Act IV, Chapter 18: Mira Discovers the Proof That Kills Everything

The candle had burned to its last inch before Mira allowed herself to stop.

She did not stop because she was finished. She stopped because her hand had begun to tremble in the small, precise way that meant the tendons were failing before the will did, and she could not afford imprecision. Not tonight. Not with what lay before her on Lord Fenn's reading table, spread in its terrible orderliness like a surgeon's instruments waiting to be used.

She set down the pen.