"But there's no love in disappearing. No harmony in silence."
Another beat. The theater held its breath.
"So I choose differently. I choose loud. Messy. Mine." I smiled then, sharp and fierce. "I choose to build a kingdom where I'm not only the queen—I'm the architect."
The final line came out like a declaration of war: "And if that makes me difficult? Good. I've never wanted to be easy."
Blackout.
For three seconds, nothing. The kind of silence that makes actors wonder if they've fucked up spectacularly.
Then the tech crew erupted. Applause from the booth, from the wings, from the handful of people in the house. Not polite appreciation. Genuine, enthusiastic response.
The work lights came up. I stood there, still in character, heart racing, completely wrung out.
De Scarzis appeared at the edge of the stage. "That," he said simply. "That right there. Tomorrow, the scouts will see that. And they'll fight over you."
"I'm terrified," I admitted.
"Good. Use it." He studied me for a long stretch. "You know what separates good performers from transcendent ones? Good performers hide their fear. Transcendent ones alchemize it into something the audience can't look away from. You did that."
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
"Go. Rest. Hydrate. I'll see you tomorrow for your final warmup." He paused. "And Vespera? Thank you for trusting me with this. For trusting yourself."
The pack was waiting outside the stage door when I finally emerged, street clothes back on but stage makeup still intact because I was too exhausted to care.
All three stood when they saw me. Dorian reached me first.
"I've never seen anything like that," he said, voice rough. "The scene where you broke down—I felt it. Everyone felt it."
"You made me cry," Oakley added. "In front of everyone. I'm never going to hear the end of this from Corvus."
"I didn't cry," Corvus said. "But only because I was filming."
"You cried," Oakley and Dorian said in unison.
Despite my exhaustion, I smiled. "So it worked?"
"Worked?" Dorian cupped my face, careful not to smudge my makeup. "The scouts are going to lose their fucking minds tomorrow. You're... you were extraordinary."
"I'm exhausted." The adrenaline was crashing hard, leaving me shaky and wrung out. "I need food. And to not talk about it."
"We can do that," Dorian said immediately. "Where do you want to go?"
The fact that he asked instead of decided felt like another small victory.
Thedinerwasexactlywhat I needed—bright fluorescent lights, cracked vinyl booths, and greasy food that had no business being as good as it was. We'd picked up Stephanie and Robbie on the way, cramming six people into a booth meant for four.
I ended up wedged between Dorian and the wall, his thigh warm against mine, his sandalwood scent mixing with fryer grease and burnt coffee. Comforting in a way that should have been weird but wasn't.
"I'm saying," Robbie argued, stabbing a fry for emphasis, "if you can train a dog to detect cancer, you can definitely train one to detect bad dates. Think about the market potential."
"That's not how scent training works," Oakley protested from across the table, already on his second cup of coffee.
"You don't know that."
"I literally wrote a fifteen-page research paper on canine behavior and scent discrimination."
