Chapter Two: Twenty-Three People, Nobody Missing

At the end, it takes the person who most longs to be seen.” “Does the production know?” “Someone does. Someone believes it protects the city.” “What do you want with my name?” Helan Ye stepped close enough for her to smell rain on his collar. “Names open doors. Yours opens more than most. Twenty years ago, during the Yongyao Theater fire, the ballroom called to you for the first time.” She had told no outsider about the fire. Her earliest memory was of standing outside the burning theater while a woman in white beckoned from a glass display. Her mother carried her away and never allowed a full-length mirror at home again. “You investigated me.” “I can smell those marked by mirrors.”