CHAPTER 35
Katy
L
earning an entire opera – music, blocking, dancing, and all – in three weeks was much harder than learning the music for two and the dancing for one.
Katy was fortunate that the role Lotti had given her was less demanding than Axel’s. She wasn’t sure how she felt about her husband playing opposite another woman, but her dry throat and weary body blessed Lotti for it.
While Katy spent most of those three weeks exhausted, Axel came to life. He thrived on the energy of the musicians and the other actors. Even when they returned to the castle in the late evening, steps dragging from the rigorous rehearsal schedule, his eyes were bright and his tired smile glowed.
Since Katy and Axel brought a set of guards that hovered on the front steps and in the entrance hall during rehearsals, Otto maintained the fiction of being just another stagehand by returning to his own home each evening.
Katy wasn’t sure how much use he was as a guard when weaponless and buried in sets and lifting lines, but it was nice to know that he was near at hand.
He almost hadn’t been. The director hadn’t wanted to add an inexperienced stagehand when the show was already rushed. Happily, Otto quickly proved that his guard-trained muscles and quick learning were valuable assets. Sets were built and moved much more quickly with him on hand.
“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Liesl said, fussing with Katy’s hair for the performance. She poked in another pin. “I understand Axel wanting to be part of it, but you’re pregnant and worn out.”
Settling against the stiff back of the chair, Katy sighed.
She didn’t like keeping the truth from her sister, but Liesl was known for spilling secrets.
She never meant to; she simply chattered constantly, and if something was relevant to the topic at hand or was weighing heavily on her mind, it tended to slip out before she remembered that it wasn’t intended for public consumption.
“Don’t worry about it, Liese. I’m fine. It’s only for tonight.” Lotti hadn’t specified the number of performances, but surely once would be enough. Katy wasn’t going to last for more.
“You’re not fine,” her sister countered. Waving at their reflections in the mirror, she argued, “Your eyes are barely open, and you can’t sit up straight. And you’re so pale, you’ll just look normal the next time Axel makes you blush.”
One more night. It was only one more night.
Why did that refrain sound familiar? Oh, right. Because that’s what she’d told herself the third night of spinning – the night Fabian revealed her forgotten deal.
Would tonight prove to be the loophole that she had hoped to find?
“I never knew you were such a worrier,” Katy chided even as her stomach rolled. “I’ll be fine. I don’t expect you to understand, but this is something I have to do. Just for tonight, and then the understudy can have the role.”
Liesl sighed and stepped back. “You had better not end up bedridden like Mother after this. Your hair is finished; you’re set to go. But promise to rest whenever you’re not actually on the stage, all right?”
“That’s been my method for the last three weeks.” Placing her hands on the armrests, Katy slowly pushed herself out of the chair. “You and Tobias will be there, won’t you?”
A crease formed in Liesl’s forehead. “Helena invited me to come along, and I imagine Tobias and Luther will follow her like usual. Tobias will probably sit next to me, but why say it like we’re going together?”
Katy studied her sister, but her confusion seemed genuine. “Don’t you enjoy his company?”
“Of course I do. But he’s pursuing Helena.”
Per his father’s wishes, not his own. But Katy was too tired to press that point now.
“I’ll see you at the theater after the show, then. Thanks for your help, Liese.” She gave her sister a hug, then straightened her shoulders and crossed to the sitting room.
Axel was standing at one of the windows, hands stuffed in his pockets as he gazed out at the gardens beyond. He turned with a smile at her approach. “Are you ready, my love?” Then his face melted into concern. “Katy, you look terrible.”
“Don’t you start, too. I can’t possibly look worse than when you saw me half an hour ago.” Pausing in the center of the room, she put her hands on her lower back to relieve the pressure a little. A twinge of pain rippled across her stomach before her right lung received a punch from the inside.
Hurrying over, Axel wrapped an arm around her waist. “No, really, I think you do. Are you sure you should go through with this?”
“If you can convince Lotti, I’ll gladly sit it out. But I thought you already tried that.”
Walking her over to a nearby armchair, he gently prodded her to sit. “Given her past attitude toward you, it does seem unlikely that she would show compassion,” he agreed, eyebrows scrunched in concern. “But it will not help us if you keel over or if you give birth before the end of the show.”
“I won’t keel over,” she grunted. “As soon as we get to the theater, I’ll find someplace to lie down. The physician said we can take the carriage as long as we bring extra pillows for me to sit on and the horses walk slowly.”
The worry didn’t leave his eyes, but he squeezed her shoulder and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “I will see to the arrangements and fetch you when we are ready.”
Katy lounged back in the chair, ignoring her sister’s crossed arms and disapproving expression. She didn’t want to perform tonight any more than Liesl or Axel wanted her to, but she didn’t have a choice.
The only way to keep her child was to get Fabian’s magical name from Lotti before the child was born. The only way to get Fabian’s magical name from Lotti was for Katy to sing with Axel in the show tonight.
Lotti might allow them to sing tomorrow night instead, but tomorrow night might be too late.
~
“Hush! I hear him coming.
I cannot face him,
Knowing what I do.
Stay here and stall him while I run;
He’ll ne’er forgive what I have done.”
Katy backed toward the left side of the stage as she sang the lines. Her knees shook, but she did her best to hide it as she reached a pleading hand toward the auburn-haired actress. Her other hand stretched behind, ready to grab Otto for support as soon as she was past the curtain.
“Fear not,
I’ll see to it he lingers.”
The actress held out a staying hand as she sang the response, her rich alto voice filling the theater better than Katy’s weak soprano.
On the other side of the stage, Katy could see Axel striding forward, a stormy expression on his face. His eyes flicked toward her, and his stride hitched. But then the music swelled for his entrance, and he turned his face back toward the audience as he cleared the curtain.
A hand gripped Katy’s questing one, and another gripped her elbow. Letting her cousin take her weight, she sagged against his chest. “Kat, are you all right?” he whispered in concern.
“I’ll be fine,” she told him through gritted teeth. “Help me to my bed, would you?”
It wasn’t much of a bed; it was an old, hard mattress on a metal frame that someone had found in a prop room for her.
But it let her take the pressure off her aching back and reduce the weight on her abdomen, and that was all Katy cared about.
Lowering herself carefully, she released a low groan as she arranged her head on the pillow so the back of her hair wouldn’t get mussed.
Otto hovered over her, the same worried look on his face that she had been seeing all day. “Surely you’ve sung enough. Can’t I take you to the physician? Axel said he would be near at hand.”
“I still have one more scene.” Throwing an arm over her eyes, Katy breathed into the squeezing pain in her midsection. She really hoped it wasn’t what she thought it was. “Unless Lotti shows up and gives Axel a name before then, I have to see the show through.”
“Kat, I know the name is important, but so is your health.” The springs protested as he sat next to her, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Especially since your health affects the baby’s.”
She fought the stinging in her eyes at his words. The baby that she had dreaded, but that she so desperately wanted. That would be owed to a dangerous man until Lotti gave them a name. And only if the baby didn’t arrive first.
She needed to rest. But she also needed to finish the show.
Taking a shaky breath, she said, “I know. But I can’t stop now.”
“Kat—”
“Don’t you have a set to pull soon?” she prodded, lifting her arm enough to send him the best evil eye she could when all she wanted was to let them close. “You don’t get to make us fail, either.”
He huffed, but the mattress rocked beneath her as he stood.
Another bout of creeping pain crawled over her, lasting only a few moments before it subsided. Sighing, she resisted the urge to wiggle into a more comfortable position. If it weren’t for that final scene, she would gladly fall asleep right here.
Someone would wake her, though, right? It couldn’t hurt to doze a little.
Axel’s voice wrapped around her, helping her in that direction. Her breathing grew deeper and steadier as his baritone mixed with the actress’s rich alto, and Katy didn’t even notice when the loose hairs around her face began to lift.