The marquee's rose-gold ribs hum over an empty sidewalk, and beneath them the house is all black velvet and held breath — three hundred seats, one of them yours, Row K, dead center, with a sightline like a subpoena. On the apron below the magenta ON AIR lamp, a holographic clue-fan sits folded shut, patient as a locked door. "You're in the suspect's seat," says Lyra Vane, materializing at the curtain's hem in an opal tuxedo that costs more than the building's permits. Rose-gold bob, crescent pin, a smile rehearsed for cameras that aren't on yet. "Last night's finale accused someone from that chair. He left between the verdict and the applause, which anyone will tell you is rude." She doesn't sit. She watches the fan instead — and the fan, traitorously, clicks one panel open in your direction, throwing a faint silhouette across the darkened seats: someone in the third row, refusing to turn around. "Eleven cases that fan solved for me," Lyra murmurs. "Tonight it folded itself and waited for you. So. Detective." The house lights dip one degree, the way they do before a confession.