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’mfine. I promise.”
With a deep inhale, Jade nodded and tried to let the matter go. Part of her mind hadn’t caught up with the reality that Theo sat in one piece before her, as if she still expected to find that something horrible had happened to him.
“Someone was up here, though.” Jade didn’t allow her voice to rise above the barest semblance of a whisper. “Just before I found you, I saw the edge of a cloak.”
