She laughed lightly, uncertainly, then cast a brief glance about her, as though expecting someone to intervene.
No one did.
Beatrice felt the shift within herself at once—that familiar, steadying determination settling where confusion had been.
She sidled along the edge of the corridor with quiet certainty, her attention fixed upon them as Fairleigh murmured something she couldn’t quite hear. Miss Barlow, after only the slightest hesitation, allowed herself to be guided toward a nearby door, practically invisible, the lines matching the design of the wallpaper.
The door closed behind them with a soft, decisive click.
Beatrice waited just enough to count to three.
Then, of course, she followed.
Once she’d reached the door and slipped through, the vibrance of the opera faded away, replaced by dim stillness and the faint, stale scent of dust.
She paused only long enough for her eyes to adjust.
The darkness resolved into a narrow stairway, gloomy and steep, leading down beneath the theater.
“Miss Barlow?” she called in a singsong voice. “Did you come in here? Your mother is asking about you…”
No answer came.
Only the suggestion—no more than that—of movement deeper within.
Grasping a handrail, she carefully made her way down the steps.
The air was cooler here. Undisturbed in a way that had her thinking it was seldom used. Something fine and clingy brushed her face. A spider web. She suppressed a shiver, sweeping it away, and continued on.
“Miss Barlow?” she tried again.
Still nothing.
But the silence had changed.
A faint sound. Behind her, perhaps. Or to one side. It was impossible to say. The subtle shift of clothing. The whisper of movement where there ought to be none.
A chill slid slowly down her spine.
She turned?—
And when a hand closed around her arm, the past surged up without warning.
It swallowed her whole. And suddenly…
There was no opera. Only darkness. Only the terrifying feeling of being seized. A horrific fear of being trapped.
Again.
She twisted at once, striking without hesitation, without restraint. Not to escape. Not yet. But to injure. To punish. To ensure that whoever held her would feel it.
“Beatrice—!”
The name reached her dimly, as though through water.
She did not stop.
Her nails found flesh. She clawed and scraped. She fought with a ferocity borne not of panic, but of memory—of a moment long buried and never forgotten. Beads of sweat clung all over, despite the ice running through her veins.
