Time was of the essence. Jade raced in the direction of the stage, where she would find a way down. In her haste, she checked to see if Theo was still with her in the rafters, but she didn’t find him. And she couldn’t waste the time locating him.
A trapdoor in the floor was her way down. She flung it open and shimmied down a ladder in the darkness far off to stage right, favoring her hurt shoulder, until she reached a landing. A door awaited her on the opera house side of the landing. Jade pulled her thin black cloth mask over the bottom half of her face, then her hands flew to her hip and then her boots, double-checking her weapons.
The music swelled, booming and powerful so close to the stage. Jade cast another quick glance across the flies for Theo but didn’t spot him. The performers on stage had turned dramatic with the music, conveying their despair and desperation in passionate song. In a flash, Jade opened the door and slipped her body through, shutting the opera behind her.
Even the dim light from the electric sconces along the walls burned Jade’s eyes. She blinked several times to regain her sight and listened. She heard nothing beyond the powerful music now muffled through walls and bodies.
Jade moved like a gust of wind, fast and invisible, as she rushed silently down the top concourse past the doors to the boxes. She was counting on this portion of the performance being gripping enough to glue all the audience members to their seats. The last thing she could afford was being spotted.
A low male voice reached her ears, and Jade froze, trying to place the sound. Another male voice spoke, slightly higher pitched. She’d heard it before.
InGrannam’s war room.
The man who may have been his assassin.
A hallway appeared on her right, and the sound of voices drew her down it. She turned under the arched opening and crept along the hallway, clinging to the shadows in the direction of the lavatory and a sitting room. The plush red carpeting silenced her footsteps as she passed exquisite paintings of past operas and singers hung in gold frames along the walls.
The voices grew steadily louder, and Jade took cover behind a statue of a woman reaching up, the top of which held a tall candelabra with several flickering candles, wax dripping down their long stems. Murmured words floated to her. They were hard to make out with the rising intensity of the music behind her, but getting any closer to the sitting room where they seemed to emanate from would take away her cover.
She had to risk it. Jade made the decision in a split second as the crash of cymbals drowned out their words. If she were going to hear any part of this conversation, she had to be closer to the doorway.
Jade rounded the massive candelabra, coming upon the open entryway of the sitting room where guests could step away and take a break from the performance if they desired. The voices came more clearly into focus. Though she kept far enough back that she couldn’t be seen, Jade recognized the voices as those of Lord Grannam and the same unidentified man she’d heard with him before. This time, she was able to catch a glimpse of one of the men—not Grannam, given the reddish-blond hair she spotted on the back of his head. He wore a black dinner jacket and slacks, not the expected tailcoat for the opera. So he wasn’t attending. He must have slipped into the opera house just to speak to the Duke of Evenshold.
The music softened for a moment, and she caught the tail end of a quiet sentence from Grannam.
“ . . . you couldn’t find them?”
“I’m afraid the information you provided was incorrect, Your Grace,” came the slick, higher-pitched voice.
There was a short pause, then Grannam ground out, “That’simpossible. She must have known she was being targeted and moved them.”
She?Jade’s mind instantly went to Arabella. She was the only woman involved in this conflict.
“I can try again, if you would like,” the other man said.
“No. I have other ways of getting her attention.”
Was Grannam targeting Arabella next? Could he be targeting her here, at the opera?
The weight of duty to stay and listen to their conversation was not enough to keep Jade outside the sitting room. Fear coursed through her at the possibility of what Grannam might have done. She had to see if something had happened to Arabella. She had to stop whatever Grannam had planned.
Jade tore back down the hallway and around the concourse to the Fellsrins’ box. She peered through the window in the door, finding the family as she had last seen them from above. Arabella angled her head toward Alanna to whisper something in her ear. Nothing about her appeared unusual, and there were no refreshments present in which to hide poison. Jade stepped back from the door to the box, taking a slow breath to bring her heart rate back down.
So what was Grannam talking about with that associate of his? He had alreadydonesomething. It involved Arabella. The pieces were there, but Jade couldn’t seem to put them together.
She could return to the sitting room to listen in on more of the men’s conversation, but it was likely Grannam was already returning to his box. If he’d told his wife he had to visit the lavatory, he wouldn’t have long before she found his absence odd. Of course, Jade had no idea what he had told Lady Beatrice. Perhaps she knew he had business in the Conflict of Succession to see to that night.
Either way, she didn’t want to get caught creeping back in the direction she had left him, so instead she decided to return to the rafters and reconvenewith Theo. Perhaps if she shared what she had learned with him, he could help her figure something out, especially if he had learned anything himself.
The music grew to a crescendo as the first act came to a close, and uproarious applause overlapped the end of the song. Patrons would be leaving their boxes soon for intermission. Jade had to get back into the rafters.
She reached the door to the wings and placed her hand on the knob, ready to swing it open, when another sound was added to the din.
Screaming.
Twenty-Seven
Against all instincts pushing herto 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?
