Part 24 (1/2)

Bertie hedged. ”We just discovered it.”

”When did Ariel take it?”

Bertie tried to think of a plausible lie, but Ariel lifted his head and divulged, ”When your Director left it under a sofa in the Properties Department.”

The Stage Manager looked back to Bertie. ”You touched The Book?”

”I took it to protect it from Ariel, but he destroyed it anyway!”

”Wait until the Theater Manager hears what you've done.” The Stage Manager raised his voice so that everyone could hear his p.r.o.nouncement. ”I told him over and over again that you were a troublemaker. A destructive little menace. Perhaps now he'll listen. See if you're not out on your backside within the hour!”

”Is that so?” Bertie walked over to the Chorus Member standing guard over Ariel and retrieved her sword. She turned and flicked it over the Stage Manager's s.h.i.+rtfront, slicing through the fabric. ”Call me a destructive little menace again.”

”It's the plain truth!” The Stage Manager scrambled away from her.

”Shut up.” Bertie followed him. ”Or the next thing I cut off will be an ear.”

”The Theater Manager will hear about this!”

”Don't say I didn't warn you.” Bertie poked a hole in his earlobe. He squealed like a piglet, clapping his hand to the wound and falling to the stage alongside Ariel. ”I will not be threatened. Ever again. Not by you or anyone else.”

”Beatrice.” The Theater Manager strode onstage. ”What is going on here?”

Bertie let her sword arm fall. ”A little housekeeping, sir.”

The Theater Manager looked from Ariel to the Stage Manager to Bertie's bloodied sword. ”This doesn't look like Hamlet. Why are these men playing captives?”

”Because I threatened to kill them if they moved.” Bertie lifted the leather husk of The Book and held it out to him. ”This is how Ophelia escaped before.”

The Theater Manager sucked in a breath. ”She's done it again.”

”It wasn't her this time.” There was another shudder underfoot, and a shower of sparks fell from the overhead lighting as Bertie pointed down. ”It was him.”

”The only page that would not come out was my own,” Ariel said with a groan.

”You were written a slave,” the Theater Manager said slowly. ”I suspect that someone else must free you. Someone who wields more power than Prospero. Someone who can unlock the fetters of the written words that bind you here.”

Ariel looked at Bertie, a thin edge of triumph in his gaze. A howl built in his throat before he cried, ”I knew it. It is in your power.”

Bertie pointed her sword at him. ”Even if the Theatre falls down around my ears, I'll never set you free-”

”Silence!” The way the Theater Manager said it made it so. ”When I gave you my permission to change things, I warned you this might happen!” His unprecedented ferocity lashed out against Bertie's anger and anxiety.

She returned his glower with a glare of her own. ”And you should have told me it was Ophelia who escaped! But we can trade blame and accusations later. Right now you have to tell me how to fix The Book.”

His right hand spasmed. ”I don't know the answer to that, Bertie.”

Her gaze slid immediately to the water-maiden, standing still and silent on the fringe of the gathered crowd. ”How did you get your page back into The Book before?”

Ophelia stepped forward to answer the summons, albeit reluctantly. ”I . . . I don't know.”

”Come now,” Bertie coaxed, struggling to keep her voice even and calm. ”Think back. You must remember your return.”

Ophelia bit her lip, eyes clouding as the darkest depths stirred. ”I . . . was in the lobby. The Stage Manager was there.”

”Why does that not surprise me?” Bertie wished she'd cut his ear all the way off and not just pierced it for him. ”Then what happened?”

Ophelia grasped Bertie's hand, her grip iron and ice. ”Everything was red with blood.”

”It took a blood sacrifice to get your page back in?” Bertie blanched at the idea.

The Stage Manager whimpered, no doubt fearful Bertie would put his head on the chopping block without a second's hesitation.

”And the page?” Bertie whispered.

”One minute I had it, the next it was gone.” Ophelia looked bereft, her next words no more than flower petals strewn on a grave. ”Do you doubt that?”

”What do you mean?” Bertie said with a frown. ”I don't doubt you, if that's what you're asking.”

”It's my first line in the play,” Ophelia said. ”I heard the words echo in my head, so I asked him that very question. . . .”

”She's forgotten what really happened, if she ever knew.” The Theater Manager shook his head. ”I don't know how her page was returned to The Book, or I would surely tell you how to fix this.”

The scrimshaw revealed the truth in his words to Bertie as the sun reflected on a still pond, but when she looked harder, the water wavered. Secrets swam under his surface; some were delicate things, no more than an air bubble breaking, while others were hard and dark and sharp. One of them jabbed at her as he said, ”I, too, wanted to be a playwright. But you already have more power over the written word than I ever did.”

”Not by choice.” Bertie stepped back before she could stop herself.

”No,” he said. ”Perhaps not. All the same, it's yours, and with it the responsibility. You are the only one with the ability to repair The Book, and you must do so with haste. I'm not sure how much longer your trees will keep this place standing.”

As though to ill.u.s.trate his point, another hunk of plaster slid down the wall of the auditorium and landed in the aisle. Whispers filled Bertie's ears: The Theater Manager. You're the only one with the ability. . . .

Ariel. I knew it. It is in your power.

Even her Mother, speaking to the Mistress of Revels about the stars in an infant girl's eyes. She'll have magic enough because of the cursed things.

Some unseen, golden scale tipped, and Bertie lifted her chin.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

She thought of Nate, and the ”Drink Me” bottle backstage, broken into smithereens, its power to change less potent than the determination already unfurling inside her. Variegated vines wrapped around her bones, steadying her, planting her feet in a stance favored by Commanding Generals and Pirate Captains. ”Do me one favor?”

”Yes?”