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No sleeping, Lucien decides, not yet. He’s in a fog, sure, but he’s also riled up, heart going wild in his chest. It’ll be better to clear his head before he sleeps again. If Lord Crow wants to know more about his dreams, better to do it in a way that won’t guarantee the dreams are all about… well, about Lord Crow.

If he leaves now, he can probably catch Katarin or Shuni before they go to sleep. Either will listen; this sort of thing is known to happen to actors. He still remembers Nan’s sobbing laughter when she was returned from the trip that Lord the Endless had taken her on. For everyone else, Nan had been absent one night. For Nan… well. She retired after that, claiming the exhaustion of the aged.

Lucien isn’t sure which of his two costars he trusts more with this story—not that he believes either is untrustworthy, but he has held himself back from becoming too intimate with either of them so far. So the decision comes down to other factors. 

Of the two, he suspects Katarin would be the more sensible one—but he isn’t sure he wants to hear a sensible response. Besides, it’s improper to intrude on a lady while she’s getting ready for bed, even if the lady is an actress. Meanwhile, Shuni will be, he suspects, more receptive to the strangeness of this unburdening, and besides, he lives nearby.

It’s as much direction as Lucien is likely to get, and his mind is strung too tightly for him to think about it any further. He veers off from his course home, taking a few side streets to Shuni’s address, and knocks.

Shuni seems surprised to see him. He’s changed, but not gotten ready for bed—his hair’s a little mussed, and he’s wearing just a loose shirt and trousers, not proper attire at all. “Lucien, you didn’t show up for drinks—” and then he cuts himself off, looking Lucien over again. “What happened to you?” 

Lucien has enough wits about him to push them both inside and lead Shuni over to his own sitting room before he starts babbling. He collapses across a seat as the words flow from him, and Shuni sits across from him. Halfway through, Shuni gets up and pours them both an overly full glass of whiskey, which Lucien tosses back gratefully.

He’s not ready to have run out of words by the time he’s run out of story, and finds himself just repeating the obvious. “So then I didn’t know where to go. So I came here. I needed to tell someone, so I’m telling you…”

“You certainly are,” Shuni says. He huffs a laugh, apparently overwhelmed. “That sounds like a lot. Well, don’t blame yourself if you did eat human. It could have been anything, right?’

“Anything. Human, animal, something else all together. It could be nothing. The substance of dreams…” Lucien finds himself thinking about dreams again and tries to steer his own mind back.

Shuni says, “It’s just meat or the idea of meat, nothing more. Sounds like a lovely dinner date with the Carrion-Eater, really, as these things go.”

Lucien finds that funnier than maybe it should be, and starts laughing. A date. Was it a date? Is he being courted?

Shuni raises and lowers a hand like a conductor, and Lucien quiets obediently. “That said, I’m a little worried that Lord Crow said he’d come to check you out again. We all want their patronage, but you know they can have… effects on people.”

Should he be worried? Lucien wonders why he isn’t. “They are known for that,” he says agreeably.

“Well. If you’d like, you can sleep here today. If you think the whole dream thing might put you at risk, I mean,” Shuni says. He’s sprawled back, thinking, one leg thrown over an arm of the chair, his shirt open to show a pendant worn against his skin. “I’d be glad to have you.”

“Oh?” Lucien asks, looking him over again.

“And… hmm. This next night, for safety, why don’t we switch roles? We already look enough alike that nobody will question it. That way, we can spread the attention out. So long as I show up in your day clothes and you show up in mine, even the costumers won’t be able to tell. We’ll act as each other! I can play Arcane, and you can play Logos. What do you say?”

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

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Caught on the oddness of the question, Lucien hesitates. “Dreams? I think they could have meaning, certainly. It’s hard to say where in the mind they come from. Dreams are often a mirror, I think—a distorted reflection of the things you’re living through. Stresses, or fears, or anxiety. Hopes. Even just a—a bit of undigested food not sitting right.”

That earns him one of those rough, cawing laughs. “So just a reflection of your own life, you think?”

“No. Maybe? Everything has meaning; why shouldn’t dreams? Sometimes they only have meaning to you. After all, we can only see the world through our own eyes—or humans can, at any rate,” Lucien hastens to add. “But perhaps a dream can reflect more than our perceptions. Perhaps it can reflect the world itself. I have no way to know.”

“Hm.”

For a second, there is a silence that seems almost human in its disappointment, broken only by his footsteps and the clacking of Lord Crow’s cane on the cobbles. Lucien draws a breath in a strange resistance to that moment, wanting to see it become odd again. “Why do you ask? I had a strange dream yesterday, so it’s been on my mind a little.”

“Oho? Tell me about it.” Lord Crow seems to cock his head.

There isn’t enough of the dream in Lucien’s memory to tell. He describes the sensations instead, the cracked dryness of it, the way it denied so many things their reality.

Lord Crow has stopped walking, a swarm of birds flying around his head and obscuring what little of his expression Lucien can perceive. It’s all pounding wings and flying feathers and harsh cries, and Lucien catches his breath. “Lord Crow?”

And the birds swirl off into the sky. Lucien gets the sense that Lord Crow smiles at him, though he has far too many beaks for that to be possible. “It’s nothing. That’s just interesting. I’ll have to talk to you another night to see if you have the dream again. And your hobbies?”

Lucien can’t help but think those are far less interesting. “Well, I don’t have time for a lot of hobbies, being in theatre,” he says apologetically. “It’s all rehearsal and studies. I like a good story, whether or not it’s performed, but I can’t help but thinking how it’ll look on the stage. I suppose I do like puzzles and challenges, though.” He laughs. “I also like meat, since you pointed that one out. I can’t always afford a good steak, but I can’t argue with the taste of flesh.”

“Can’t you?” Lord Crow says. He seems fired up somehow, excited, the sound of rustling feathers louder. “Why don’t we spend some time on a shared hobby together, then?”

He points with his cane toward the river and—

—Lucien comes back to himself when he staggers into a wall and catches himself on the rough red brick. He finds himself exhausted and halfway home, the sun already risen and spreading golden pools of daylight around him. 

He doesn’t remember much of what happened; it’s all a drunken, drugged blur. He thinks there was a body in the river, though he couldn’t say if it were animal or human. There is a copper taste in his mouth and he should be revolted, but he finds himself laughing, scrubbing at his face to try to recover a bit more of himself. 

Perhaps it wasn’t even real, perhaps it was just something that happened from being around the Carrion Eater too long. But regardless, the pounding of his heart feels like wings in his chest.

He draws deep breaths and squints at the sky. The bars are already closed; he won’t catch Katarin or Shuni there tonight, though he could go and knock on one of their doors and see if they would let him in, apologize and babble about the events of the night. 

Or, perhaps, he could just go home and sleep it off, see what dreams he has to reflect this.

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

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Lucien freezes, unable to stop his instinctive reaction to that voice, that presence: a heady cocktail of fear, lust, and awe that keeps him unable to answer right away. His nerves strain in every direction under the weight of standing so close to one of the Lords, and it feels as though his heart is going to rip itself out of his chest and offer itself up.

Lord Crow waits patiently, still largely in shadow, only those hard, human-looking hands in their gloves visible where they overlap on his cane. They seem relaxed, as if he’s gripping it loosely only. The head of the cane is silver, an orb clutched in a crow’s claw.

One breath, another, and Lucien begins to come back together. Humans are resilient, both in what they are able to survive and in what they are able to deny, and both work together now to form a barrier of incredulity. This isn’t happening.

But it is happening, and Lord Crow is waiting for a reply. Lucien pulls together a character who can act in his place right now: while the real Lucien trembles, this show-Lucien is calm, confident: flattered, polite, but not so overeager that he will embarrass himself. “I would love to, Lord Crow,” he says, and bows. “I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time.”

A laugh like an entire flock of crows taking off at once. “Haaaave you?” Lord Crow steps forward into the light and offers Lucien his arm. Lucien cannot look directly at him—even if he focuses his eyes in that direction, he can’t quite see what’s there. Lord Crow is shaped approximately like a man: legs, torso, arms. It isn’t that his head is not human, and it’s not that his head is a crow’s head. It’s simply that all that Lucien can really register is feathers, and beaks, and glittering eyes, and wings, all crowding for space in his perception.

Lucien lowers his gaze. “If I may have a moment—”

He is going to ask to just excuse himself briefly, to go back and tell his fellow actors that something’s come up, but Lord Crow’s posture changes slightly, impatient, and Lucien changes his mind at once. It would be the polite thing to do, but he can tell right now it’s one thing or the other, and if he goes back inside, Lord Crow will be gone. 

Well, he knows where Shuni and Katarin are headed; if he survives the night, he can meet them there.

He draws the character around himself again. “—a moment to gather myself. I wasn’t expecting to encounter one of the exalted in an alley.” He tucks his hand into the proffered arm.

Another laugh at that, Lord Crow relaxing. “I’m an alley-dwelling sort of creature,” he rasps. “Let’s walk by the water, shall we?”

Lucien wonders what others will see, if they are able to see the two of them at all. “Of course,” he says, because there’s no other answer. This is what he’s wanted. 

They step out of the alley and down the street to walk along the riverside. The moon glitters off it like a watchful eye, and Lord Crow’s arm crunches and rustles under Lucien’s grip. Lucien draws a breath. One of them needs to start a conversation. “So, what brings you by my alley this evening?”

“Curiosity,” Lord Crow says, but there’s an odd tone to that crackling voice, as much as Lucien can tell such things. “You caught my eye, but you knew that, didn’t you? I suppose you must have questions.”

“I do,” he says, although he doesn’t know why he’s expected to have questions at all. “I’ve long wondered about you—about who you are, not what, I mean. I know the Lords are beyond my understanding.”

“Who…? You know my portfolio, I’m sure.”

Lucien pushes forward. He can pretend calm, at least. “I’ve as much idea as anyone, but is that it? You don’t have your own likes or dislikes? Hobbies?”

“I like…” Lord Crow’s head tilts, Lucien is fairly sure. “I like play. I like the discovery of fresh corpses, and the taste of flesh, and fascinating trinkets, and people who shine. I love a challenge, a puzzle. I hate when things are too easy, and people are too eager. I cannot be tamed. Is that what you mean?”

It isn’t a portfolio, even if it’s not what most people would answer. “I think it’s a place to start,” Lucien says with a smile.

“And what about you?” Lord Crow asks. He… ducks? Swoops? …and picks up a pebble, sending it skipping across the river. “What do you like? What do you dislike? What are your hobbies?” And then, oddly, “And do you think that dreams have meaning?”

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

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When better to follow one’s heart than when a knife is in one’s hand? Lucien looks at the knife for a long moment, hearing the shuffling silence of the audience, and then flings it from him so it spins across the stage—the indicator that it’s his character Arcane who should get murdered. 

“I cannot kill,” he cries, sinking to his knees and putting his face in his hands. “No jealousy could lead me to harm Revelle, nor my brother Logos. I will try to make amends with them both, and if I succeed, all will be well. But if I fail, and if it means that crows will peck my flesh—” He draws a deep breath. Here is the meaning to it, the ritual, the sacrifice. He tilts his head up, as if Arcane is looking to the heavens, and he sees a glint of light from Lord Crow’s booth that tells him they have made eye contact. His heart is pounding. “—then so must it be, and at least my body will do at least some good, though my heart could not.”

But it doesn’t feel right to leave it at that. If there’s a death on stage, it feels like not giving something to the End will just be an insult. He adds another line: “And if I die, let Logos not celebrate my death! If he does, let him meet his end likewise—” Another electric moment, a chill, a sense of impending calamity. He pushes on. “This is the curse I lay upon him. I will not kill him myself, but if my death brings him joy, I pray that death will come for him in the end.” He’s horribly aware that he’s leaving Lord Vine out, and adds a brief, “Yet if I live, may we all grow from here.” It’s not enough to be a true dedication, not knowing they’ve just planned a double murder on stage, but perhaps it will prevent offense…

Perhaps it will not. That too might be fun, in some masochistic sense.

With that line done, Lucien assumes a position of prayer, and the play moves on. Revelle enters, spots Arcane in prayer, and condemns him for a weak man, one who will not stand up to Logos, and if he will not, then she will have to free herself from him. There is a horrible tearing sensation as the stage knife strikes him. It doesn’t pierce him—they are designed to retract into the hilt—but it feels like his flesh is being ripped from him, and as he falls over he sees the strange, inhuman face of Lord Crow, revealed from its cover of darkness, craning over the edge of his box seat to watch the murder happen.

Revelle laments her fate, but is not able to dispose of Arcane’s body before Logos enters. Logos is ecstatic to see this—he takes it as proof that Revelle loves him, and was eliminating the rival—and attempts to woo her until Revelle, in rage, kills him as well. It sounds to Lucien that she picked up Lucien’s hints and dedicated this death to Lord the End, and he hopes that later in the play, now that Revelle is in the lead role, her actress Katarin thinks to steer things toward Vine so one of the Lords isn’t entirely left out.

Revelle drags both bodies off stage, and Lucien and Shuni give each other pleased nods, then head to the green room. Shuni picks up a book and curls up in a chair to read it, so Lucien gives him space, takes up his prop sword and practices a fight scene that will appear in a later scene, should the play get to it in another run. He gets the sense he’s being watched, but when he looks around, there’s just Shuni deep in his book, and birds backlit by the moon on the rooftop across the way, and he tries to ignore the sensation.

Finally, when the second last act has finished and the play has reached its climactic pause that will be the final scene until the last day, they receive the call for their bows. Both head back in to take the stage again before a cheering crowd. The box seats are empty at this point, to Lucien’s relief; he’s never seen a time when one of the Lords stayed around once the acting is finished.

The show now over, they return again to the dressing rooms, and let the costumers peel them out of their clothes, scrub the makeup from them. Katarin leans over and says, “Good job tonight. I wasn’t entirely expecting to be handed the lead in front of three Lords, of course.”

Lucien winces. “Sorry.”

“No, it makes sense we’d need a double murder when those two are in attendance.” She stretches. The costumers have ripped her gown from her, and are uninterested in her day clothes, so she begins applying those to herself. “Shuni, Lucien, you want to go out for drinks after this? The Fox’s Den is serving until dawn.”

“I’m game,” Shuni says easily. “I missed the last half of the show. Perhaps you can fill us in.”

Lucien finds himself afraid she will. When he knows the details of a show he had no control over, he obsesses over how the next one should go, and it interferes with his sleep. He knows it’d be a good idea, however, so he puts off deciding. “I’m not sure how another drink will settle right now,” he says. “I’ll get some air in the back alley, then let you know.” 

“Suit yourself! You know it’ll take me a while to dress.”

Lucien gives the others a nod, and puts his hat on, then opens the door into the alley out back and leans against the wall, staring up at the moon and drawing a deep breath.

He very quickly realizes he’s not alone, and for a moment, incredulous, he fears a mugging. But the man swathed in shadow is an odd shape, too tall, inhuman, and the cane that he taps on the cobbles as he steps forward is familiar. So, although Lucien hasn’t heard it before, is his voice: A raucous, hoarse caw of a voice.

“Are you free?” Lord Crow asks. “Would you care to take a walk with me on this fine night?”

[Please leave a suggestion for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

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Which of the Lords…? Normal folk try to avoid their attention, but normal folk don’t get on stage before them. Lucien bites his lower lip. He knows where his heart is drawn—to Lord Crow the Carrion Eater. Lord Crow has always been of interest to someone like Lucien: a night lord, a lord of lurking in places where one shouldn’t, of cleaning up others’ messes and laughing about it too loud for others’ comfort.

Still, it wasn’t as if the other Lords weren’t fascinating in their own right. Lord Vine was a wild and driven force of nature, and he’d always been intrigued by Lord the End in ways that scared him to think about. He wanted to know more about that mysterious masked figure, whether or not he wanted their attention.  

Shuni has led him to the dressing room, where the centipede-like creatures who work backstage undress them both and pull costume pieces onto them, whispering to each other as they work. Lucien tries to ignore the scratching feeling of their hands all over him. “What about you?” he asks, putting the question back instead of answering it. “Whose eyes will you try to meet as you give your lines tonight?”

Shuni laughs, the sound harsh. “Me? I’m not the lead,” he reminds Lucien, but there is an edge to his voice, hungry. “I don’t know who. It’s easier when just one shows up, isn’t it? Then it’s only natural to act to one of them. It’s not a choice. Perhaps I’ll try to spread myself thin. That’s the safest option, isn’t it?”

“You know it is,” Lucien says, and he knows he won’t do it. Trying to please too many can result in displeasing all.

The costumers finish their work and the bell chimes. The audience is being let into the theater. Lucien’s anxiety swells, and is swallowed into that peace that comes over him. It’s time.

“Well, whatever you pick, break a leg,” Shuni says. He whisks himself backstage where the others are mingling already, and Lucien follows.

They can’t talk back here, not with the audience already filling the seats outside. Instead, he focuses on the line of light where the curtain does not quite meet the stage, and steps out onto it to take his position.

The play is an odd thing, as all plays are, a mishmash of planned story beats and studied lines, and of pure improvisation to move the story between the beats. It has to be like that when Lords can be in the audience at any time, where everything that happens becomes something you can offer to them as a sacrifice or, alternately, which might offend their sensibilities. An actor needs to be able to adjust on the fly, not perform praises to the sun when the Moonlit Lord is present, blinding all from her booth; not speak longingly of the coldness of the earth if Lord the Endless is here instead of her sibling. 

The actors are needles, their characters the thread whose motivations stitch these patches of potential scenes together, so that each performance makes sense and has meaning regardless of the differences from one to another.

The curtain rises and Lucien launches into his character Arcane’s opening lament, his gaze searching past the lights. The audience on the lower levels is like a single living beast, shifting and breathing, occasionally coughing or whispering. And on the upper level—

As Shuni had told him, three of the four boxes are occupied. Lord Crow sits far left, hard to see in the shadows there, but Lucien makes out feathered hands folded casually over the head of a cane, lights reflecting off a long, black beak. Lord Vine is in the center left, figure completely buried behind all the greenery spilling out, flowers open to the stage like hearing trumpets. The center right box is empty, and the rightmost box is full of something that Lucien cannot look at directly, teeth and packed dirt and a presence that almost makes him falter his lines.

Almost.

It goes well. For monologues or asides, he focuses on that figure he can nearly see in the leftmost box. Arcane’s twin, Logos, reveals the dread news of their father’s passing, and Arcane attempts to negotiate the budding love affair between himself and the beautiful Revelle, while Logos longs to seize her for his own.

There are many ways these scenes can go. And so, when the knife appears, and it is time for the murder, Lucien is left with a decision. Will Arcane be the murderer—and which character will Arcane murder if so—or will Arcane be the one murdered? And which Lord should he dedicate the death to? 

His heart says Crow, of course, but any of the three might enjoy it the murder, depending on how it is done.

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