Sybil’s expression flickered. For a moment, she looked genuinely afraid. “You don’t ask to meet a hurricane. You just hope it doesn’t tear your house down.”

But the night before the first workshop, Sybil called her. Not Sybil. David.

“She’s gone,” David whispered. “The main one. Sybil. The others—they locked her out. We don’t know how to bring her back.”

And somewhere, in a quiet studio apartment across town, a woman with nine faces opened her eyes and began to laugh—in a voice that sounded, just for a moment, exactly like Nicole’s.

“I have nine selves,” Sybil said calmly. “They don’t get along. But they all live in here.” She tapped her temple. “You act like different people. I am different people. The difference is, you get to go home afterward.”