Masks and Shadows (46 page)

No
. He tasted acid. He had lost his honor nearly two years ago, when he had accepted the Prince's offer.

Friendship had mattered, even yesterday, but that was over now, too. Anton was dead. Friedrich's friendship had killed him.

A burning stage set toppled forward off the stage, setting the closest wooden pillar alight, but still Friedrich didn't move.

Sophie had mattered, for a time—a very short time, really, looking back on it. Only the first year or so of their marriage. But Sophie . . .

“Sophie!”

A woman's scream sent him jerking around to face the audience.

Sophie's sister stood at the edge of the audience. A great velvet hanging had fallen, burning, from the roof of the auditorium and set half a dozen seats and people alight directly in front of her. Horror made a mockery of her features as she screamed, staring beyond the impassable inferno—

—To where Sophie sat only ten feet away, eyes closed, while flames spread toward her from the fiery triangle on her right.

Flames caught on her skirt and sleeve, and spread.

“No,” Friedrich whispered.

He barely felt himself move. One moment, he stood high up on the stage, holding the sword poised above Franz Pichler. The next, he was in the middle of the flames.

Someone had blown out all the candles backstage. Carlo peered through the darkness, searching for his prey. He held the hilt of the sword clamped in his right hand, slick with his own sweat. With the wadded-up cloth filling his ears, all that he could hear was his own labored breathing as he shuffled softly along the wooden floor.

He was the most famous
castrato
in Europe, at the peak of his career, and he might well be about to die in the dark with the real, nontheatrical sword of an imperial soldier. It wasn't how he had planned to end his days. He could have let the soldiers do their own work, while he retired to safety. He could have comfortably raged against the idiocy of the Prince while he sat safely in the palace, sipping a restorative glass of fine, imported wine. He could imagine that scenario even now as he crept through the darkness, his ears muffled against the screams and the roar of the fire outside.

He had spent too long on the sidelines, swallowing his fury, playing the role of a noble guest and pretending not to notice the injustices that surrounded him.

It was finally time to act.

Carlo felt his way along the back wall, running his left hand against the wood. But the pressure of the darkness behind him was too much—with a grimace, he paused to pull out one wad of cloth, freeing his left ear to listen out for any telltale creaks or whispers. He tried to breathe as quietly as possible, all of his senses attuned to the darkness around him. At last, he found the edges of the door that led out of the building.

If Count Radamowsky were indeed hiding backstage, he would have to come this way to escape and abandon his victims to the flames.

But he'll have to pass me first
.

Behind him, Carlo heard a footstep. He spun around.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“Sophie!” Charlotte screamed. She fought down useless, blinding tears. She couldn't even see her sister any longer, past the leaping flames that blocked her way. “Sophie!”

The uniformed man on the stage turned around, as if in reaction, and she recognized him at last.

It was too much to take in. She staggered.

“Friedrich?” she whispered.

He dropped his sword and leapt into the flames.

Above the stage, the rod that held the burning curtains creaked and split. Burning red velvet fell across the front of the stage, barely missing the lead singer where he lay.

“Signor . . . Morelli, is it not?” A dark figure loomed before Carlo as he blocked the backstage door. Rich amusement threaded through the familiar, resonant voice. “Now, let me think. Why exactly would you be waiting for me? One last performance, perhaps?”

Carlo raised the sword before him, squinting in the darkness. His left hand clenched around the second strip of cloth, ready to stop his hearing at the very first hint of those too-familiar, rolling, mesmeric cadences. “You've failed,” he said plainly. “Von Born's run away, and the royals have all been saved.”

“What a pity.” Radamowsky shrugged his shoulders. “I must confess, though, I had guessed as much from the noises outside. And?”

“Save the rest of them.” Carlo had spent years learning perfect control of his voice. It was his instrument and his vocation. He would not let it fail him now. “You have no reason not to let them wake and save themselves. If you help now, the Empress may be merciful and—”

“You clearly do not know the Habsburgs.” The shadowy figure let out a breath of laughter. “For all her famous piety, our great Empress is no more familiar with mercy than her hardheaded son. Have you never read the torture code devised by the Emperor himself?” A gleam of teeth showed in a smile. “It is enlightening, to say the least. I thank you for your news and your advice, but I think—”

“What of threats, then?” Carlo lunged forward, breathing hard, until his heavy sword hovered only an inch away from the man's chest. “If you don't wake the audience, I'll murder you here and now.”

“Ah. Now that is, admittedly, somewhat more persuasive.” The Count raised his hands slowly. “And yet, I'm afraid you still haven't quite convinced me. So, if you'll just let me pass . . .”

Carlo firmed his grip on the slippery handle of the sword, lifting his left hand until the cloth hovered just outside his ear, ready to save him from any mesmeric attack. He was doing exactly as he'd planned—but his breath hurt his chest, escaping all of his vaunted control. “I'm not bluffing,” he said hoarsely. “I've never injured a man in my life, but I will kill you now if you refuse.”

“I'm certain you would. After all, you've had so much practice onstage, haven't you?” Radamowsky's voice filled with amusement. “What you don't realize, signor, is that, in this case, you are outnumbered.”

“I beg your pardon?” Carlo blinked, and tried to focus his gaze. Something about the darkness just behind the alchemist . . .

Red eyes flicked open above Radamowsky's shoulder.

Carlo stumbled back against the closed door, his left hand loosening around the useless strip of cloth as his breath caught in his throat.

Fool
, he thought. He'd only prepared himself for the least of the alchemist's weapons.

Gray smoke floated forward. Red eyes watched him with greedy anticipation.

Radamowsky's voice turned into a purr of satisfaction.

“You see,” he said, “I haven't been waiting here alone. And all that you've managed, with this heroic display, is to delay me by a moment.”

Friedrich barely felt the burning heat. All his focus was on Sophie, sitting still and entranced as the flames leapt up her sleeve.

Sophie, whom he had promised to love and protect, on his word as a von Höllner, before God and the gathered society in the
Michaelerkirche
.

He would not let the flames take her, too.

He lunged past the orchestral benches and the long wooden music stands. The ashes of sheet music flaked against his clothes. He pushed past the corpses and the still-living bodies. He fell against Sophie and bore her to the ground, rolling over and over, beating out the flames. Fire surrounded them. He covered her body with his own.

Tears streamed from his eyes. Smoke scoured his nose with every breath. Flames burned his hair and skin until every inch of it seemed to scream at once, as Anton had screamed, as Sophie's sister had screamed.

He stood within the flames and scooped up his wife with strength he hadn't known he possessed. He bore her through the flames, her face pressed against his shirt, her arms protected between their bodies as the sleeves and the back of his own coat burned.

He lifted her to the height of his shoulders, above the mass of blazing seats and bodies, and he threw her body over it to fall at her sister's feet. Through the fire, he saw the older woman drop to her knees to beat the flames from Sophie's clothes. If she hurried, she could still drag Sophie out of the building to safety.

Friedrich turned before she could look up again.

The door that led from the audience to the back of the stage was blocked by the burning, toppled stage set; the fallen curtain on the stage itself blazed with fire, more effective than any wall.

There was no way out. But then, he had known that even before he had leapt off the stage.

He thought, at first, that he saw Anton's face within the flames. Then, in the final moments before blackness devoured him, he realized that the man he truly looked at was himself.

Friedrich watched himself burning and melting within the fire, and for the first time in years, he was not ashamed of what he saw.

Franz staggered to his feet and stumbled across the stage, away from the blazing fallen curtain. His head hurt blindingly, and his back had stiffened into a warped, unnatural angle. His nose throbbed with pain as it dripped warm blood down his lips and chin. His ribs, his arms, his knees—everything was in agony.

But he was alive. It was incredible. It was more than he had dreamed possible.

His crashed through the thin door in the set that led backstage, away from the flames and the stink of death. As soon as he was free, in the fresh night air, he would run and keep on running until—

The door from the opposite end of the stage opened, letting in a narrow stream of light and heat that cut across the backstage floor. A familiar voice spoke behind him in the semi-darkness.

“I've been looking for you, Herr Pichler.”

Franz turned around, feeling a heavy weight settle in his stomach.

Lieutenant von Höllner had been right after all.

“You've failed,” he said to the leader of the Brotherhood. “Why haven't you run?”

“I told you you would never escape if you betrayed us.” Von Born stepped forward and circled him slowly, smoothly, in the near-darkness. The tip of his blade hovered barely an inch from Franz's skin. “Do you have any idea how long I planned tonight's performance, only to see it ruined by your cowardice?”