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In a heartbeat, the entire theater went dark and silent; the only palpable presence was the magic coating the air. Quill’s magic. The reason the Maestro had kept her so close. The reason the king had tried to take her.
The audience gasped, holding their breaths for a beat and then another before the stage fired back to life. Drexel was gone, and four women stood in suggestive poses, with arched backs and poised hands above them. A single minor key of the piano played. The women shifted to strike new poses. Again. And then again. I leaned forward on the balcony, letting myself get lost in the way they moved. Each stance, a choreographed dance meant to weaken one’s resolve. Barely dressed, poised behind perfectly placed feathers, the women turned at once, grabbing their black top hats. Four men stormed across the stage as the steady beat of a drum led each step.
Upon reaching the women, the men stopped, holding out a hand for their partner to lie back on before he stroked his fingers between her breasts, stopping just below her navel. The drum beat once more, the women stood, and a piercing note filled the theater as the dance changed. The women fell to their knees before the men. Reaching for them. Pulling back. An easy flow, perfectly timed, each tantalizing move making me feel as if I should look away. As if I were an intruder on a moment far more intimate than a moan and thrust in a dark alleyway. I couldn’t help but think of golden eyes and thick forearms holding me. Of the sounds Orin might make and how that thought heated something inside of me. The burlesque show was indeed a lesson on lust.
I might have believed the first performance was a dance of yearning for what we could not have, but that was never the story the Maestro would sell. “You can have everything this world has to offer,” the posters had said. “Step inside Misery’s End to learn how.”
Flashing a glance at Quill in a gilded cage, fury stirred within me. I’d hoped to come here and feel differently. To find that, in their own way, they were happy with the lives they led. And maybe some small part of them were. But Quill. She was not a tool. She was a child. And the way her giant eyes stared at that stage in wonder rattled me to my core. This was not okay. And I had the power to stop it. Only I had the power.
My thoughts were a downward spiral as the show continued. The only constant upon the stage was the heavy theme of seduction and the blue bands around every wrist. Each person bound to the Maestro. Each smile forced. Each twist and turn, every inch of bare skin, his. Every note played, and every light that fell was plucked from his delusional mind.
There were so many things that man had done that most wouldn’t hear of. Though it could never be proven, it was whispered among the streets that he kept the opium dens full, and when my father had sent guards to the border, he’d been the one to fund the response in Bram Ellis’s name. He’d sent Paesha to find the innocent. But it wasn’t enough to know where they were, as she had told me one night. There was far more value in her ability to find his target’s weaknesses.
The very same man that stood on that stage and welcomed the world in, hunted them. Plucking them from their seats with a skewer, learning what they needed most in the world, and offering it on a silver platter with a single fine line, entrapping them. A meticulous spiderweb that never missed a fly.
I watched that little girl twirl in her swing, listening to the music. Tapping her tiny foot. He was a predator lurking in shadows, and she was his prey. Eventually, he would pounce. It was enough. It had been enough for years. And tonight, Drexel Vanhoff would finally learn his lesson.
Two beautiful knives provided a balanced weight on my thighs. Their perfect curves, a seduction of their own as I peeled away from my seat, fighting Quill’s compulsion, and began to hunt the Maestro. He hadn’t been in his box. Nor had he come back to the stage. Which meant he was likely in his office.
I snuck through the upper portion of the theater quietly. Incapacitating the guards, who were probably not perfect citizens but likely wouldn’t have done half the shit Drexel forced upon them, had they the choice. I tried to keep that in mind as I laid them out in the hallway one by one, not dead, but also not a threat to me.
The glowing light from beneath the door was all I needed to see before I stroked Chaos and Serenity and kicked the damn door in, staring into the bewildered eyes of a red-haired villain.
But shock melted into elation as he drank me in. Death incarnate, come to reap his soul. He must have been mad to sit before me, poised behind his desk, and grin. I drew the blades.
“So, they were wrong about you, Maiden.”
Stepping into the office, I chanced a glance behind the door to make sure no one was there before slamming it shut.
There was no fear.
Why?
I didn’t answer. I’d spent years holding my tongue with Death. Instead, I gripped Serenity’s handle tighter, the embellishments digging into my skin, grounding me behind pulsing fury. The beautiful tone of Orin’s cello crept up the stairs and beneath the door. The Maestro’s requiem.
“We can both win here. I can protect you from the king that hunts you. Your palm does not bear my name, and we both know that to be true. Your beloved master is sworn to me. That blade will never strike home.”
My ears rang as something beneath my skin buzzed with horror. “You could never force Death into submission.”
His smile grew as he stood, weight heavily shifting onto the cane. “Perhaps the devil is in the details, Deyanira. May I call you Deyanira?”
“No.”
“No matter. The name is not important.” He thumped that cane three times on the wood floor and waited for my reaction.
I slid Serenity into her sheath, pulled a throwing knife, and watched as it slammed into his shoulder. Drexel’s body jerked on impact, and finally, the wretched smile faded as if his own mortality, the blood that began to seep down his arm, reminded him that he truly was at Death’s mercy, no matter the deal he’d made.
“Death is a master of deal-making, Deyanira,” he said behind clenched teeth. “I know my place in this world, but do you know yours? Rumor has it you refuse to kill for him. Yet, here you are. Willing to kill for yourself. You think I’m the monster, but what does that make you?”
“I’ve never claimed to be anything but a monster.” I flung another throwing knife. It landed exactly opposite of its counterpart.
The door slammed open behind me, and Paesha rushed in, holding Quill in her grip. I looked between them, unsure of what I expected.
“You have to take Quill away. Get out of here.”
Her eyes sang a thousand apologies as she pushed the little girl toward the bleeding sadist. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Drexel?” Quill whispered, eyes glued to the wounds in his shoulders as she circled the desk to stand beside him. “What happened?”
