Dameon went next. At last, Winter entered with his new guard. As the doors closed on him, Sydney met his gaze one last time.
He gave her a quick grin. “Enjoy the show,” he said.
Then he was gone.
She made her way down to the theater’s front entrance, through which now streamed the rest of the invited guests.
She recognized many of them, whether from the news or from general knowledge of the rich and powerful. There were other young people, likely friends and acquaintances of Penelope, trust fund children. Still others were people she knew based on her time at Panacea—people who worked closely with Eli, directors from MI6, diplomats from other European nations. Her skin tingled at her proximity to them all.
There was a scent of danger in the air here.
At the theater hall’s entrance, a guard asked for her name and ID, then scanned her card into a reader. The screen flashed green. She was on the guest list.
The space inside was massive, dimly lit by sweeping gradients of spotlights. To her surprise, Winter’s stage had not been set up on theoriginal one at the opposite end of the hall, but in the very center of the giant room, on a raised, circular dais. So everyone could see him from all angles.
She looked up. There had been a new system of hooks and swings installed over the dais, along with a series of small black machines placed at regular intervals around the round stage.
Sydney made her way to the front circle of people gathered around the dais, then found her spot. She looked around at the audience.
There was Claire, standing in the front row and talking animatedly with Penelope, who nodded along politely. Sydney noted two other bodyguards of Penelope’s that she had recognized when they greeted them at the house.
Then she saw Eli Morrison seated beside them, almost directly in front of her, his figure swathed in shadows. It didn’t matter that he blended in, though. He had the sort of presence that triggered the alarms in Sydney’s head. It was the way others acted around him, she realized—how two of his associates sitting on his farther side bobbed their heads quickly when he turned to ask them a question, and how their bodies leaned toward him even when he didn’t speak, as if afraid to miss a signal. When Eli laughed, it was a warm, generous sound—but the others didn’t react like it. They would laugh nervously back, their bodies stiff, as if the sound couldn’t reach the rest of them.
As if the man could share a joke with them one moment and then arrange for their disappearance the next. Perhaps they’d even witnessed it before.
Occasionally, she could hear bits and pieces of their murmurs through the noise around them. Dealings on one of Eli’s investment funds. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Then she recognized the third person seated almost directly before her. It was Connor Doherty.
Connor Doherty, the young man Niall said handled all of Eli’s business finances, who was notoriously absent from almost all of Eli’s publicmeetings. Who was potentially having an affair with Penelope. Who was their ticket to taking Eli down.
Every instinct in Sydney zeroed in on the man, as if she’d just spotted a rare animal. He was unassuming at first glance, lean and slight, his posture slightly wearier than a man in his mid-twenties should be, wearing the plainest costume a person could manage—a standard black suit and tie, with an undecorated black eye mask across his small, narrow face. The kind of person who blended in with a crowd.
Sydney’s eyes went to his hands. There she saw the only hints of the expensive taste that Panacea was counting on—a Rolex watch, a thick platinum bracelet, rings set with diamonds. He leaned toward Eli and spoke to him in a low voice that she couldn’t make out.
She was in the middle of reading his lips when the space dimmed completely. Fog from the machines around the dais had started to seep through the seats, shrouding her boots, and the first threads of music began to come through the speakers embedded along each row of the arena’s seats. When Sydney turned her head up to the ceiling, she could now see a sheet of stars winking into existence.
On the dais, icy blue lights bathed the entire stage, highlighting a silhouette that now rose from beneath the stage, crouched on his knees. The audience let out a burst of cheers as Winter came into view.
He was tied up and gagged, wearing a glittering headpiece of entwined branches and long egret feathers, giving him the illusion of being a bird. His black hair was dusted with silver glitter, and slender rings glinted on his fingers. A white silk scarf blindfolded his eyes, and his arms and legs were bound before him with metal and leather. Around the dais a birdcage of bars rose to surround him.
The music came on, and excitement rippled through the crowd. Nearby, Penelope sucked her breath in sharply and leaned forward, her eyes locked fully on him.
They locked the bird up, locked him deep down low
As the sound of the haunting track filled the room, Winter began his dance. With each heavy beat, he moved to break out of his binds. His wrists twisted and strained against the straps. One of his hands made a flourish of a movement—and inexplicably popped out of the strap, as if it had passed right through the material.
Sydney blinked. At Panacea, she had learned a dozen different ways of breaking out of restraints. She’d taken one look at Winter’s binds and known,really known, that there was no way he could get out of that on his own. And yet here she was, witnessing him doing exactly that. It looked like his hand was made out of air, the way it just slid soundlessly out of one cuff.
The cuffs and binds must have been made specifically for this performance, she reminded herself. Just a trick of the eye.
Winter arched until the back of his head touched the floor of the dais. He stretched his second bound arm straight up, so all the metal cuffs were clearly visible in the light. As the beat dropped again, he twisted his wrist and—again, Sydney watched in disbelief as he slid right out of the binds. They clattered to the floor. In another smooth gesture, he removed his gag and blindfold. The audience gasped in approval.
They locked me up, but I broke away, broke away
Winter spun to his feet. In time with the music, he spun and arched backward. One leg and ankle slid out of the binds. Then the other. As he did, he pulled his shirt off, exposing for a shocking second his bare upper body before flipping the shirt inside out and sliding it back on in a single move to reveal cobalt blue silk instead. At the same time, his pants unclipped to a layer underneath in the same bold blue hue. Now he looked less like a bird and more like an ocean. The audience rippled with a gasp.
He looked around at the audience, a slight smirk on his lips, his headpiece glittering in the light.
