On a cold, masked Hallowe’en night at Le Cirque des Rêves, Chandresh Christophe Lefèvre enters unnoticed, takes a silver mask, and wanders as if entranced. Nearby, the man in the grey suit attends the circus for the first time without a mask, drifting from tent to tent with idle enjoyment.

Chandresh fixates on following him, growing increasingly agitated whenever he momentarily loses sight of the grey top hat. Unseen by Chandresh, Marco trails Chandresh at a distance, monitoring him closely while the grey-suited man tours attractions, including the fortune-teller (who finds his future overlapping and confusing), the illusionist’s show, the Hall of Mirrors, the Carousel, and the Ice Garden.

As midnight passes and the crowd thins, the man in the grey suit stops in a back passage, apparently speaking with someone. Chandresh, convinced the man is “not real,” seizes the moment; time seems to slow and the circus subtly falters—an acrobat slips, the bonfire sputters black smoke, a kitten lands wrong, Celia’s performance freezes as she turns deathly pale, and Marco doubles over as if struck.

Chandresh throws a heavy silver knife with perfect aim at the man in the grey suit. The man in the grey suit shifts aside with a small, effortless step, and the blade instead buries itself in the chest of Herr Friedrick Thiessen, killing him as he collapses into the grey-suited man’s arms.

Chandresh stares at his empty hand in confusion and staggers away toward the courtyard, later unable to remember the mask or what he has done. The man in the grey suit murmurs over Herr Thiessen, closes his eyes, and, as Poppet Murray begins screaming at the spreading blood, calmly removes the knife and walks off, handing the bloodied weapon to a shaken Marco before disappearing into the crowd; witnesses are quickly ushered away and later dismiss it as theater.