Luna Park's Arc

Chapter 4 of 14

The studio room was small and bright. A long table held a wooden chest with leather straps, the lid cracked open. A single crystal inside lit the wood from within. A note rested beside it: take this to the platform outside, hold it up, and the audition begins. The scout was not in the room. Luna stood in the doorway and did not move. The chest could be a real token. It could also be a prop her rival had paid someone to leave. She stepped to the window instead of the table. The broadcast grounds spread out below in pale light. A wooden lookout post stood at the edge of the lot, snow heavy on its platform, boot prints pressed into the planks. Someone had been watching the door from up there. Past the post, near the service path, a torn marker flag leaned on a pole driven into a pile of stones. The fabric was streaked the same dull pink as the slugs nailed to the signpost in the plaza. Her rival's color. Her rival's marker. Whoever had set the chest on the table had walked past that flag to get here. Luna pulled out her phone and opened the small channel. She set it to live. She turned the camera on the chest, on the note, on the window view of the lookout post and the torn flag below it. She spoke once, flat. "Someone left this for me. I don't know who. If the scout is real, come down and say so on camera." She pinned the stream to the same tag the frozen banner had trended under. Within a minute the view counter climbed. Fans from the plaza were already watching. She picked up the chest, carried it to the lookout post, and climbed the ladder with the phone still rolling. A woman was waiting on the platform with a clipboard and a staff badge. She blinked at the camera, then at the chest, then laughed once under her breath. "You were supposed to come up quiet," she said. "That was the test. Half the girls open the box and pose. You brought a crowd." She tapped the badge. "I'm with the tour pipeline. The flag down there isn't ours. We've been trying to find who planted it for two days." She took the chest, lifted the crystal out, and pressed it into Luna's hand. "This is your slot token. You're on the shortlist for the Butter stage. Rehearsals start in three days at the broadcast grounds. Don't lose it, and don't tell anyone the date." Luna closed her fingers around the crystal. The audition was real. The flag at the base of the post was not, and her rival now knew exactly where she would be on rehearsal morning.