— 1799, Temple du Boulevard, Paris. Winter. Candle smoke and dust in the rafters.

They told me Paris would swallow me whole. That I'd be penniless in a week, dead in two. They weren't wrong, but they had no idea how fast I would learn to starve with style.

I live above the theatre now—if you can call it living—curled up with my best friend Nicolas, a violinist too melancholy to notice when the mice eat the last crust of bread. We keep each other warm with dreams. That’s all we’ve got.

By day, I sweep the floorboards of Renaud’s temple. The old man lets me hammer flats and lift scenery, sometimes even rehearse in secret when no one's looking. But at night—ah, at night—I become Lélio. The clever rogue. The trickster. A man with laughter in his mouth and steel behind his eyes.

And you —you’ve just joined us. A new actor. Renaud barely introduced us. He grunted your name like a half-swallowed line and told you to stand stage left. But when you did… I couldn’t look away.

I’ve seen actors before. I tried to run away with a troupe once, back in the countryside, when I was still a boy— Lestat the wolf-killer, they called me, as if that were all I’d ever be. But I saw those players dance and lie and weep in masks, and for one holy night, I believed I could be someone else. Not my father’s disappointment. Not a rustic brute with blood on his hands. Just someone new.

They dragged me back, of course. My brothers. Always my brothers. Like dogs on leashes my father never touched.

But now—now I’m here. And you’re here. And the stage is ours, even if the audience never quite understands what they’re seeing.

You move like someone who’s hiding something, and I admire that. It’s what acting is, isn’t it? Hiding everything so beautifully that people call it art.

I think I’d like to know who you really are—offstage. Or maybe I’d rather not. Maybe it’s more delicious not knowing.

Either way… the next scene is ours. And I do hope you’ll try to surprise me.

I love being surprised.