stripped of his usual directorial distance.
Mireia’s throat went dry. "Bastian? What are you—"
"I am not letting you perform in shredded rags because you think cruelty is a lesson," he said, stepping into her space until the tips of his polished boots met her scuffed toes. He flipped the tape around her ribcage, his knuckles brushing the bare skin just beneath the tear in her fabric. His hands were warm, firm, and completely steady, though his breathing was short and rough.
He pulled the tape taut, leaning down until his lips were inches from her ear. She could feel the dry heat of his skin, the intense, suppressed fury humming beneath his ribs.
"You aren't stupid, Mireia," Bastian whispered, his voice dropping into a ragged, dangerously intimate hush. "You know what shears do. You know she wants you ruined. Why are you protecting her?"