“Lieutenant–vaan Esling?” Aconin lifted an eyebrow in delicate inquiry, and Eslingen suppressed another curse. Aconin had known him when they both carried their mother’s names, knew better than almost anyone else in the world how little he deserved the noble prefix. He could see Siredy coming up behind him, followed by the landseur Aubine, and braced himself for the inevitable exposure. And the worst of it was, he couldn’t blame Duca–even being true, it would sound petty, make thing even worse…

“Late of Coindarel’s Dragons,” Aconin went on, and smiled. “Or so Siredy tells me. The prince‑marshal always did have an eye for service.”

Eslingen drew a careful breath, not quite believing in the reprieve, and thought Aubine blushed.

“You mustn’t touch the ropes,” the sceneryman said obstinately. “That’s a first rule backstage, I don’t care who you are. Don’t touch anything. Especially not in this house.”

“That’s a rule I’ll be careful to obey,” Aubine said with a smile that included all of them. “But please, master–”

“Basa,” Siredy said hastily. “Lial Basa, of Savatier’s Women. My lord.”

Aubine dipped his head. “Master Basa. Why in this theatre in particular?”

The sceneryman hesitated, eyes darting from Aubine to the playwright as though he’d just realized the company he was in. Aubine nodded again, his smile encouraging, unoffensive, and the sceneryman took a breath. “It’s the engines, my lord. They’re bigger than most, and they’re new. For The Drowned Island.”

“Really?”

All of Astreiant knew it, Eslingen thought, but Aubine’s tone was honestly interested.

“What does this rope do, then?”

“Opens the trap, if we’re particularly unlucky,” Aconin murmured, almost in Eslingen’s ear.

Basa heard, and slanted him a glare. “Not the traps, thank you. They’re understage, so there can’t be that error. This is for the clouds–it brings in the big bank of them, that comes in at the end of the play.”

Eslingen frowned for an instant, then remembered. It had been a small effect, almost lost in the more elaborate sinking of the island itself. “When the island sinks,” he said aloud, “and the waves come in. How is that done?”

Basa gave him a look that was balanced perfectly between approval and suspicion. “You must be new to the Masters, then.”

“I am.”

“And utterly changed,” Aconin said, and laughed.

“Do you think so?” Eslingen asked. He was beginning to lose his patience with the playwright, dangerous though that might be.

“Changed enough,” Aconin answered, still smiling. “The brave soldier, and now–a player, one of the Masters of Defense. Gods, it’s been more years than I care to recall since I saw you last. Since before you left Esling, I think.”

“I can recall how many,” Eslingen said mildly, and the playwright lifted his hand. It was elaborately painted, Eslingen saw without surprise, a bouquet of black and gold flowers running up from his wrist to twine around each finger.

“Please don’t. That literal habit of yours is one thing that hasn’t changed.”

“Master Basa,” Aubine said, and Aconin’s mouth closed over whatever else he had been going to say. The landseur smiled again, looking almost embarrassed. “The lieutenant asked a good question, and one I’m curious about. How is it done? Have you worked on it?”

Basa shook his head. “Not on the Island, no, I’m with Savatier, and that’s Gasquine’s piece. But I know how it’s done.”

“Tell us, please.” Aubine folded his hands into the sleeves of his coat like a schoolboy, an unexpectedly charming gesture, and Eslingen felt himself warming to the man.

Basa glanced from one to the other. “I can show you, if you’d like. The machinery.”

“Not me,” Aconin said. “I know how it’s done.”

“No one asked you, Chresta,” Aubine said. His tone was more indulgent than anything, but Aconin bowed.

“Then I’ll leave you to it, my lord.”

Aubine turned back to the sceneryman, still smiling, and Eslingen wondered for an instant just how well Aconin knew him. But then, Aconin had written the play that Aubine sponsored; that was enough of a connection.

“I would like to see,” Aubine said, and glanced at the others. “If you wouldn’t mind?”

“I’d like to see myself,” Eslingen said with perfect truth, and Basa blinked as though the interest startled him.

“You’ll miss the food.”

Most of it was gone already, Eslingen saw, glancing over his shoulder to see a few actors still clustered around the last, least‑favored dishes.

Aubine looked instantly contrite. “And I daresay you haven’t had the chance to eat yourself, Master Basa. If you’d permit me to buy you dinner–”

“That’s not necessary,” Basa said gruffly, and Aubine held out his hand, something clasped in it.

“At least let me pay you for this treat.”

“If you insist, my lord,” Basa said, and over his shoulder Eslingen saw Siredy struggling to hide a grin. “If you’d like, then–this way.”

“Will you come, Siredy?” Eslingen asked, and the other master nodded.

“Absolutely. I like to know what’s under my feet.”

“And very wise, too,” Aubine murmured.

Basa sketched a kind of bow. “If you’ll come with me?”

He led the way to a narrow stairhead, banded with iron, where a stairs so steep as to be little more than a ladder dropped into darkness. Eslingen eyed it warily, and the sceneryman slid down it like a sailor, his feet barely touching the side rails, to reappear a moment later with a mage‑fire lantern.

“As few lamps as possible backstage,” Siredy said. “That’s another rule of most houses.”

Between the painted canvases and the stacked furniture that served to dress the sets, the risk of fire had to be enormous. “I’ll bear that very much in mind,” Eslingen said, and followed the others down the narrow ladder.

The space under the stage was dark and low, so that a tall man had to stoop beneath the cross beams. It smelled of oil, too, and tar, and polished metal, and Eslingen blinked hard, trying to force his eyes to adjust to the lantern light. Something bulked large behind Basa’s shoulders, a dark shape that caught the light in places, and there were more ropes and strangely shaped pieces of wood and metal hanging between the beams. Basa lifted his lantern, did something to the aperture, and the light faded and spread in the same moment. The thing behind him resolved into a massive windlass, with six poles projecting from it like the spokes of a wheel, and for an instant Eslingen had a mad vision of tiny ponies, specially theatre‑bred, brought down to turn them. But that would be the scenerymen’s job, of course, and that windlass would drive the brass‑toothed gears that rose from it, and those gears, it seemed, turned an enormous shaft that ran off into the darkness toward the back of the stage.

“This is the main engine,” Basa said, and in the close space his voice was hushed, unresonant. But of course sound would be damped down here, Eslingen realized, to keep the noise of the machinery from spoiling the play. “It turns the versatiles–it’ll do anything else you want, too, but that’s what it’s set for now.” He pointed. “See there? Those are the cables that take the power off, and bring them around.”

“There must be a stop,” Aubine said, peering up into the darkness, and the sceneryman nodded.

“You have to release the lock first, of course, before you start to turn, and then it locks again at the next scene.”

They were talking about the triangular columns, Eslingen realized, and filed the word in his memory. Versatiles… well, they were certainly that. “How many men does it take to move it?” he asked, and was startled again by the deadness of the sound.

“There’s eight men working on The Drowned Island,” Basa answered, “but you can work an ordinary play with three or four.”

He lifted the lantern again, beckoning them with the light, and they followed him past the windlass into an area crowded with square‑shapes. Eslingen blinked, confused, then recognized the towers of the bannerdames’ island. Up close, the colors were cruder than he remembered, the shapes overstated–but they were meant to be seen from the pit, from the balconies, not from close up. Beyond them, he could see more massive gears, ready to lift the island up, and drag it down again, and Basa glanced at him.