Deadly Ever After

Elara Vance has always lived in the margins of a legend-her mother's. When a lurid recording from 1998 resurfaces and an online cult, the Disciples of the Mask, begins to curate a new horror, the town of Blackwood Bay is enlisted as a stage. Unknown callers pressure her with a vow: be remade into a legend or watch everyone who anchors her life be taken.

As friends die in ritualized tableaux and livestreamed ceremonies, Elara is pulled into a dangerous courtship of violence-texted threats, staged accidents, and a red mask that redefines devotion. Ally and enemy blur in Julian Thorne, a boy shaped by his father's guilt, and a police force that may be directing the script. Trapped between performance and survival, Elara must decide whether to play the role written for her or rewrite the final act with fire.