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A chill ran down my spine, nothing to do with the room’s temperature. The woman released my arm.

“Put it on,” she said again.

This time I listened. I secured the porcelain mask and felt the zinnias’ cold against my cheekbones. The House seemed to contract the moment I did. Smaller, darker, every performance louder and closer, the crowd pressing in from all sides.

I stood still in the middle of it and decided that whatever the hell this place was, I hadn’t come here to stand at the edge.

Moving deeper in, I passed a woman with pearls sewn into her back, a man in a gold mask openly touching himself while watching a performance I couldn’t see, and velvet curtains hanging so low they brushed my shoulders. The corridor ahead narrowed. Gas lamps flickered along the walls, their flames guttering in rhythm with my pulse.

A figure stepped out from behind one of the curtains.

Tall. Too tall. Wearing a faded satin suit in bruised plum and stained ivory, the sleeves hanging past its knuckles in frayed ruffles. A stiff, yellowed collar framed a face painted in thick white enamel, spider-webbed around the cheeks. Black diamonds ringed its hollow, gleaming eyes, while red paint stretched from ear to ear.

More than greasepaint, the smile had been carved into flesh.

Skin at the corners of its mouth had been split open and sewn back together repeatedly, creating a permanent, jagged grin that exposed rows of needle-thin teeth. Too many teeth. They crowded together in double ranks, sharp as bone slivers and slick with saliva.

The Grinner tilted its head until its neck popped with a dry, wooden crack.

I stopped walking.

“Back off,” I said, keeping my voice level. “I’m not part of the exhibit.”

The creature didn’t rush forward. It drew air through its split grin, a sound like tearing silk rasping in the back of its throat.

Then it spoke in my voice.

“I’m eager to be part of the exhibit.”

A cold jolt shot down my spine. “That’s not what I said.”

“That’s what you meant,” the Grinner countered, still using my tone, rolling the vowels around those crowded needles. It took a single long, gliding stride forward, the satin rustling like dry leaves. “I came here to stop pretending. I came here to be taken apart.”

“Get the fuck away from me.” I stepped back, my heel catching on an uneven board.

The Grinner’s smile widened, tearing slightly at its cheek and weeping a fresh bead of dark crimson that tracked down through the white powder like a tear. It clasped its long, floppy sleeves together over its chest in a grotesque pantomime of devotion.

“I want you to touch the cracks,” it whispered in my voice, softer now, dripping with an eager, breathless hunger I hadn’t given it. “I want to see how much I can bleed before I break.”

My heart thudded violently against my ribs. More than fear curdled in my throat; I realized, sickeningly, how easily the House could rewrite me.

“You’re a cheap parlor trick,” I said through clenched teeth, refusing to look away from its glistening black eyes. “You take scraps and pretend you hold the whole story. I’m looking for Dahlia, and when I find her, I’m burning this entire fucking circus to the ground.”

The Grinner’s chest shuddered with silent laughter, its shoulders bobbing as its needle teeth clicked together like dice in a leather cup.

“I’m offering myself for Dahlia,” my voice echoed out of its throat, melodic and perverse, rising in volume until it vibrated against the plaster. “And when they find me, I’ll let them burn me to the ground.”

Down the corridor, a brass lock clicked open on its own.

A seam in the crimson wallpaper parted fifty feet ahead, spilling harsh white light and the sharp scent of antiseptic into the suffocating gloom. Tiered seating rose beyond the opening, and the low hum of an audience waiting for a spectacle drifted out.

The Grinner raised one arm and pointed a limp, satin-draped hand toward the light. Its split mouth stretched so far the red paint smeared across its jawline, blood welling in thick droplets along its gums.

“Your seat is waiting, little flower,” it whispered, abandoning my voice for a dry, layered rattle that sounded like three people speaking at once. “We wrote down every word. The stage remembers everything you gave away.”

I didn’t wait to hear what else it had stolen.

Spinning on my heel, I shoved past the heavy velvet drapes hanging near the threshold, ducking away from the Grinner’s reaching shadow. My skin burned everywhere the air touched it, tight with an adrenaline spike that felt dangerously close to arousal—the raw, electric terror of knowing that simply standing in these halls was giving the House ammunition against my soul.