Chapter 24: Ellie Goes Back to the Rehearsal Room

The HanStar building looked different at four in the afternoon than it had at eleven in the morning.

Ellie stood on the pavement outside and registered this without knowing what to do with it. The light was wrong—November light, flat and uncommitted, draining the glass facade of whatever authority it projected in morning. The lobby's reflection showed the street behind her instead of itself. She had been here three times: the audition, which she had walked out of. The confrontation, which she had walked out of. This time she had promised herself she would not make her exits the point.

She had not told anyone she was coming. Not Ji-soo, who would have asked careful questions in the wrong order. Not Park Hye-in, who would have advised her in the right order and also been correct. She had written one sentence in her notebook at eight this morning—*There is something I owe that cannot be documented*—and then closed the notebook and left it on her desk, which was the closest she had come to leaving herself a note.