[Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

Lucien has a key, so the logical thing to do is to use it to unlock… something. What was it that the Moonlit Lord had said? That he needed to use it to open his… inner eye? He wishes he could remember the exact words she’d said to him, but he’d been so tired at the time, so foggy.

He knows it has something to do with altering the dream, though. He takes the key and presses it first to his forehead and then, when that does nothing, to his heart. Again, nothing happens, and he feels a moment of frustration. He can understand why Shuni would rip out his heart; Lucien would do the same, if he could unlock it directly.

But he cannot, and just pressing it to his flesh is doing nothing.

It’s as if the key refuses to be used.

He tries not to let it get to him, tries not to get angry—and realizes that, even if it hasn’t unlocked anything for him, the key is serving its standard purpose of calming him. It’s always done that. When his parents had died, when he had spent those three days shut in, too young to know how to use the key, not knowing how to leave, he had still held it in his hand. He kept it in his hand when he was found while the investigators crawled all over the scene of his only family’s dead bodies like scavengers over carrion. The weight of it in his hand, the imprint of it in his tightly-clenched fist, every part of it had become his connection to a world that had suddenly lost all of its meaning, and it calmed him.

It calms him now, too, a steady weight that keeps him from falling to the usual panic of the dream, and he keeps it clutched tightly in his fist as he gets up and wanders.

Perhaps he’ll find a Lord here again. Perhaps he’ll find the culprit. Perhaps there is at least something to find, even if he cannot yet control the dream.

So he wanders. He travels the cracked and broken landscape with its empty sky, with its unbreathable air, and it seems like he’s taking an eternity to travel until—

—There. Something different, in the distance.

He starts to run, his key clenched in his hand, and almost stumbles when the thing he spotted turns out to be nearer than expected; distance is difficult to understand in a dream, and more difficult to understand in an utterly empty world like this where space doesn’t even really exist. But it’s there at his feet and he falls to his knees, staring into it:

A pool, black and deep, with a bit of gold glittering on its surface. It looks like a lock, and he feels hope for a second, as if he willed this into being. He thrusts his hand into the pool, but he feels no water there, no lock there. Nothing to interact with, nothing really here.

At a loss, he sits back on his heels and tries to decide what to do.

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

[Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

Impossible not to be flustered at so blatant an invitation. It’s impossible not to want him, the Carrion-Eater.  Lucien tries to breathe evenly. “If you have questions, I can try to answer—”

“I just asked them,” Lord Crow says, with another laugh.

He goes red. “Oh, I thought—that you meant you had more to ask me other than… that…”

Lord Crow beckons, fingers hooked like talons. “Come here, at least. You ask me your questions, and then let’s see if you’re willing to answer mine with your body and your desires.”

Flushed, breathing roughly, Lucien obliges. He sinks down onto the bed, then back into Crow’s arms, so he is cradled against what feels, for now, like a normal torso. It is easier if he’s not looking at Lord Crow; easier to mistakenly think of Crow as human. 

“I’ve learned there’s a ritual at play here,” he begins. “Do you know about it?”

“Oh, yes,” Lord Crow murmurs in his rough, raw voice. “We all do. We’re not able to intervene directly unless something goes wrong with it, so we’re all circling around, waiting to dart in and rend out what we can. If a single slip-up happens, if whoever is doing this exposes themselves the wrong way once, we’ll all descend on them at once. It’ll be a murder.”

“That’s why so many of you have shown up?”

Crow nods and shrugs. “I mean, it’s why I did. I can’t entirely speak for the others. Most of us don’t really talk to each other at length, you know, except if we have a counterpart. I mean, we do socialize somewhat, but it’s not as if most of us are friends.”

“A counterpart?” Lucien echoes.

“How to explain,” Crow sighs. He seems to shift somehow, lowering Lucien into his bed. Despite being on his back now, he can’t see Crow’s face in the form leaning over him, and he feels as if he’s covered in birds, circling over him, crawling, their beaks and feathers and clawed feet hopping all around him. “We’re a lonely sort of existence by nature, I suppose, and loneliness craves company. I mean, I don’t have a counterpart myself; not all of us do. But some of them ascended together, like the siblings End and Endless. Others were brought into a partnership later by one of the existent Lords, hungry for something to play off of. It’s not that a counterpart is an opposite, it’s that they share some parts and play off each other. Like, the Moonlit Lord and Lord Sol! Night and day aren’t opposites; they are different meanings for two celestial bodies that play off each other. I guess, you can say, counterparts are Lords who get more meaning by having the other around. Some are obvious. Some less so, like… oh, Lord Vine of the New Growth and Lord Angler of the Deep Blue Sea are counterparts. They’re both the places that one gets lost, full of teeming life that people can’t see or understand, teeth and poison and all that.”

Lucien has never heard of this before. He starts trying to pair off the Lords in his head. The Endless and the End, of course. Vine and Angler, apparently. Sol and Moonlit, that’s half of them. “…Lord Wolf the Hunter, and Lord Bounty of the Feast?”

“You’re getting it now,” Crow encourages, with a laugh that only sounds mocking because of what his voice is like. A beak pecks at Lucien’s throat and he tilts his head back for that. “Lord Mask the Silent Liar and Lord Shield the Defender are the last two counterparts.”

There are two lords remaining. “You and Lord Peacock are not counterparts of each other?” 

“We don’t really have anything to do with each other. The Carrion-Eater and the Heartbreaker? Sure, you could probably spin an explanation for any pair of us if you tried, but our portfolios don’t have much play off with each other. No, neither of us has a counterpart yet. We run solo. Perhaps by the time there’s fourteen of us, we’ll all be neatly paired off. Or perhaps a new Lord will break up an established pair and spread things out more. Cause a ruckus. We’ll see.”

Lucien feels like this must be important somehow, but then, it’s cosmology; of course it’s important. He shakes his head. “Or there’ll be none of you but this one new Lord.”

“Or that.”

“How can I prevent it?”

“Disrupt the ritual. Co-opt it, or kill the perpetrator, or throw them off their lines, I don’t know. If I knew, it’d be easier, right?” The next sound is either a sigh or just the rustle of feathers. “I’m not omniscient.”

More’s the shame. He hesitates on his next question, then pushes forward. “Shuni says you refused to help him. But I don’t know why. I’m trying to find his heart. Can you help me with that?”

Lord Crow makes a disgruntled noise, and the blinding sense of feathers everywhere withdraws. Lucien draws a deep breath in their absence, and sees the rough shape of a man leaning over him, a raven’s head where a man’s face should be. “Honestly, I find his situation sort of boring. Anyone who responds to problems by taking his own heart out just isn’t my jam, you know? It’s nice and all that you’re trying to help him, but if he didn’t want to risk losing it entirely, he should have kept it in his chest. That’s where it’s supposed to be.”

It’s clear that he won’t get any farther here. He draws a deep slow breath. “One more question.”

“What is it?” Crow seems almost sulky now.

“Did you see how nicely I dressed up for you? For the role switch? I wanted to make myself a night sky for you to fly under. I wanted to tell you I was yours, even when pretending to be another.”

Crow blinks, then laughs. He throws his head back and it dissolves again, a flock flying around what looks to be an obscured human face on the other side. “Is that your dirty talk? I like it.”

“I want you to want me,” Lucien says, blunt—maybe too earnest. “But I need—with the end coming up, I need to be able to focus on the play tonight, and I haven’t had any sleep. I need to get at least a little rest for the show. I can’t risk messing up tonight, so…. I need you to not utterly wreck me. Perhaps we can wait?”

“Hm,” Crow says. “You expect me to wait for you?”

“Yes,” Lucien says. “At least until after tonight’s show. Unless you can’t?”

It’s a daring thing to say, and for a moment he thinks he’s crossed a line and offended Crow. But Crow laughs again and says, “Then sleep,” and throws a hand in front of Lucien’s face.

Madness descends, a dark sky of crows, heavy wings settling all over him, and somehow, although he wasn’t tired a moment before, he sleeps.

He finds himself in that airless, cracked land again, trapped inside that horrible premonition of a dream, panicking, unable to breathe, to live, to die. He remembers the key, an incoherent thought of how it must help somehow, the Moonlit Lord said it could, and he sticks a hand in his pocket, curling it around the key, and tries to think of what to do with it.

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

[Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

Lucien can’t quite keep himself from giving Katarin an incredulous look. It’s not that the idea bothers him—Revelle is a fascinating character and he always wants to try the parts in a show he didn’t get—but it doesn’t make sense. “Wait, you want me to… pretend to be you pretending to be Revelle so you can sneak around? Since nobody knows I’m here? But then, if nobody knows I’m here, why don’t I sneak around and get into the office instead while you do your normal performance? You… you can just tell me where the keys are.”

“Two reasons,” Katarin says calmly—even smugly, Lucien thinks. She throws up a finger. “First, if anyone does see you, they’ll just know you’re back. No plausible deniability about your absence if you’re right in front of them, and no excuse. But anyone who sees Revelle backstage is not currently watching the play and doesn’t know what scenes she’s in, so they won’t realize there’s a double.” A second finger, flicked up as if she can drive the point home with gesture alone. “Second? I don’t trust anyone here, not fully. It’s fine if you want to keep some things private, but I’m trying to save the world here. If you see something that I need to know, can I trust that you’d actually tell me? What if you thought it wasn’t relevant? No, I need to see what’s there with my own eyes instead of having it filtered through some kind of unreliable narrator.“

That sort of hurts. He can understand her wanting to see what’s there with her own eyes. And he wouldn’t even know about this upcoming Lord-creating, Lord-destroying ritual if she hadn’t brought it to him in the first place. Still, he doesn’t think he’s withheld all that much.

Well, perhaps playing as Revelle will help earn her trust. Lucien looks both of them over. Katarin is standing strong in the corridor, arms crossed, legs braced, as if expecting his resistance. Shuni is leaning against the wall in the stairwell still, his back hunched and head lowered, a sour expression on his face. “Fine,” he says. “But I’ll need you to give me tips. Both on being you and on being Revelle.”

She lets out a breath, visibly both relieved and pleased. “Great, no problem. Keep in mind I’m stubborn, suspicious, and not very polite or refined, but care about my reputation. Keep in mind that Revelle is struggling against a tragedy that is trying to force itself on her at any time, and that the character herself is treated as a source of revelation to both Arcane and Logos, but neither of them really see her as a human. We can do more tips down in costuming. The brownie costumers aren’t that smart, so if you arrive partially costumed and in a wig, they’ll just finish the final touches on the costume and makeup tomorrow.”

That does match his experiences so far. “Sure, why not,” he says. And then, still a little injured from her lack of trust, he says, “I did find something up here, by the way. Not—the missing item. And I’m not sure it’s relevant, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t bear mentioning. Shuni, you come see too.”

Shuni unslouches from the stairwell and joins them. Lucien pulls the cards from the basket, fanning them out to show the others. “Three lords each day,” he says. “Already strange enough. Why three?”

“Fewer is more normal,” Shuni agrees absently.

“Yes, but if they’re all worried about this ritual, why not one more? Up to the maximum four permitted?” He dumps the cards with icons back in the basket and holds up the remaining two, flipping them this way and back. “Which one would you put on the door if you wanted to let people know it was the empty one?”

Both of them pointed to the white card at once. “Black card reads more like the black icons,” Shuni offers. 

“Right,” Lucien says. He can’t quite keep himself from saying it with triumph: “That’s what I thought too, but when I went up to join the Moonlit Lord, it was definitely the black card on the empty chamber!”

There is a moment of silence. “So…” Shuni prompts.

…It’s true, Lucien doesn’t actually have anywhere to go with this. “Well, maybe it’s nothing,” he says reluctantly. “It could just be a safety measure. Trying to keep us under the legal limit, rather than at it.”

“Could be that whoever’s doing the ritual is the same person who set the cards up, and is counting on us not going over four when they ascend. Maybe they don’t know about the potential destruction of the Lords,” Katarin says. 

“It could be anything, really,” Shuni says dismissively. “Maybe they ran out of white cards and had to replace one. Honestly there should be more white cards here to begin with, maybe they ran out. Maybe a Lord’s already in the building, just not in the box seats. Who knows what it means.”

“I think we’d know if a Lord was already in the building,” Lucien offers. 

Katarin makes a face. “Well, I don’t like it, whatever it is. It’s worth thinking about, anyway. Come on, Lucien, I’m heading down to the dressing room.”

She starts down the stairs, and Shuni makes to follow her, but Lucien forestalls him with a gesture. “Did you find anything?” he asks Shuni softly.

Shuni shakes his head. “…Nothing,” he says. “Wondering if this was a decoy, honestly, to get me off the thief’s trail.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Lucien promises. He looks at Shuni’s face, at the mild displeasure there where he thinks most men would show grief. He gives Shuni a quick kiss on the cheek, and is rewarded by seeing some of it lift. For a moment, he considers inviting Shuni over so he doesn’t have to be alone after this…

But Lord Crow said he wanted Lucien alone, and so Lucien lets the moment pass by.

They follow Katarin back to the dressing room, where she unloads costume parts on Lucien, along with various tips and tricks. After, they head out of the theatre separately, trying to go their own ways subtly and quietly, without arousing any attention.

And so, Lucien finds himself alone in the daylight as he walks back to his apartment. He keeps waiting for Lord Crow to show up, to surprise him on the walk, but each turn fills him with more disappointment. 

Nothing. Nobody.

Lucien unlocks his door, heading up the stairs with a sigh, dumping the costume bag on his chair and starting to undo his coat. If nothing else, he can rest. Have a drink or two and try to relax before tonight’s performance…

A crackling laugh sounds behind him, and he jumps, spinning, to see Lord Crow sitting there on the bed. He’s wearing his gentleman’s suit and holding his cane, and his face and head is obscured by the mass of feathers and wings that surround him, silently beating.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Lord Crow says, with another squawk of laughter. “I thought you might stand me up, after teasing me for so many days.” He holds his arms out in clear invitation. “You must have so many questions, and so many wants, right? Do you wanna come here? Do you wanna commit some taboos in this bed of yours?” He laughs, apparently at himself. “Huh, looks like I’ve got a lot of questions too. Who would have thought it?”

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

[Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

Lucien considers, trying to imagine where in the theatre someone could hide a still-beating human heart.  “I’ll check the box seats,” he says finally. “I was up in one just earlier so I might as well be the one to go back there. There’s a number of places someone might tuck something, and they’re unoccupied except for the Lords usually, so it seems like a likely place.”

“I’ll take the remaining offices,” Katarin says, grinning, her bearing confident. “I’ve got a trick up my sleeve for the office locks.”

Lucien raises his brows at her. “One you didn’t have for the outside door?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen where the SM keeps the interior spare keys,” Katarin says. “But obviously that’s private info, so I wasn’t planning to show you fools if I could just use them myself”

Shuni purses his lips, visibly discontent, but lets it go. “Fine. You get the offices. I guess that leaves me… ugh…”

“Props and wardrobe,” Lucien says firmly. “Which is a great place to hide… just about anything, you know? No matter how weird it is.” More gently, he adds, “…I don’t think we need to check the fly gallery. Those are always busy during shows and are full of moving parts and crew working the lines, so I think it’d be too risky a place to hide anything.”

Surprised, Shuni glances over and searches his face—then smiles an odd smile, tentative and unpracticed. “I’m glad to hear that,” he admits. “It gives me an excuse to back out. I don’t have a lot of fears left after all that, but I’m still bad with heights. Katarin, will you unlock P&W for me?”

“Of course,” she says. “What you lost wasn’t a file or anything like that, right? The offices’ll go a lot faster if I know that much.”

“No paperwork at all, no book, nothing like that. It’s an… an odd object.”

They turn to go, still chatting, and Lucien grabs Shuni’s arm. “One moment.”

“Lucien?” Shuni turns back—and stiffens, as Lucien wraps him in a tight hug.

“I was worried,” Lucien murmurs, keeping the hug firm. “I’m just glad we found you safely.”

Shuni doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, uncomfortable, though he slowly relaxes enough to put his arms around Lucien in return and pat his back. “Again, you were the one in trouble,” Shuni murmurs back. “Don’t worry us like that.”

He pulls back finally, and studiously does not meet Katarin’s surprised gaze as he turns back to her. “I’m heading to P&W,” he says. “Meet me there with the keys.”

Lucien watches him go, reluctant to let Shuni out of his sight, and a little embarrassed by the depth of his own feelings. He shakes it off—he’s promised to help search, after all—and heads to the front of house, toward those stairs up for the second time in what feels like as many days.

About halfway up, he curses himself—he’d forgotten to tell Katarin to meet him there with the keys. Well, she’ll likely think of it herself after she’s let Shuni in, and if not, maybe he can use one of the door cards to jimmy the lock.

Once he’s got the idea in his head, he’s not easily getting it out, so when he reaches the top of the stairs, he goes right to the card basket, swiping the top card off to try the first door—but when he turns, he sees that all four doors are cracked very slightly open.

He feels the hair rise on his arms as a chill passes through him. Perhaps someone had left them unlocked after the show today? But he remembers looking back at the doors when he left this morning after waking up from the Moonlit Lord’s dreams, and he doesn’t remember them being open.

And hadn’t Shuni said they were locked? Or had he just said he hadn’t got to them yet? Lucien wishes he could remember.

Well, perhaps it’s nothing. Perhaps he was just misremembering their state when he left this morning. He goes to put the card he’d picked up back in the pile, and looks down to see that it’s a blank white.

That gives him pause yet again. Slowly, he flips through each of the cards, looking at their icons, checking both sides to be sure. 

There are fourteen in total: one for each of the Lords with matching icons, the white card he has just picked up, and the black card he’d seen on the door for the unoccupied box seat.

He slowly stacks them again, trying to make sense of it. The twelve iconographic cards make sense, but what do the remaining two mean? He’d assumed originally that the black card was the ‘blank’ to indicate the room was empty, but that would make a lot more sense for the white card. If he had to hazard a guess, looking at all the options, he’d think that black meant unknown or, perhaps, reserved.

But that box had definitely been empty during the performance. He’d looked up at it. Why not use the ‘unoccupied’ card?

Sliding the pile of cards back into their basket, Lucien worries at his lower lip. There are never more than four box seats made available in a playhouse, because any more than four lords in one location at a time tend to destabilize the crowd around them to the point that a play would need to be cancelled. There are rules about it—even though Lucien’s never heard of even as many as three at once showing up to a play before now. 

As each shows up, the door is marked off to ensure that it is known how many Lords are currently in the theatre, avoiding having a hazardous buildup of their influence. Why mark off a box that didn’t have a Lord in it?

There must be a reason he’s just not thinking of. Perhaps it’s just a safety measure; just avoiding the risk of ever having more than three. The fact that exactly three Lords keep showing up is likely just a strange coincidence; three is a powerful number, after all, and this is meant to be a powerful play. 

One way or another, he’s sure this mystery has nothing to do with the problem in front of him: Finding Shuni’s missing heart.

He enters the first box seat.

It’s odd to be in here in the middle of the day with no play on. He keeps thinking he sees someone standing in the middle of the stage out of the corner of his eye, but when he turns to look, there’s nobody there. Just his own discomfort with being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He checks the coat cubby, and the drinks tray, and under the bench, and in the glove box, and all around, and there is nothing there at all, let alone a beating heart. It is silent but for the labored sound of his own breathing and the rustling as he searches around.

The second is the same, and the third, and—though it takes him a few moments to build up his courage to enter it—so is the fourth, the boxed seat that has been left empty all these performances and has been marked with the black card. He’d thought there’d be at least something in that one, heart or not, but it’s as empty as all the others.

He jumps as he hears a voice call out—but it’s just Katarin leaning into the narrow hallway outside the box seats. “Any luck?”

Lucien is more than glad to step back in there with her. “None at all,” he says. “You?”

“Nothing in any of the offices I could get into. Just paperwork, scripts, etc etc,” she says. “Unless Shuni’s lost a pair of the ASM’s slippers, I didn’t see anything there that I’d classify as a missing object.”

He laughs, relaxing. “No, it’s not that. But which office couldn’t you get into?”

“About that,” she says, a deep consideration in her voice, “it was the Director’s office. The key fit, but there’s an additional magic lock over it, a visible sigil. The key wouldn’t even turn.”

That’s weird. He doesn’t need to say it; it’s on his face, and hers. His brows crease. “I haven’t seen a sigil on his door before.”

“Neither have I, but we’re not usually here after hours,” she says. “It’s possible he has extra protection during the day after everyone’s left. But I don’t like it, especially since we still haven’t turned up any sign of who set up the ritual.” She lifts a finger. “That said, I have a thought about how I could get to search it during show time, if you’re amenable.”

“Who’s being amenable about what?” Shuni calls from the stairs up. He doesn’t sound particularly triumphant, and Lucien assumes he wasn’t successful either.

Katarin says, “Lucien, as far as everyone except Shuni and I know, you’re still missing. The Director is usually out of office during a show, watching the performance. Your voice is tenor; mine’s alto. We’re near the same size, minus some obvious frame differences, but my dresses are padded as Revelle anyway, and we wear a wig. Could you play Revelle off Shuni and Frederik tonight, while I try to break into the Director’s office?”

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

[Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

“If Shuni were home, he’d let me in,” Lucien says. Even as he says it, despite Katarin’s dubious look, he feels utter confidence. “So he’s not home right now, or is too deeply asleep to hear me.”

After all, Shuni had been concerned for him when he got back from Lord Crow. And Shuni had understood when he’d needed to go see the Moonlit Lord. Even if Shuni’s feeling sore about it, Lucien doesn’t think Shuni would just ignore him. Be sarcastic, acerbic, whatever—but he’d do it to Lucien’s face.

“Well, if you say so,” Katarin says, less convinced. “So you want to go to the theatre?” 

Lucien nods. He can see the reluctance on her face, and says softly, “I know you just got home, and if you can’t come with me, I understand. But if you can come, I’d appreciate the help. Besides, maybe we can find some evidence of whoever’s started this ritual.”

“Fair enough,” she says, sighing. “I need to get sleep sometime before the show, but… well, this is more important than a good performance anyway. Give me a moment to change.”

He nods, and he spends the time trying to put his thoughts in order, albeit without much success. When she comes back in, she’s gone from her nightgown to a pair of trousers and a loose shirt, her hair bound back in a braid. “Well, let’s go break into our workplace,” she says, resigned.

It does get locked after hours from the outside; anyone who stays late can leave, but not come back in until the keyholders unlock the doors. He should be worried that they’ll get caught—but the idea’s exciting, and he grins. “Do you have any skill in that?”

“Not much,” she says. “I mean, maybe I can break it. Guess we’ll find out.” 

They walk back together, and it is strange, surreal, to be out and about in the day. Plenty of others are around, of course; maybe thirty percent of people do have jobs that keep them out through the day. Lucien can’t imagine wanting one himself. The hot and bright eye of the sun stares down at them, and he feels terribly exposed. 

“I hope you dedicated a scene to Sol, to give us blessings at this time,” he murmurs to her.

She grins. “Like the Blazing Sun would smile on things best done in darkness,” she murmurs back. And he knows that they’re really conspirators now.

By silent agreement, they head behind the theatre to enter by the actors’ door, and Katarin jiggles the handle. “Definitely locked,” she mutters. “Do you have-“

And then she freezes, staring past Lucien with an expression of shock. Someone’s behind him. Lucien starts to turn, tensing, but a hand covers his eyes, and the beating of wings fills his ears, and he hears a familiar voice murmuring out of the susurration of those wings, “No, no, let me. And try to get some time alone later, away from your costars. I do so miss you.”

A hand covers his, guiding it to the door,  and the lock clicks. The other hand pulls away from his eyes and he turns for real now, fast, trying to catch a glimpse of Lord Crow—but the flock of birds that takes off, flying out of the alley, reveals no human form.

Katarin’s mouth works a few times. “Was that-?”

“Yes,” Lucien says, his heart beating in his throat.

“I couldn’t quite see him. Did he say anything to you?”

“No,” he lies impulsively. “Just that he could get the door for us. I guess he liked the dedications I’ve given before.”

She looks at him oddly, but doesn’t argue. “Good fortune that the Lord of thievery is smiling on you today,” she says, and gestures at him to open the door, as if she’s a little afraid to touch it herself.

He tugs on the handle, and this time it opens. Lucien slips in, juggling the door behind him so she can slip in too. He’s about to turn to her and speak when he hears a swallowed curse from the first aid room next to the exit. “It’s you two,” Shuni says. “Lord. You gave me a scare, I don’t know what I’d have done.”

Lucien could feel himself light up. “Shuni! There you are. I was worried about you!”

“You were worried about me?” Shuni hisses. He steps out, looking Lucien over. “You look well, given the circumstances,” he drawls.

“She was gentle,” Lucien says. “I’ll explain more later. What are you doing?”

Shuni seems to accept that for now, sighing, letting go of the tension he’d carried with him ever since they’d startled him. “Searching the theatre. Again. I’ve managed to thoroughly check the front of house by now, except the cash room behind the box office. I’ve also searched the trap room and shop area, and pretty much every public space back of house. I haven’t managed to check most of the production offices, wardrobe and props, or the box seats. Their locks are beyond my skill. And I haven’t quite got up the nerve to climb out into the fly gallery.” He jerks his head at Katarin. “What’s she doing here?”

“She came here to help look for you, because Lucien was worried,” Katarin says, with strained patience. “She’ll help you look for whatever you had stolen, too, if you tell her what it is.”

Shuni bites his lower lip. “…We’re running out of time before the run ends. And maybe the world, I guess, if this ritual goes off in the finale. So… sure, if you’ll help, great. If you see something that you definitely do not expect to see here, it’s probably mine. And we can talk about it if you find it.” 

Katarin’s brows lift in exaggerated disbelief. “You’re not going to tell me?”

Waving a hand, Shuni says, “You don’t trust me either. Like I said, if it turns up, we can talk about it then.” He turns back to Lucien. “Are you really in a state to help?”

“I promised you I would,” Lucien says, firmly.

To his surprise, Shuni seems to flush a little. “…Fine. But you did just get back from a run-in with a Lord, so don’t overdo it. Which of these parts of the theatre do you feel ready to handle?”

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]