“There. That.” I stabbed a finger at a review for an upcoming play in the Theater & Arts section of the Doskvol Times and read aloud, “‘Set in Lockport in 845 IE, A Requiem for Aldric takes a fresh look at the causes of the Unity War.’”

The three of us had braved a bone piercingly icy rain to buy copies of all three of Doskvol’s official newspapers and scour them for upcoming plays and musicals. For once, the North Hook Gazette, purveyor of serious news for serious people; the Doskvol Times, provider of popular items for the everyman; and the Dockside Telegraph, repository for scandalous gossip and scurrilous rumors, were all agreed: The opening night of A Requiem for Aldric would be the event of the year.

Pulling her beribboned coat closer about her, Faith huddled further into the recesses of the doorway we’d commandeered. “You mean aristocrats want to hear about how pollution from all the leviathan blood processing destroyed Lockport and turned the residents into slithery, scaly monsters?”

Not the entire population, of course. Not the denizens of the protected enclave where the magnates lived – but for once Faith’s flippant description was surprisingly accurate.

Ash’s eyes widened as he read further. “Yes, apparently. Listen to this: ‘Sisi Bell is brilliantly convincing in her role as the noble, doomed Queen Alayne, and Carter Vale’s performance as her idealistic, devoted husband is not to be missed.’ I’m surprised the Lord Governor is even allowing the performance.”

Who cared why he allowed it as long as it happened? “Sounds controversial,” I said happily. “Vhetin definitely won’t miss that.” Skipping to the end of the article, I checked the performance dates. “It premieres at Spiregarden Theater in Brightstone on Carillon. That’s only three days from now!”

Folding up the newspapers, we dashed back to our railcar so we could map out our strategy and divide up the tasks. Proving his devotion to the score – or his coffers – Ash immediately headed back out into the miserable rain to track down Vhetin’s seamstress in Nightmarket. With the aid of a bribe, he succeeded in convincing her to make a knock-off of Lady Kellis’s “one-of-a-kind” gown in time for the performance. “It’s no worry,” the seamstress assured him. “We do this all the time.”

Cursing the weather, I changed into thin servant’s attire, hoped I didn’t catch my death of a cold, and spent all day tailing Vhetin as she made social calls. You’d think the rain would have deterred her, but no, she simply couldn’t put off returning Lady Strangford’s visit any longer. After that, since she was right around the corner from Lady Strathmill, she simply must drop in to offer her congratulations for a brilliant fundraiser. And then, of course, her favorite milliner would be desolate if she didn’t stop in to commission a new hat, and so forth. My coup came when I snuck into the Skovlan-themed costume ball she threw the next evening; warm and dry, I mingled with the guests, sampled the excellent buffet, and gleaned everything I could about Vhetin’s personality.

Meanwhile, Faith read up on revolutionary theories, hung around Spiregarden Theater, and ingratiated herself with the actors until she identified a naïve young man with Skovlander sympathies. Over tea at a nearby café, she hinted that a group of aristocrats were secretly pro-Skovlander and encouraged him to alter a few words in the script to heighten the pathos. That would “reach out to the nobles,” as she explained earnestly. “Being provocative can sometimes be a good thing, you know?” Between the two of them, they managed to rile up a good fraction of the actors, most of whom were already anti-establishment dreamers anyway.

Unfortunately, one of the stagehands turned out to be an undercover Bluecoat, and Faith found herself arrested and summarily hauled off to the station for questioning. Ash and I had to scrape together coin from both crew and personal coffers in order to appeal for her release.

“Our sister is completely harmless! I’m sure she didn’t mean whatever she said!” I pleaded with the sergeant on duty. Since this was Brightstone, his hair was slicked back and his uniform buttons polished to a bright glint, meaning that he’d be expensive. Lowering my voice, I leaned forward across his desk and confided, “She’s never been quite right in the head.”

From my sleeve, I slid out one gold coin and laid it in front of him.

He looked down at it, then back up at Ash and me, who bore no family resemblance to Faith – or each other – whatsoever. “Nevertheless, we still need to know what she told the actors to do,” he said sternly. “Intentionally or not, your sister caused quite a disturbance at the theater.”

As if by magic, Ash produced another gold coin from thin air and stacked it precisely on top of the first. “Whatever she said, I’m sure the actors have much more sense than to listen to her.”

“Actors….” Still the sergeant hesitated.

Ash and I exchanged a resigned look and added a third coin.

At that, the Bluecoat swept them into his purse and stood abruptly. “Well, that answers all my questions for the moment.” Striding over to one of the interrogation rooms, he unlocked the door and shooed a rather perky-looking Faith out. “Don’t let me catch you hanging out here again,” he ordered.

Faith batted her eyelashes at him. “But this is the most exciting place to be!” she protested sweetly.

“Ooookay!” I grabbed her arm and propelled her towards the door, while Ash politely thanked the sergeant for his time.

Out in the rain, Faith reclaimed her arm and reproached us, “You came too soon. I was just about to analyze Bluecoat interrogation techniques! I was planning to compare them to the Lampblacks’.”

“If you want, we can take you right back,” I snapped.

“No,” said Ash firmly. “We already spent three coin getting her out the first time. Who knows how much it will cost the second?”

Drawing on Faith’s initial reconnaissance, we turned our attention to Spiregarden Theater itself during the play that preceded A Requiem for Aldric. Even though I’d passed the marble pile countless times, I hadn’t yet penetrated its gilded front doors, so I was just as overwhelmed as an U’Du beggar when I stepped into the lobby. All around me soared pillars and staircases of ivory marble veined with gold, carved into complex geometric patterns and reliefs of theater scenes. Golden sconces shaped like flowers blossomed from the walls, and crystal chandeliers lit by thousands of electroplasmic bulbs scattered little rainbows everywhere. Flashing our standing-room-only tickets, we slipped past the ushers and joined the crowd pouring into the auditorium.

“Wow,” I whispered, impressed despite myself.

The plush gold-and-blood-red carpet yielded noiselessly under each footstep. On the other side of a sea of seats upholstered in blood-red velvet loomed the stage and its blood-red curtain. From its sides curved ring after ring of gilded boxes and balconies, rising all the way up to the painted ceiling and the great golden chandelier that spiraled back down towards us.

Ash was already scanning the boxes, searching for the Kellises. “Which one is Lady Vhetin’s?” he asked Faith quietly.

“That one,” she replied, lifting her chin slightly. We followed her gaze up to a box on the second story, positioned directly across from the stage for the best possible view. Even as we watched, there was a flurry of fabrics and fans, and the lady herself appeared in a fancy ballgown and glittering jewels, chatting merrily with her friends.

A tinkling bell chimed, the lights dimmed, and the great chandelier rose majestically up into the ceiling. As the curtains swept open, we positioned ourselves where we could observe Vhetin without being too obvious about watching the nobles rather than the stage, although we needn’t have worried. As far as I could tell, half the audience had attended purely to model their newest dresses and would have been sorely disappointed if the rest of us actually focused on the play.

Not Vhetin, though. As Irimina had said, Lady Kellis watched the actors with rapt attention, losing herself in the story and forgetting all about her companions.

At the intermission, we hurried into the lobby ahead of the other theater-goers and rushed up the marble staircase before Vhetin could leave her box. From her satchel, Faith produced a bottle of wine “from the director in appreciation of Kellis patronage.” When she attempted to enter Vhetin’s box, though, an old man in a sharp frock coat intercepted her and explained sternly that “only ushers are allowed to deliver things to patrons, miss. I’ll take that, please.”

We spent the second act back in the auditorium, scrutinizing the layout of the theater and determining how to orchestrate a riot.

On the night of the premier of A Requiem for Aldric, Spiregarden was packed to overflowing with not only theater regulars but also busybodies who couldn’t bear to miss the controversy. Although we’d scraped together enough money to buy standing-room spots in the back balcony, we still showed up a few hours early to queue with a mob of Charterhall University students who were hoping for last-minute tickets. While we waited, Faith and I eavesdropped on the passionate political discussions around us.

“Haven’t you read A Treatise on the Rights of Man? It would have been unnatural for the Skovlanders not to rebel – ”

“Odrienne Keel just published her ideas on how to reform the Imperial system – ”

“The Prime Minister would never agree to any reform – ”

“There must be a cleaner way to process leviathan blood – ”

“Of course there is, but it’s too expensive so those greedy merchants will never go for it – ”

Ash slithered through the crowd, casting out derogatory comments about A Treatise on the Rights of Man and Odrienne Keel and Skovlanders alike. By the time the doors opened, he’d whipped the young activists to the cusp of a bloodbath.

“Try not to start the riot before the Bluecoats get here,” I whispered to him as the mob surged up the steps and into the lobby.

“I won’t,” he replied confidently. He headed off to incense a different group of students.

The beginning of the play was so good that I almost regretted what we were going to do to it. About halfway through the first act, the dialogue grew increasingly inflammatory. The Lord Governor of Skovlan displayed the most outrageous callousness when his subordinates reported that toxic showers were mutating citizens into half-leviathan, half-human abominations. “Let them live in the Void Sea with the rest of the demons,” he shrugged, garnering hisses and boos from the student contingent in the auditorium. Then a detachment of Imperial soldiers disguised as factory workers murdered all Skovlanders charismatic enough to rally the laborers against their evil overlords, which drew angry shouts from the students.

In the boxes and balconies, first rustles and whispers, then open conversations broke out. A few rows ahead of us, some of the younger audience members commented loudly on the heroism of Skovlander resistance, while stolid middle-aged types turned around in their seats and shushed them furiously.

Triumphant music blared from the orchestra pit as Aldric, Skovlan’s erstwhile puppet king and Imperial lapdog, proclaimed in a heartrending speech that if the Lord Governor and Immortal Emperor persisted in denying justice to Lockport, then Skovlan had no choice but to dissolve the political bonds that connected it to the Imperium. “We hold these truths to be self-evident….” Across the theater in one of the boxes, the playwright gaped at Aldric as if he couldn’t quite decide whether to be fascinated or horrified.

“That’s my cue.” Skillfully, Ash wormed his way through the balcony, throwing out an insult here, a cutting remark there, and vanished out the door, only to reappear far below on the ground floor in the middle of a pack of students.

“This is madness! They cannot be allowed to say such things!” he yelled, gesturing wildly at the actors before the students shouted him down.

Onstage, the tragedy continued to unfold. Aldric died heroically in battle against Imperial forces and was succeeded by the beautiful princess who vowed to fulfill her father’s oath.

“This is an outrage! This is treason! The author should be arrested and locked up this instant!” Ash howled. “Lock him up! Lock him up!” He gesticulated at the audience, as if hoping to start a chant. A few ragged voices actually responded from various corners of the theater.

At the end of the first act, Queen Alayne and her husband were cut down most treacherously by Imperial assassins. Right as they sank gracefully to the floor, clutching pathetically at their throats, all of the doors, even the emergency ones, on the first floor burst open. Bluecoats wielding truncheons exploded into the auditorium. “In the name of the Lord Governor – ” one bellowed.

“Good,” murmured Faith. “They were right on time. I told them they couldn’t miss the end of the first act.”

“Imperial scum!” screamed one of the students and threw a program.

It just barely missed a Bluecoat. “You there! You’re under arrest for assaulting an officer!”

“Tyrants!” yelled another voice. A beer bottle sailed through the air and smashed against the wall with a crash that echoed all over the theater.

A lady in one of the boxes shrieked.

As if that were the signal, the students roared and threw everything they could get their hands on, snatching opera glasses, bottles, programs, hats, and canes from their neighbors, who screamed and shouted and tripped over the seats as they tried desperately to escape. Meanwhile, the Bluecoats waded into the crowd with their truncheons, clubbing people right and left with no regard for whether they were attacking or attempting to flee.

“Come on,” I ordered Faith and shoved my way towards the door. All around us, scuffles were beginning to break out. Here a young lady argued heatedly with her parents; there a merchant seized a young man by the front of his shirt and shook him ferociously. “It’s a madhouse in here!”

Ahead of the other back balcony-ers, we pelted down the stairs. With each landing we passed, the throng of bodies grew denser.

“Sorry! Coming through! Coming through!” we cried, forcing our way through the gaps, knocking people into their neighbors, and ignoring their indignant shouts of “Hey!” and “Stop pushing!”

On the second floor landing, Faith called to me, “I’ll get the carriage!”

She vanished down the stairs, and I fought free of the mob to burst into the Kellis box with my hair askew and skirts all crumpled. Vhetin and her husband were already on their feet, arguing vociferously with their friends over something.

“Vhetin, Vhetin, you must come at once!” I shrieked, pretending to catch myself on a chair and gasp for breath. “We have to get out now or we’ll be trapped here!”

Even though she didn’t recognize me, she could tell at a glance from my dress and demeanor that I moved in the same social circles. Grabbing her husband’s arm and abandoning her friends, she ran towards me, and I whirled around and dove back into the hall.

“It’s too late! We’re already trapped!” she exclaimed, pushing futilely at a fat woman barring her path.

“This way!” Weaving and dodging through the crowd, I led the Kellises to the servants’ stairwell.

Down we pelted to the lobby, where the press of bodies turned into a suffocating crush. Screams and shouts echoed off the carved marble walls, only to be answered by the sounds of punching and thuds from truncheons. Opera glasses and wine bottles sailed through the air to shatter against marble pillars, and shards of sharp glass showered down on the crowd. Vhetin let out a high-pitched shriek when someone stepped on her train. Fabric tore with a terrible rip.

“We’re almost there!” I shouted, grabbing her arm to steady her and trying to pull her away from her husband.

Through a brief break in the mob, I caught a glimpse of Ash. He nodded quickly at me, then plowed straight into the matron behind Lord Kellis.

Caught off guard, she toppled forward, knocking the lord off his feet and into a student, who spun around furiously. Cocking his fist, he punched Kellis in the face with all his strength. The lord staggered backwards, collided with more people who turned with equal outrage, and quickly vanished under a seething mass of fists.

It all happened so fast that Vhetin didn’t even notice.

“I see my carriage!” I yelled, yanking her along. “It’s at the corner there!”

Sweaty and disheveled, trailing torn skirts and sleeves, we finally fought free of the mayhem and dashed for the carriage. Faith flung open the door as soon as she saw us, reached out a hand, and hauled Vhetin up. I threw myself in after her and slammed the door before anyone else could get in.

“Go!” Faith ordered the driver, who cracked his whip and sent the horses galloping away from the theater.

A few blocks later, we entered a darker, quieter neighborhood, and Vhetin finally collected herself enough to take a close look at Faith and me. All of a sudden, she realized that she didn’t actually recognize either of us.

“Who are you?” she demanded, peering at me.

“Oh my goodness! It was so highly reviewed!” I cried in an upper-class accent, pulling out a fan and flapping it in distress. “I mean, I knew it was going to be controversial, but I wasn’t expecting a riot!”

Faith quickly jumped into the act, exclaiming in a creditable imitation of Irimina’s accent, “Well, I never! Those horrid students! The theater should ban them from all future performances!”

The carriage jolted to a halt next to the alley where Tesslyn waited.

Unconvinced by our act, Vhetin pulled back the curtains and scanned the street, searching for landmarks she knew. “Where are we going – ”

All of a sudden, she noticed just how deserted and shadowy the neighborhood was.

In a flash, she whipped out a gun and leveled it directly at me.

At the same time, I pointed my own pistol straight at her heart.

“Oh my goodness!” cried Faith, cringing back into the carriage cushions. “Are you going to kill me?”

Ignoring her, Vhetin demanded in a low, threatening voice, “Do you have any idea who I am and what my uncle will do to you?”

“I know that you’re no lady,” I replied, and pulled the trigger.

A split second later, a punch knocked all the breath out of me. I doubled over, and felt frantically at my chest. My fingers found torn silk, and then the bullet lodged in my armored corset, but no blood. Thank all the forgotten gods for armored corsets. Still gasping for air, I straightened back up and fumbled for my pistol.

Across the seat from me, Vhetin was bleeding badly from a wound to her chest, but she was frantically reloading her gun. Faith lunged for it and tried to wrestle it away, but Vhetin pulled the trigger again and shot her at point-blank range.

Faith jolted backwards and collapsed onto the cushions.

“Faith! Are you all right?” I seized Vhetin’s wrist, and she twisted and fought, screeching for help.

“I’m fine!” Faith called. “Just a graze!”

Wrenching free of my grasp, Vhetin flung herself at the carriage door and threw it open – only to find herself face to face with Ash and his sword cane.

“I think you dropped something, milady,” he said, and stabbed her through the throat.

She started to scream, then choked on her own blood and gurgled horribly, flailing wildly and clawing Ash badly before she finally crumpled unconscious to the carriage floor. Dark blood gushed from her neck to soak our shoes. Unceremoniously, we hauled her back up to check for a pulse.

In all the commotion, her dress had slid off her left shoulder just far enough to reveal a tattooed bee – the exact same tattooed bee on the shoulder of Pickett’s docker.

Before any of us could say a word, Vhetin’s voice interrupted from behind Ash. “Well, it’s time to get back to my loving husband.”

Ash moved to a side, and Vhetin leaned into the carriage to survey her bleeding self dispassionately.

“We need to do our thing,” Ash reminded his sister.

In answer, she pushed him out of the way, flipped Vhetin onto her front, and tore open her dress and corset. Then, with one sharp fingernail, she inscribed a series of geometric sigils into Vhetin’s back that glowed with brilliant blue light. Tendrils of smoke rose from them, carrying the light up and away from the skin, and collected into a slowly spinning ball over the dead woman. Tesslyn caught it neatly in a bottle, corked it securely, and tucked it into her pocket.

Ash had told me the truth. Whatever this ritual was, it wasn’t demonic. It was certainly more than a little disturbing, though.

When Tesslyn had finished, Ash pointed at the bee tattoo. “You’ll have to deal with that.”

She registered it, then fixed him with a stern glare that looked odd on Vhetin’s features. “Did you know about it?” she asked curtly.

“No,” he admitted.

“I’ll deal with it.”

Ash exhaled, as if he hadn’t been sure she’d agree so easily. “Well, working together was more fun than expected,” he remarked.

She didn’t even bother to respond to that. “I need the carriage.”

Obediently, the three of us hauled Vhetin’s corpse out and laid it on the ground, and without another word to us, Tesslyn directed the carriage back in the direction of the theater.

“Now I need to do my thing,” Faith said, and went about extracting Vhetin’s spirit and bottling that up. Glancing around, she added, “Earlier, I reached into the ghost field. There weren’t any ghosts – but I did find a spirit warden, who should be showing up any time now – oh, now!”

Right on cue, around the corner stalked a spirit warden, bronze mask scowling and lightning hook crackling with power.

There was no time to hide the body.

“What’s going on here?” the spirit warden demanded in an eerie, hollow voice distorted by the mask.

I promptly threw myself over Vhetin’s body and went into well-bred hysterics. Ash exclaimed that we were out for a stroll when ruffians attacked our friend. “How could such a thing happen in Brightstone?”

“She looks dead,” observed the spirit warden, bending over for a closer look.

“Dead! She can’t possibly be dead!” I screeched. “Wake up, oh, wake up….”

“There, there,” said Faith soothingly to me. “Of course she’s not dead. The bell hasn’t rung, has it, sir?”

Indeed, it had not.

But just then a quick succession of bells pealed out from the direction of Spiregarden Theater, and the spirit warden spun on his heel and dashed away.

As soon as he was out of earshot, we dragged the body further into the shadows for the next gruesome bit. “If all goes as planned,” Ash had argued, “it will look as if nothing happened at all. We need proof for Lady Irimina that we carried out the score.”

So now he hacked off Vhetin’s head and bundled it into a waterproof sack. Working swiftly, we stripped off the remnants of her “one-of-a-kind” dress and all her underclothes, and removed all identifying marks, including the tattoo, from her body. And then we hauled it to the nearest canal and dumped it in for the eels.