“You’re not supposed to be back here,” the woman said, her brows drawing together as she looked the two of them up and down, taking in the evening clothes they were wearing.
Esta’s hand tightened around his, but Harte simply pasted on his most charming smile—the one that usually got him whatever he wanted. “No wrong turn at all,” he said as he dropped Esta’s hand and extended his now-free hand toward the woman. “Charlie Walbridge.”
The woman only frowned at him as she looked down at his bare, outstretched hand with brows bunched. Her nose scrunched up as though he were offering her a rotten piece of meat.
“Walbridge, as in the son of Cyrus P. Walbridge . . . the owner of this theater,” he added, dropping his hand and infusing his voice with a hint of impatience. “This is my fiancée, Miss Ernestine Francis.” It hadn’t taken much effort earlier to figure out who the owner of the theater was, along with the names of a couple of the other more important men in town. He had no idea if Councilman Francis even had a daughter, but he knew that names—certain names—had power.
The gambit worked. The woman’s eyes widened slightly, and she sputtered a hurried apology.
Harte gave her an appraising look. “Yes, well . . . mistakes do happen, don’t they? I’ll be sure to tell my father how dedicated his employees are to the theater’s well-being, especially you, Miss . . .” He paused, waiting for her to supply her name.
“It’s Mrs., actually, though my husband’s been gone these past three years now. Mrs. Joy Konarske.”
“Well, it’s been a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Konarske.” He offered his hand again. “I’ll be sure to tell my father how dutiful you’ve been. He’ll be pleased to know his theater is being well looked after.”
The woman’s cheeks went a little pink as she paused to shift her burden of fabric so she could grasp Harte’s outstretched hand. Her palm was rough and calloused from the work of laundering the costumes and tending to the performers’ wardrobes each night, and Harte felt a flicker of guilt as he focused on pushing his affinity toward her, pulsing it gently—just a little—through the delicate boundary of flesh and into the very heart of who and what she was.
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away. They never do, he thought.
When Harte finally released the woman’s hand a moment later, she had a slightly dazed look in her eyes. Giving the two of them a shaky smile, she wandered off, and Harte knew she would leave them be. She would forget having ever seen him—because he had ordered her to. And the moment she heard or saw a description of either Esta or himself, Mrs. Joy Konarske would feel a wave of such revulsion that she would do anything necessary to escape the person asking.
“Did you . . . ?” Esta asked, her voice low.
He met her eyes, expecting judgment but finding instead only worry. Or perhaps that was sadness? “Would you rather she tell someone she saw us here?” he whispered.
“Of course not,” she whispered. “It’s just . . . do you think it’s safe? With the Book’s power in you?”
He hadn’t considered that. Why hadn’t he considered that?
“I don’t know.” It wasn’t like he’d had much choice. He’d done the only thing he could do, unless they wanted to be discovered before they even began.
Luckily, they didn’t run into anyone else before they found Julien’s dressing room and let themselves in. Despite the number of women’s wigs and gowns that filled much of the room, it was a masculine space. Which, considering Julien, wasn’t surprising. On the dressing table, an ashtray contained the remains of multiple cigars, and the cloying ghost of their smoke still hung thick in the air.
“How long do we have?” Esta asked.
“Maybe another ten minutes or so.”
“I’ll look here, if you check the dressing table,” Esta said, turning to the large upright steamer trunk in the corner.
Harte knew it couldn’t hurt to look. If they found the necklace, they could avoid Julien altogether. But he didn’t really expect the necklace to be in the dressing room—Julien wasn’t stupid. Even if Julien didn’t know about the power the stone contained, he would be more careful than to leave it in an unlocked dressing room in a crowded theater. The heavy platinum collar was set with a turquoise-colored stone shot through with glittering veins of some silvery substance that made it look like a sky full of stars. It was singular, and clearly valuable, and Julien would keep something like that somewhere safe . . . especially with the note Harte had sent along with it.
But Esta was right. It wouldn’t hurt to look while they were there.
Before he’d even managed to sit at the dressing table, Esta had pulled a pin from her hair and popped the lock of the trunk. Harte paused to watch her as she began sorting through the drawers inside of it, and then he turned back to the dressing table.
For a moment he felt the shock of recognition. How many times had he sat at the same sort of table, the glow of the electric light over the mirror illuminating the familiar planes and angles of his own face? There were pots of stage paint and kohl on the tabletop, and their familiar scents came to him even beneath the staleness of the full ashtray, teasing at his memories and inspiring a pang of longing and loss so sharp, it surprised him.
He was never going to sit at a dressing table like this again. He was done with that life.
Even if he managed to get out of this mess alive—even if they could exorcise the power lurking beneath his skin and get away from the Order and stop Nibsy—Harte was supposed to be dead. He couldn’t just resurrect himself. There would be no more applause, no more footlights. He would never again have the quiet solitude of a dressing room to call his own.
Maybe he would find a new name, a new life that he could be happy with, but it wouldn’t be on the stage. And he would miss it—the rush of nerves before and the thrill of the applause after. He hadn’t realized just how much until that moment.
“Find anything?” Esta asked, still rustling through papers in one of the trunk’s drawers. It was enough to shake him out of his maudlin bout of self-pity and get to work.
“Not yet,” he told her. He opened the first of the drawers, one filled with small pots of rouge and the powdery smell of talc. He didn’t have to search through the items to see that the necklace wasn’t there.
“What is all of this?” Esta murmured, and Harte turned to see what she had found.
She was holding a leather box, trimmed in gold and stamped with a gilded filigreed emblem that was inscribed with a stylized monogram of the letters VP. Harte came over to look as Esta pulled out a small golden medallion that hung from a green satin ribbon. It was the kind of medallion important dignitaries or generals wear when they dress for a parade. Odd . . .
He took the medal from her and examined it. Like the box itself, it was inscribed with an ornate VP, but the surface bore the portrait of a long-faced man with a full beard. The figure might have been a crusader or a saint, with his sharp cheekbones and solemn expression, but his face seemed to be partially obscured, as though a piece of fabric was hanging over it. Around the edge of the medallion were markings that could have been simple decorations or an unknown language—it was impossible to tell.