There was more light in the main house, filtered through the canvas roof, but the mage‑lights were dark. Nothing moved in the boxes, or in what he could see of the pit, and the stage itself lay bare and empty. That was a mercy, he thought, and leaned between the curtains to scan that section of the seats. Nothing there either, as much as he could see in the dim light, and he shouted again. The theatre swallowed the sound, and he shivered. All right, he told himself. Get on with it. He was on the upper tier, walking behind the cheapest good seats, which meant that he should soon find the stairs leading down to the boxes. Even as he thought that, the stairway yawned before him, and he climbed quickly down to the main floor, glancing from side to side as though he might stumble over the watchman at any moment. There was still no sign of him, and he crossed the pit, checking the stage again, to head up the sloping tunnel to the actors’ door. The lock was old‑fashioned, heavy iron, and he turned the fluted key with an effort. The tumblers fell into place, and he pulled back the doors to find Duca staring at him.

“Did you find the fool?”

Eslingen shook his head mutely, stepping back to let the bigger man inside. Siredy followed, holding out his shoes, and Eslingen balanced awkwardly on one leg, sliding them back on again. He was lucky not to have put a hole in his stockings, he thought– and, damnation, I did tear my sleeve. It was a small rip, on the seam, and he craned his neck to try to see how bad it was. Siredy offered his coat as well, and Eslingen took it, sighing. At least it would hide the worst of the damage.

“Artinou!” That was Duca’s voice, well trained to carry through the theatre, and Siredy shook his head.

“He’ll have the man’s head for this.”

“And well he might.” Eslingen started back up the tunnel, ducked out of the way as Aubine turned back toward the open door.

“And where should I have the flowers brought, do you think? I don’t want them underfoot, but I need to bring them in out of the cold.”

“Into the pit, maybe?” Siredy said, and Eslingen nodded.

“If your man can wait until we find the watch, maseigneur, he can tell you where they’d best be placed.”

“Ah. Yes. Very wise.” Aubine brushed past them with a vague smile, and Eslingen looked at the other master,

“Where is he, do you think?”

“Asleep in the dressing rooms, I hope,” Siredy answered, but even as he spoke, de Vicheau came down the narrow stairs shaking his head.

“All the rooms are empty, Master Duca.”

Eslingen moved to join them, seeing his own frown reflected on the other men’s faces. “Is anything else wrong?” he asked, and climbed carefully to the stage itself. The first baskets of props were where they had been left the day before, and the racked weapons looked untouched, their ribbons hanging limp in the still air.

“Isn’t this enough?” Duca demanded.

“I was thinking of theft,” Eslingen answered, and the man’s expression eased fractionally.

“That’s always a risk,” he admitted, and looked quickly around the wings. “Our gear is all there.”

“But–” Siredy stopped, shaking his head.

“What?” Duca put hands on hips, scowling.

“I thought…” Siredy moved to the nearest rack, examining the row of half pikes. “I thought we left those in better order–separated out, not all in a bunch. Isn’t that right, Philip?”

Eslingen nodded slowly. They had taken the half‑pikes back from the chorus the evening before, set them back in the rack with all the red‑ribboned pikes on the left and the white‑ribboned ones on the right. Now–they weren’t all mixed, but there were a few red ones in with the white, as though someone had knocked over half a dozen, and put them back without looking. “That’s not how we left them.”

Duca swore under his breath, and spun to examine the racks himself. “Nothing missing,” he said after a moment, and de Vicheau nodded in agreement.

“But they’re players’ weapons,” Siredy said. “Dulled and bated. Why would anyone bother with them?”

No one answered, and Eslingen looked past them into the darkness of the stagehouse. Something else was different, too, he thought, something teasing at the edge of memory–something not quite the way it had been the last time he’d seen it. The machinery loomed overhead, the versatiles locked in their first position, the ropes that held the traps and hanging scenery all taut and perfect–except one. One of the lilies was out of place, missing altogether, and he reached out to grab Siredy’s shoulder.

“The machines,” he said, and the other master’s eyes went wide.

“Tyrseis, not that.”

“Get the trap,” Duca ordered, and de Vicheau bent to lift the narrow door. It was dark below, but a mage‑fire lantern hung ready, and de Vicheau lit it with the touch of his hand, his face very pale.

“There are more below,” he said, but made no move to descend the narrow ladder.

“We’ll all go,” Duca said grimly, and swung himself down into the pit.

Eslingen followed more cautiously, found another of the mage‑lights hanging ready on the nearest pillar, and fumbled with the smoothly polished ring until it sprang to light. Siredy did the same, and the doubled sphere of light spread to fill the low‑ceilinged space. It looked much the same as it had before, Eslingen thought, or at least as it had the one time he’d been shown the machines. The windlass stood immobile, and beyond it, the massive gears that lifted the bannerdame’s towers were dark with new oil. Except there was something bright caught between the lower teeth, the merest rag of white, and Eslingen took a careful breath, fighting nausea; The rest of it was red‑tinged brown, the thick rusty shade of drying blood, and the white thing was the watchman’s stockinged leg.

“Master Duca,” he said, dry‑mouthed, and heard the big man swallow hard.

“I see it. The poor bastard.”

“It must be an accident,” Siredy said, his voice too high, and Eslingen made a face. This was worse than cannon fire, worse even than a sappers’ accident because there was more left to see, the legs all but severed from the crushed torso, the head invisible on the far side of the gear, only the one arm and the stocky legs holding a semblance of human shape. He choked, glad he had eaten lightly, cleared his throat with an effort.

“It is the watch, isn’t it?”

Duca nodded, though he made no move to look more closely. “Yes–at least, I’m almost certain. That’s his coat.”

“Mathiee told him to keep a better eye out these nights,” de Vicheau said. “Poor Artinou.”

“The rope must have given way,” Siredy said. “Gods, if it had been a performance…”

He let his voice trail off, but there was no need to finish the sentence. If it had happened during a performance, not only might a sceneryman have been killed, caught like the watchman in the suddenly moving gears, but the actors on the tower would have been brought down abruptly, perhaps thrown off the set piece into the mechanism as well. Eslingen shook his head, trying to banish the picture, and Duca said hoarsely, “And was it an accident?”

The master was looking at him, Eslingen realized, and he took a careful breath. “I don’t know,” he began, knowing what the other wanted to hear, and then shook himself. He had been around Rathe long enough to know what questions the pointsman might ask, knew what questions he’d ask himself. “If it was an accident, master, why are there no lights in sight? He wouldn’t come down here in the dark, surely. And the trap was closed, too.”

“He might have done that himself,” de Vicheau said, but the objection was halfhearted.

“But not without lights,” Duca said, and made a face as though he wanted to spit. “Sweet Tyrseis. What a way to kill a man.”

There aren’t many good ways to die, Eslingen thought, but this one is particularly ugly. “Leave him for now,” he said, and thought he saw Siredy give him a look of gratitude. “And send to Point of Dreams. It’s in their hands now.”