Nature Cell Biology, Published online: 05 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41556-026-02044-1 Brandon, Robinson-Thiewes, Kaulage et al. report that targeted BRD4 recruitment enables transcription through H3K9me3/HP1-marked heterochromatin without erasing repressive marks, identifying condensate partitioning as a mechanism for gene desilencing.