CHAPTER 10

Late in the afternoon, a porter appeared at her bedroom door with a note.

Sorry, it read, a smudge of paint in one corner, busy with the sets. Will see you tonight before the show. —Max

P.S. REALLY sorry about Luster and the others—I told them to go easy on you.

Like the meeting with Halcyon—who had instructed her on when to return to the theatre and little else—the note left her with more questions than it answered. She pondered it as she dressed. At some point during her absence, the contents of her wardrobe had doubled. She chose an outfit from the new arrivals: a gray skirt and a black jacket that buttoned up the front, then brushed the braid out of her hair, letting it hang in waves around her shoulders.

There was a knock on the door. When she opened it, Luster, Garland, and Duchess swept into the room.

Pity didn’t bother with pleasantries. “What are you gonna do to me?” she said. “And is there any way I can avoid it?”

“Not. A. One,” Duchess said. “Aw, doesn’t she look like a cornered kitten? I love it.”

“Relaaaax,” Luster purred. “We’re here to help you get dressed for tonight.”

“What’s wrong with this?”

“Um, no.” Duchess scoffed. “While, admittedly, a night at the Theatre demands something a bit more conservative than what some of us are used to”—black pants and a glittering silver shirt had replaced his outfit from the evening before—“it doesn’t mean you dress like a schoolteacher on her day off.”

“I do not look like a schoolteacher!”

“Not yet.” Garland moved around behind her. She froze as he gathered her hair and twisted it into a bun on the top of her head. The touch sent shivers down the back of her neck. “But now you do. Oh, don’t scowl like that.”

Her face burned. She tried to protest, but being so close to Garland turned every objection sideways in her throat.

Luster came to her rescue. “Leave her be. Let’s see what else we can find.” She rooted through the wardrobe, pulling out bits of clothing and tossing them to the floor. “No, no, nope, hell nope, and bingo! Here we go!”

Pity’s stomach dropped. “That’s not really my—”

“No arguments.” Duchess snatched the dress from Luster and pressed it on her.

“Fine. I’ll try it on.” She clutched the frighteningly small wisp of fabric.

“Good,” said Luster. “Then we can get started on the rest of it.”

“The rest of what?” Pity squeaked.

Half an hour later, Luster dabbed on a last bit of powder. “There. What do you think?”

“I’m…” A doppelgänger stared at Pity from the bathroom mirror. When she ran a hand down the front of the dress, the reflection did the same. Evergreen in color, it hung to her knees and sparkled faintly. Silk, she thought. It would have taken me ages to save enough to buy a yard of fabric this nice. Pity was certain she wasn’t the first owner of the dress, but even if it had been torn and faded it would have been nicer than anything she had ever worn before. Around her bare shoulders her hair still hung loose, but now her eyes were rimmed with black, her lips stained berry-red. “I’m cold.”

“I can fix that.” Luster pranced out of the bathroom.

Pity wobbled as far as the doorframe before stopping, unsure she could take another step. Neither the heeled shoes she wore nor her resolve felt particularly steady. But it was too late. Garland and Duchess had seen her.

“Better,” admitted Duchess.

“Perfect,” said Garland. He grabbed her hands and pulled her back into the bedroom.

She stumbled forward. “I don’t know…”

“No, he’s right.”

For a moment, Pity didn’t recognize Max, leaning against the open door to the hall. His paint-splattered clothes had been swapped for a tailored black jacket with a gold collar and matching pants, an ensemble that fit him like a second skin. When he gave her a languorous smile, Pity’s stomach tightened. She forgot Garland was holding her hands until he released them, stepping away.

“See?” he said. “If Max can dress the part of the rich elite, so can you.”

Luster tossed her a gauzy strip of gold fabric. “Here, to keep you warm.”

“Uh, thanks.” She draped it around her shoulders.

“I’ve got some good news, kids,” Max said. “In honor of Pity seeing her first show, Halcyon reserved us a box.”

“A Finale and we don’t have to sit with the rabble?” Duchess looped an arm around Pity’s and led her toward the door. “I am suddenly so much fonder of you.”

Max didn’t move. “Sorry, Dutch, but if you don’t mind?”

“Oh, Maxxy, I knew you’d come around sooner or later.” Duchess released Pity and linked arms with Max instead, who rolled his eyes. “Oh, all right. She’s all yours.”

As Max led Pity into the hall, her embarrassment evaporated, chased away by a spark of excitement.

Whether it was for the show or her escort, in that moment she couldn’t have said.

It began with a faint hum of music, almost too low to make out. That hum grew, vibrating through Pity, weaving among the crowd’s hushed whispers and held breaths. It was impossible to tell where it came from in the dark theatre, lit only by red lights that cast everything in bloody shadows. She shifted anxiously in her seat, glancing at Max beside her. With his black suit and black hair, he seemed hardly more than a floating face. On her other side, Luster leaned against her shoulder, a huge grin on her face. Duchess and Garland were behind them, the box just spacious enough for five.

The theatre had been in a ruckus as they entered, its stands brimming with spectators. Pity had found herself assaulted by raucous laughter, colorful outfits, and scents of perfume, sweet cigar smoke, and too many bodies. But as soon as the lights dimmed, the crowd had settled, their anticipation thick and infectious.

The music continued its languid ascent. Her attention was drawn to the center of the stage, where a ring of purple and orange lights appeared, pulsing in time with the melody. Amid them, like a demon rising out of the depths of hell, Halcyon appeared.

“The sun has set, and the moon begins to rise.” His voice was everywhere, like the music. “Now is the early black. Now is the time of magic and mysteries, of darkness and devilry. I welcome all of you, new friends and old, to the greatest show on the continent, to the theatre to end all theatre! Welcome”—the music rose sharply, a trembling crescendo—“to the Theatre Vespertine!”

Halcyon threw up his arms. Huge jets of sparks exploded out of his sleeves and from the apex of the ceiling, flakes of light raining down on the audience like snow. The crowd erupted in cheers as the arena flooded with light. Halcyon was no longer alone. A dozen dancers—naked save for patches of multicolored silks cut to look like feathers—appeared. They circled around him like a flock of colorful vultures before back-flipping away, bending and twisting in the air, only to land as delicately as cats.

“Tonight you will be party to some of the greatest visual pleasures known to mankind. You will be excited and tantalized, terrified and electrified, and at times—never fear!—you will not believe your very eyes!” Halcyon weaved through the dancers along the perimeter of the stage, tipping his striped top hat at the onlookers. When he passed their box, he winked at Pity. Only then did she realize that she had slid forward to the edge of her seat. She felt a hand on her shoulder—Max guiding her backward, a knowing smiling on his face.

“So sit! Relax! And enjoy all the pleasures that the Theatre Vespertine has to offer!” He returned to his ring of lights. “Tonight we begin with an act to warm your blood… though warm or cold, it makes no difference to her. Everyone, blow a hiss—pardon me, a kiss—to Scylla!”

The room went black. A low drumming began, soon joined by a high, reedy flute. As Pity watched, Halcyon’s lights were replaced by a sour greenish glow. Fog billowed, tendrils curling into the darkness like a poisonous miasma. In the middle of the glow a body appeared, stretched supine. It rose from the fog on a rippling platform.

Rippling? She blinked, but the movement remained. Suddenly, projections of the stage appeared on the ceiling, illuminating the arena. Pity inhaled sharply.

The platform was covered with snakes.

Her vision was filled with them—big and little, striped and scaled, copperheads and rattlesnakes, and ones she didn’t recognize. And in the center of the reptilian nest, Scylla lay, still as death. Breasts bare, her skin shimmered like an oil slick. Pity shivered with a primal revulsion as the serpents slithered over Scylla’s limbs, her torso—even her face.

As the tempo of the music increased, Scylla began to move, arching her back slowly before rising. In a slow, upward drift, she got to her feet, dancing seductively, her body undulating like those of her pets. The air tasted of nervousness, excitement, and sensuality. When Scylla bent forward to pluck a pair of snakes from the mass and wrap them around her neck, the audience howled with appreciation.

Pity squirmed as Scylla’s eyes, ringed with green glitter, stared down at her from above. And yet she could not look away. She expected one of the snakes to strike at any moment. Instead, they slid up Scylla’s legs, wound over her hips, and slipped between her thighs. She continued to dance, raising her arms above her head as the serpents coiled around them. Soon they enveloped her so completely that Scylla resembled some ancient, horrible monster.

“How does she keep them from biting?” Pity breathed.

Luster leaned in close. “Scylla’s half witch,” she whispered. “And the other half is snake charmer.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Max said. “Illegal neural implants. Not that Scylla will admit it or breathe a word about where she got that done. There are some things you can’t get even in Cessation.”

The music stopped and Scylla froze. After a moment, it started again, lower and deeper. She began to unwind the serpents from her body, kissing each before placing it at her feet. When she plucked off the final one, a tiny black baby no longer than her forearm, Pity released the air arrested in her lungs.

Scylla spun, her hands extended toward the audience, body glistening. Applause showered down on her, continuing until her platform was out of sight.

Halcyon reappeared. “And now, from that which crawls on its belly to that which flies in the air! Your favorite quintet of gravity-defying darlings—I give you, the Rousseaus!”

“Scylla and the quints, right out of the gate?” said Garland. “Halcyon isn’t holding back tonight, is he?”

“He wants people thinking about who will do the Finale,” Luster replied.

Pity turned to her. “What’s the—?”

“Shhh! Here they come!”

From the ceiling, the Rousseaus descended on ropes like spiders on their silk. What skin on their elfin forms wasn’t concealed by gold costumes was painted in intricate, colorful patterns. Even their faces were covered.

“Did you do that?” Pity whispered to Max. He nodded proudly.

Suddenly, the five youths released their ropes. Pity started as they plunged, only to stop abruptly, a loop around one ankle keeping them aloft. The rigging holding them started to spin, and the Rousseaus extended their arms as the motion carried them outward, until they soared like birds through the air. She felt her heart rise into her throat; a slip would be all it took to catapult an unlucky Rousseau into the upper reaches of the stands. Finally, the rotation slowed, and the quints themselves began to spin, faster and faster, until they were blurs. Applause thundered in the stands. Pity stole a glance at the rapt faces of the audience, wondering what excited them more: the aerobatics or the possibility that one of the performers might plunge to their death at any moment.

On it went, a series of nerve-racking stunts filling tense minutes. For the climax of their act they launched themselves one by one through a flaming ring, bowing in midair before the ropes pulled them back up into the darkness above.

Soldiers in chariots drawn by real horses appeared next, enacting some ancient battle where men and women in shining silver armor massacred a band of iron- and leather-clad warriors. No detail was spared. When a soldier thrust a long spear into the chest of a warrior woman, the blood that exploded forth looked so real that Pity cried out.

“It’s all part of the show,” Max reassured her. And, indeed, the young woman danced off minutes later, along with a dozen other corpses.

“It looks so real,” she muttered, embarrassed.

“It’s supposed to,” he said. “They’re spring-loaded weapons packed with fake blood—I mixed it myself. Still haven’t got the color quite right, though.”

“And now, my friends,” Halcyon announced. “No more masquerade. It’s time for a true matter of life and death… and of love. I give you—Marius and Eva Zidane!”

The Zidanes rose out of the floor on either side of Halcyon, their backs to each other. Dressed in matching suits of black, red, and cream, with a slit skirt for Eva, both wore belts of knives strapped around their waists. The metal glinted under the bright lights. When Halcyon was gone, they turned slowly and approached each other, eyes locked. Throughout the arena, pieces of wall began to rise out of the floor. Of varying size and spacing, they were set at odd angles, like a maze with pieces torn out. A droning, exotic melody began to play, along with a slow, booming drumbeat.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The walls locked into place.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The music grew louder and louder, its energy drawing the anticipation in the room upward until, with a final crash—

It ceased.

Eva and Marius spun from each other and ran. As each reached a section of wall, they turned, arms arcing through the air. A heartbeat later, knives embedded in wood—one above Eva’s shoulder, the other inches from Marius’s cheek. They dove for cover. From there, they began to stalk each other, darting from one wall piece to another.

Pity watched as the dreadful hunt played out, cringing each time a blade came close to impaling its intended target. “Is this real?”

“Of course it is.” Luster’s eyes were glassy with excitement.

But Max shrugged. “Only Eva and Marius know for sure.”

The audience screamed as one of Marius’s knives pinned Eva’s skirt. She ripped it free and lunged as another blade cut through the air she had just occupied.

The drumming began again. It beat a slow rhythm as the couple pulled their final knives. On opposite sides of the arena, concealed behind twin sections of wall, open space was all that separated them. In the same moment, the pair bolted from cover and dashed forward. Arms slashed up as they threw—

And up again as they plucked the other’s knife from the air, mid-flight.

They came to a halt scant inches apart. Eva’s blade was at Marius’s throat; his was pointed at her chest. The audience roared their approval as the Zidanes dropped the weapons and kissed.

As they bowed and exited, Pity watched the floor, expecting Halcyon to reemerge. Instead, only his voice rang out.

“You’ve all been very patient.” His tone was teasing, dark. “And I know you know that tonight is different. That we have a special kind of act to send you off, one that does not happen often.”

The Finale? Pity slid forward again, achingly curious about what could top Scylla’s sensuality, the Rousseaus’ skills, or the terrifying grace of the Zidanes.

I’m giving you to the Theatre, too.

Pity’s blood turned cold as Selene’s words surfaced in her mind.

Suddenly she knew there was only one thing to surmount what she had already seen:

Beeks.