Chapter 43 – Smoke Without Fire
The letter lay on the table, folded neatly as if it didn't hold the power to tear everything apart.
Nova watched Bea, trying to read her face. But Bea had already put the mask back on—the editor, the strategist, the co-writer who knew how to bleed a truth dry without letting it stain the page.
"No one needs to see this," Bea said softly.
Nova's voice came out cracked. "But what if they find out?"
Bea looked up, eyes fierce. "Then we lie better than they listen."
The weight of that sentence settled between them like a third shadow. Outside, the night was unusually still, as if the world knew they had just made a choice that couldn't be undone.
Bea picked up the letter one last time, ran her fingers over Nova's shaky script, then slid it into a black notebook marked First Draft – Burn This.
She locked it in the drawer beneath the bookshelf. No one ever looked there. Not even Nova.
"We rewrite the fire," Bea said, opening her laptop. "We tell it the way they want to hear it—beautiful, tragic, but clean."
Nova sat down beside her, her heart thudding.
"You sure?" she asked.
Bea didn't answer. She just started typing.
> There was a girl who lost everything in a fire she didn't start.
But that's not the story.
The story is how she built a kingdom out of ash... and never thought