1. Where Juliet Sleeps #2
Anneliese removes a pen and pulls a cocktail napkin from beneath her program. With the careful grace of a woman pretending she is not doing anything at all, she writes across it, folds it once, and slides it onto my lap beneath the cover of applause.
I look down.
The walls have ears.
For one second, I forget how to breathe.
The ink is dark and ordinary. The napkin is cheap and slightly damp. Nothing glows or pulses.
That makes it worse.
Dorian’s hand settles lightly over mine, stilling the crumple of the napkin.
“What did she give you?” he murmurs.
His voice is quiet enough for only me, but suddenly I imagine the old plaster listening.
I tuck the napkin into my pocket.
“A reminder,” I whisper.
His eyes darken, but the orchestra swells before he can press. The curtain trembles. Somewhere backstage, Juliet laughs one last bright, light laugh before disappearing into her doomed character.
I force my attention forward and smile like my pulse is not trying to escape through my throat.
The play begins.
It should calm me down.
It does not.
Romeo sees Juliet. Juliet sees Romeo. The entire audience forgets these two have known each other for approximately six dramatic minutes and sighs like this is reasonable.
Humans.
Still, the actors are good. My Juliet glows under the stage lights, all youth and longing. Romeo watches her as if the rest of the world has blurred at the edges.
Their thread shines between them. Steady. Warm. Normal.
Mostly.
Every so often, I think I see that darkness again. A faint bruising at the thread’s border. A shadow in the red.
Then I blink, and it is gone.
Dorian’s knee brushes mine. Accidentally, probably. My entire nervous system files a formal rebuttal.
“You’re staring very hard at the stage,” he murmurs.
“We are at a theater. That is considered acceptable behavior.”
“You’re not watching the play. You’re watching them.”
“I multi-task.”
“You’ve missed three sword jokes.”
“There were sword jokes?”
“Terrible ones.”
“Then I stand by my choices.”
His gaze cuts to me, dry and assessing. “Do you want to leave?”
Yes, says the small rational part of my brain currently hiding under a blanket.
No, says the matchmaker, the fox, the idiot heart. The parts of me that agreed to come to support them.
I square my shoulders. “Absolutely not. I paid for this dress, these boots, and the emotional right to judge fictional teenagers.”
“You didn’t pay for anything tonight.”
“Then it would be even ruder of me to leave now.”
Dorian’s hand settles at my back, grounding and warm. “If that changes, we leave.”
The words should annoy me.
They do not.
A small, treacherous part of me likes the way it feels to be claimed by his concern.
I keep my eyes on the stage.
The performance continues without an intermission, which should be a kindness to the narrative and is instead a cruel little sprint toward doom.
Candlelight deepens. Velvet shadows stretch. Romeo is banished. Juliet weeps. The friar produces a plan so fragile I nearly rise from my seat and offer organizational consulting.
A fake death potion. A secret message. Teenage impulsivity.
Honestly, this is why I make clients fill out intake forms.
Beside me, Dorian sits very still. Every time my breath catches, his gaze cuts sideways.
“You’re doing it again,” he murmurs.
“Watching theater?”
“Predicting catastrophe.”
“Technically, the playwright did that.”
His mouth barely moves. “Fate.”
“I’m fine.”
His silence communicates an entire essay on how much he does not believe me.
The napkin burns in my pocket.
Onstage, Juliet lifts the vial with trembling fingers. The audience leans forward as one body, enchanted by the illusion of danger.
My magic curls under my ribs. Fiction or not, I am terrified.
The red thread between Juliet and Romeo stretches across the stage even when they are not onstage together. It glows through distance, through blocking, through scripted despair.
Then Juliet drinks.
Her body goes slack with theatrical grace, collapsing onto the bed of painted stone and silk.
The audience holds its breath.
I hold mine with them.
Everything is as it should be.
A young woman pretending death.
A room full of people pretending not to know the ending.
A thread still warm, still red, still alive.
Then Romeo enters.
The actor is magnificent. Grief breaks across his face with raw sincerity. He kneels beside Juliet, gathers her limp hand, and kisses her ring.
The thread jerks.
My fingers dig into my skirt.
Romeo speaks of death. Of love. Of defying stars. The words should be beautiful.
They sound like a door locking.
He lifts the poison.
Not real poison, I remind myself.
A prop.
Colored water.
Theater.
Drama.
His hand trembles as he drinks. Perfect acting.
Too perfect.
His throat works. He swallows.
For a moment, everything is still all right.
The thread flickers but holds, as if fate herself is questioning the ending.
Romeo presses one last kiss to Juliet’s lips, then collapses beside her with a sound that hits the stage too heavily.
My fox goes silent.
Juliet lies still.
Romeo lies still.
The audience waits.
Onstage, the actress playing Juliet should stir.
She doesn’t.
The friar enters. Then falters. A missed half step. A fractional pause. The kind of thing an audience excuses because live theater is full of tiny imperfections.
Dorian does not excuse it.
His posture changes beside me, restraint stripping away layer by layer until only the detective remains.
The friar kneels beside Juliet and checks her throat for a pulse.
He looks back at the stage manager in the wing.
A nervous laugh bubbles somewhere in the audience and dies immediately.
The thread between the couple twists once.
Black knots bloom along its length.
I stand before I remember deciding to move.
Dorian rises beside me.
The audience rustles, irritated by the interruption. Someone whispers. Someone shushes. A program slips to the floor.
Onstage, Juliet still does not wake.
Romeo does not move.
The silence stretches past performance.
Past drama.
Past anything a room full of people can comfortably pretend.
Then one of the actresses screams offstage.
The sound rips through the theater and shreds whatever spell the audience is still clinging to.