Chapter Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Seven
Against all instincts pushing her to get out of there as fast as possible, Jade froze, anxiety worming its way into her heart. Had Grannam’s assassin already done his dirty work, and now someone was dead? Was it Arabella?
Jade rushed to the closest box and peered carefully through the window. The occupants of the box leaned over the railing, staring down into the audience below.
Over the continued screaming, a few panicked sentences made their way through the box’s door to Jade.
“He fell!”
“Is he dead?”
“Where did he come from?”
Jade’s heart dropped, and the contents of her stomach turned to lead.
He.
He fell.
Dead.
Her lungs collapsed as air whooshed out of them as if she’d been punched in the stomach. It couldn’t be . . .
Theo.
Jade ran back to the door to the wings, the pounding in her ears drowning out the clamor of the audience. Her hurt shoulder lit up with pain as she tore up the ladder, fumbling over the rungs in her desperation.
It couldn’t be Theo. It couldn’t be Theo.
But the last she had seen him, he had been heading toward the flies over the stage. Maybe this hadn’t been the work of the assassin at all. Maybe Theo had slipped.
No. Theo was too skilled to lose his footing like that. But what if he’d come across someone? He could have been running or gotten into some kind of physical altercation.
Jade punched open the trap door and pulled herself up, her eyes still adjusting to the darkness above the opera house as she peered through the rafters.
Nothing. She sprinted ahead, running the circumference of the circle that housed the rafters over the boxes, but still, she didn’t find Theo.
Her next best option was to go to the fly loft and try to see down from there into the audience below.
Rising nausea choked her at the thought. If Theo was down there, she wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of his lifeless body, broken and twisted, even from that height. But she had no other choice.
Jade dropped back down through the trap door to the platform beside the flies at the top of the wings.
She took a slow, steadying breath to try to stop the shaking in her limbs, then stepped out onto the walkway above the stage, where she could see below.
The curtains hadn’t closed yet, the performers still on stage apparently shocked into paralysis at the sight before them.
Keeping cat-like balance, Jade floated over the wobbly, suspended walkway. No crew was in sight, so she crept out along it until the audience came into view.
Jade bit her lip and held her breath as she tried to make anything of the scene.
So many audience members were crowded around a focal point that she could barely get a good look past them.
She took a few more crouched steps, not daring to go too far and potentially expose herself to any of the cast or crew of the opera.
Based on the position of the crowd, Jade didn’t know how it was possible for the victim to be Theo. They were deeper into the audience than he likely would have fallen from close to the stage. Still, until she saw the person and ruled Theo out, she couldn’t rest easy.
A whistle blew, and the crowd began to disperse as a street constable appeared from the opposite side of the opera house, near the entrance. Someone must have run outside to get help.
“Back away, please, back away!” he called as he approached the victim.
The crowd thinned and revealed a man in a green tailcoat and black trousers, his body lying at odd angles in the space before the orchestra pit.
A crimson stain underneath him further darkened the red carpeting, soaking into the plush fibers and spreading around the body.
He had ashy brown hair and a beard, and though Jade couldn’t discern details of the man’s face, she’d seen enough to confirm it wasn’t Theo.
A rushed exhale escaped her lips as she released the tension that had built with her anxiety.
It’s not Theo. It’s not Theo. It’s not Theo.
She repeated the mantra to herself like a lifeline, using it to pull herself out of a miry pit.
But the twinge of fear returned all too quickly.
She still hadn’t found him. Where was he?
She’d already circled the rafters over the boxes and come up empty. When he’d said he was going over the stage, he’d gone to stage left, so that was her next best option.
Jade sprinted like a bird in flight the rest of the way across the downstage fly loft, skidding to a halt and recovering her balance to step out onto the platform above stage left. She glanced through the dark space but spotted no one.
The curtains swooshed shut, and the light from the opera house was extinguished.
Blackness engulfed Jade, save for the small pinpricks of electric light along the walls of the wings to help performers see backstage. Someone—the stage manager, most likely—rounded up the performers and stage crew and ushered them to the stage door.
“Back to the dressing rooms! Come on, come on!” He wasn’t far from Jade’s position, close to directly below her two stories down. “We’ll regroup in the dressing rooms! That may be the end of our show tonight, ladies and gentlemen.”
At least Jade should be alone on the stage now and wouldn’t have to worry about running into anyone. She waited until the last performer had exited through the door to continue picking her way through the flies above the wings, her eyes fully adjusted to the dark once again.
The commotion from the audience waned as it sounded like opera goers were being escorted out of the auditorium.
Another constable or two might have joined, based on the male voices that remained.
Not knowing what had happened to the man sent a sliver of unease through Jade.
He had fallen—she picked up on that much from the people she’d overheard right afterward and the way the man’s body lay distorted on the floor.
But where had he fallen from, and why? Who was he?
There was too much happening with The Claim for this to have been a random accident. And after the conversation Jade had overheard between Grannam and his associate . . . perhaps the man was one of Arabella’s supporters.
But that didn’t matter right now. Jade would undoubtedly learn all about the man in her next debrief with Commander Matherson. She pushed all questions about the strange death out of her mind. She had to find Theo.
Jade delicately picked her way over the open-air beams of the flies on her way upstage. There was no telling why Theo would have gone this far, but she would search every part of this opera house until she found him.
A flutter of movement near the downstage walkway on stage right caught her eye.
Jade’s head whipped to the side, but the darkness did not give way to detail.
She squinted, straining to catch another glimpse and see if it was Theo.
Movement caught in her peripheral vision again, farther upstage. But it wasn’t Theo.
It was the billowing ripple of a black cloak.
Jade’s heart seized. The assassin was here.
Would he come after her next?
She ought to follow him. Though he’d dissolved in the darkness, she should at least try to pick up his trail. Theo wasn’t the assassin’s victim. He could fend for himself.
Jade picked her way through the flies, reaching for ropes to help her balance as she headed to the upstage walkway to cross to stage right. It was slow going, and no further movement or sound helped guide her toward any particular point.
The assassin had managed to evade her again.
Either he was long gone, or he lay in wait somewhere for her, hidden in the shadows.
Jade imagined the cold steel in her boot, longing to reach down and ensure the blade was still there, but her position was too precarious.
At least if she had turned into the assassin’s prey, she might have a chance at stopping him.
“Jade!”
The rough whisper captured Jade’s attention and banished all other thought.
Theo.
She scanned the area in front of her again but saw nothing in the apparatus above the stage.
“Over here!”
The voice came from farther to her right. Jade reigned in her anxious anticipation to reach Theo, carefully making each footfall intentional.
“Where are you?” she asked, only raising her voice loud enough for Theo to hear.
“Here!”
The barest flash of movement caught her eye—a wave of a black-gloved hand against the darkness—and Jade made her way over to the loft above the wings. She had no trail, no indication the assassin remained, but she’d found Theo, and he needed help.
Theo huddled in the shadowy corner of the wings, something light-colored encircling him. As Jade got closer, she realized it was a rope, one used in the flies—and it was looped around Theo’s neck.
“What happened?” Jade nearly cried out as she reached him, falling onto the secure platform attached to a ladder leading down to the wings. With her heart in her throat, she deftly undid the knot behind his head and let the rope go, swinging away toward the stage.
“There was someone up here,” Theo answered in a hoarse voice as he rubbed his neck where the rope had been.
“They were following me. I tried to take cover and sneak around to catch a glimpse of them, and when I turned behind the backdrop, I was attacked. This rope ended up around my neck before I had a chance to stop it, and then whoever did it was gone.” Theo shook his head.
“The rope had no slack. I had to do my best to hide and keep it from tightening anymore.”
Kneeling in front of Theo, Jade cupped his face delicately in her hands. “Are you hurt?”
He shook his head. “Nothing serious. I might have some bruising around my neck, but I’m all right.”
Jade’s fingers trailed down to his neck, touching where the rope had just been wrapped around it. Theo took Jade’s hand in his own and moved it before giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“I’m fine. I promise.”