After hours, the theater was as quiet as it was large—an eerie contrast to the afternoon’s flurry of noise and color. The smell of smoke hung heavy on the air, and for a moment, Claire imagined Gemglows in the sockets of the stone wall, perfectly lighting up the tapestries of the greatest historians Arden had ever known. She could almost imagine Nett’s face there, brown eyes smiling, hair tufts and all, beaming down from the walls. The first Tiller in more than three hundred years to be honored in the Spinner Historium.

She had entered through the back door, which she knew would be open, as earlier she’d left a pebble carefully wedged in its crease so that it wouldn’t seal closed. Now she tiptoed past the dressing stalls, letting the pale pink of the marble’s light shine over the shoe closet and the practice rooms, before she at last reached the lobby. There the Love Knot Tine stood on its diamond-tree pedestal. The diamond branches hadn’t stirred since she’d seen them last. They still grew up and over the tine, weaving themselves into a thick, seamless box. An unbreakable box.

Claire slipped off the Hollow Pack and pulled out a pair of scissors she’d bought from Woven Root’s Exhibition’s Row. Carefully, she closed the blades around the rope and began to cut. As the blades flashed before her, she recalled what Sena had told her about the history of scissors in Arden—that they were once used to ward off Spinner weavings during the Guild War. Queen Estelle had wreaked havoc while on the throne, but according to Lyric, tensions among the guilds stretched from before even her reign. Claire wondered if it were possible for Arden to ever change.

The rope snapped and her muscles tensed, ready to run if an alarm sounded, but the theater remained quiet. One hurdle down, a hundred to go. She approached the vault.

This time, she breathed normally. Or at least as normally as possible when one is conducting a heist. The diamond vault glittered in her marble’s light, each of its thousands of facets cut to blinding perfection. It was like looking at an eclipse.

As quietly as she could, Claire set the pink marble on the floor, and the vault’s glitter dimmed. It still sparkled, but this time it was bearable.