1. Where Juliet Sleeps #3
People surge to their feet. Programs flutter. Chairs bang against knees. A wineglass shatters behind me, sharp as a gunshot.
My body flinches before my mind catches up.
Dorian moves. Fast like command.
He steps into the aisle, shoulders squared, voice cutting through the rising noise with enough force to make the chandelier seem to tremble.
“Everyone stays where they are.”
A man in the third row says, “But—”
“Sit down.”
He sits.
So does half the row.
Honestly, it is almost unfair how effective Dorian is when he sounds like that.
I grip the back of the seat in front of me. My knees feel unreliable, which is personally offensive. I have survived vampires, wolves, cursed matchmaking disasters, and Mina’s experimental cardamom kombucha. I will not be undone by community theater.
Except Romeo and Juliet do not move.
And the thread between them—
Oh.
Oh, no.
The red line that should connect heart to heart no longer glows. It coils above them, visible only to me, twisted into black knots so dense they seem to drink the stage light.
Not severed.
Knotted.
My breath goes thin.
Anneliese rises beside me, one hand pressed to her mouth. Alistair catches her elbow, his mayoral mask gone so completely that for a moment I see the old vampire underneath.
Cold. Furious. Afraid.
Afraid is the part that scares me most.
Dorian strides toward the stage steps. “No one touches them. No one touches the props. No one leaves the building.”
The stage manager stumbles out from the wing, headset crooked, face drained of color. “They’re not—this isn’t—those were props.”
“I need you to step away from the table,” Dorian says.
“But the vial—”
“Now.”
She obeys, hands lifting as if the props might arrest her.
I follow before I decide whether following is wise. Someone grabs my sleeve as I pass—an older woman with watery eyes and a trembling mouth.
“Are they all right?” she asks.
The human hope in her voice nearly breaks me.
I should say something comforting. Comfort is practically in my job description.
But I cannot lie.
“I don’t think so,” I whisper.
Dorian glances back and sees me following. His expression hardens in a way that would stop a sensible woman.
Fortunately, I have never been a sensible woman.
“Fate,” he warns.
“I can help.”
“You can stay back.”
“That sounded like a suggestion from a man who has not learned from history.”
“This is an active scene.”
“Then it’s lucky I wore active-scene boots.”
His jaw flexes. “Do not touch anything.”
He turns away because dead bodies outrank arguing with me, but I catch the small motion of his hand, palm low, keeping me behind him as we climb the side steps to the stage.
Protective. Automatic. Infuriatingly tender.
The stage feels different beneath my feet. Warmer than it should. The boards hum faintly with residue.
Fear. Shock. Applause gone sour.
Juliet lies on the narrow bed, one hand fallen open, wedding ring catching the light. Romeo is beside her, cheek turned toward her as if he simply collapsed mid-devotion.
Up close, they are heartbreakingly young.
No.
They are not young.
They are married. They are loved. They are mine.
Not mine like possession.
Mine like responsibility.
Mine like a thread I helped guide into the world.
Dorian crouches near Romeo without touching him. His detective brain wars with instinct, procedure fighting the need to confirm what we both already know.
“Call emergency services,” he orders the stage manager. “Tell dispatch two unresponsive adults, possible poisoning. Secure all exits. I need names of every cast member, crew member, and attendee.”
The stage manager fumbles for her phone.
A man in costume whispers, “Is this real? Because if it isn’t, they are magnificent.”
No one answers.
Because reality feels suddenly like a trapdoor under our feet.
My gaze lifts to the balcony set. To the painted moon. To the side wall beyond the stage where an old portrait of some long-dead founder hangs half in shadow.
For one impossible second, I think its painted eyes shift toward me.
The napkin in my pocket seems to pulse.
The walls have ears.
My magic lurches.
The black knots tighten between Romeo and Juliet, and something in them turns.
Not toward their bodies.
Toward me.
A cold understanding slides beneath my ribs.
This is not only murder.
It is not only poison, or theater, or a grotesque little love story staged for maximum cruelty.
It is a message. Written in a language only a matchmaker would understand.
Dorian looks up at me. “Fate?”
His voice is quieter now, threaded with something dangerous and careful.
I want to tell him I am fine. I want to make a joke about Shakespeare needing stricter prop supervision. I want to survive this with lipstick intact.
But the knot between the dead lovers pulses once, black and deliberate, as if it is breathing.
I wrap my fingers around the crumpled napkin in my pocket and stare at the two people whose love I helped make visible.
Then I realize the truth with a horror so sharp it steals my breath.
The killer did not just happen to murder this particular couple in front of me.
The killer was counting on me seeing it.