Masks and Shadows

by Stephanie Burgis

  “Move!” Charlotte said. “I beg you. We are in desperate danger.”

  But it already seemed to be too late.

  None of the others would wake, despite all of their attempts. Von Born’s shouted instructions carried on throughout, growing angrier and more desperate. His own subordinates seemed not to be responding to him, either. It was the only source of satisfaction that Carlo could find in the whole nightmare.

  “It’s useless,” the Baroness said, at last.

  She stood over the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, whose face was red from slaps. Next to them, the Baroness’s former maid shook the shoulders of the Emperor, whose head rocked limply back and forth. The girl’s face was streaked with tears. She’d shown remarkable bravery, Carlo thought, but she wasn’t stupid; she must know by now how useless that, too, had been. Were these tears of fear, or of regret?

  “The others must not have fought so hard against Radamowsky’s mesmerism,” Carlo said.

  “The Princess, surely—”

  “The Princess had not experienced it once already, as we had. She must have been less prepared for it.” Carlo shrugged, swallowing bitterness. “I swore I wouldn’t give in this time, and yet . . .”

  “I did the same.” The Baroness sighed. “At least it was enough that we could be woken.”

  “So that we may stand and watch the fire overtake us? At least the others are saved that fate!” Carlo spun around. Rage coursed through him but found no outlet. The Prince, the idiot who had allowed and abetted this, was unconscious; Radamowsky . . .

  “Radamowsky could wake them,” he said.

  “But he’s gone.”

  “Then I’ll find him.” Carlo looked at the line of flames, nearly eight feet high, that filled the open door. He set his teeth and looked back at the two women. “I swear we will not die in this box!”

  “You’re . . . going . . . to . . . die.” The muscles in von Höllner’s forehead stood out with the intensity of his effort as he pressed Franz’s bleeding back against the hard wooden floor. “When I get my sword free . . .”

  “You can’t follow orders forever.” Franz tightened his grip on the other man’s arms, ignoring the agony in his back. “You let yourself be frightened into killing your friend. Wasn’t that enough?”

  “Don’t talk about Anton!” Von Höllner glared at him. “You have no right to talk about him!”

  “And you do?”

  “You stupid bloody actor. Anton was following you! That’s why we were out there! It was all because you stole that little actress he wanted.” Von Höllner’s face suffused with red. “It’s your fault that Anton’s dead!”

  Franz opened his mouth—then stopped himself. Perhaps it was too late, after all.

  He slammed his head forward, into von Höllner’s forehead. Pain bloomed, filling his vision, but he’d already started the motion of throwing his weight forward. Von Höllner went limp, for a fraction of a moment. It was long enough.

  They rolled backward, away from the pyramid’s point.

  Flames hissed and snaked across the stage.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Flames, suddenly alive with movement, crackled along the wooden frame of the royal box and caught on the velvet hangings within it.

  Charlotte gasped as she lunged forward, nearly tripping on her skirts. She pulled the Princess out of her seat by the wall and dragged her limp, heavy body to the center of the aisle. The smell of burning wood and velvet filled Charlotte’s senses as the fire abruptly shifted from a supernatural, distant horror to an all-too-real calamity.

  One of the velvet hangings sagged and fell, still flaming, over the open doorway.

  She scrambled forward, fighting to squeeze between the chairs to reach the Prince’s niece. A hand closed around her arm.

  “There’s no time!”

  Charlotte turned. Reflected flames lit Signor Morelli’s pale face as the fire spread along the wooden sides of the box.

  “We can’t leave them!” Charlotte said.

  “But we can’t carry them out. Not all of them. Not even most of them.”

  “But—”

  “Do you want to waste our time choosing two or three people to save? If we summon all the soldiers outside, we’ll give everyone a chance. They can bring buckets, water . . .”

  Charlotte nodded. Taking a deep breath, she hiked up her overskirt. She wouldn’t let propriety hold her back. Not anymore. She grabbed the top layer of her petticoats and ripped. In the corner of her vision, she saw Anna doing the same. They both emerged with long, wide strips of white cotton cloth.

  If she was going to die, then let it be while running for her life, not passively waiting for the flames to overcome her.

  Signor Morelli pulled off his jacket and lifted it over his head. “Go!”

  Charlotte wadded the cloth into a thick pad, wrapped it around her mouth and nose, and ran after him, straight into the flames that blocked the door.

  The heat was overwhelming. For a moment, she saw blackness as flaming sparks dropped from the doorway above her and landed in her hair, sizzling. Fire licked at her bare arms. She smelled burning powder . . .

  And then she was through. Hands caught her, in the sudden absence of heat, and beat against her. Cloth swept around her piled, powdered, burning hair.

  She dropped the cotton from her face and took a deep, painful breath. Coughing wracked her body. At last, she could open her eyes again.

  She stood in the stairwell, protected, for the moment, from the fire. Signor Morelli bent over Anna, beating the flames from her hair and gown just as he had for Charlotte. His clothes were blackened but his face unharmed. Charlotte took a deep breath and flexed her burned arms. The soft hairs on her forearms had been completely burned off; small patches of blisters, excruciatingly painful, marked her reddened skin where the burning drops had landed.

  She was alive.

  Signor Morelli straightened. His eyes met Charlotte’s for a brief, searing moment. She nodded, unable to speak. Shivers wracked her body, despite the blazing heat. She felt raw and strange, marked by the fire.

  She had come to Eszterháza to find herself. Somehow, despite everything, she thought she had finally succeeded.

  His shoulders relaxed.

  “Go,” he said. “Both of you, quickly! Summon help.”

  Anna started down the steps, her face grim and set. Charlotte hesitated.

  “What about you? What—” She stopped, blinking, as he pulled off his cravat and ripped it into strips. “What are you doing?”

  “Providing myself with a shield.” Face grim, Signor Morelli wadded up two of the pieces of cloth and tucked them into his ears. “I’m going to find Radamowsky,” he said. “And this time, I won’t be mesmerized into obedience.”

  The sight of the flames crackling into life among the audience made Pichler freeze for a moment. It was enough.

  Friedrich tore his arms free of the singer’s hold. He lunged to his feet and kicked out hard, catching the bastard on his face. Blood streamed out of Pichler’s nose. Friedrich looked down, panting, with fierce satisfaction. In the edges of his vision, flames leapt high, catching on wooden chairs . . . and people.

  “You see?” Friedrich said. “Look! They’re all going to die, because of you! You let it free.”

  Pichler’s voice was muffled behind the hand he’d lifted to his face. “But they can escape, now. The lines of the pyramid are broken.”

  “Escape?” Friedrich stared at him. “Escape?”

  Suddenly, tears were burning against his eyes. He’d raised his foot to kick the actor again, but he let it fall back to the ground. What was the point? He looked up. The leader of the Brotherhood had disappeared from his post above the royal box. Of course. On his way to wreak vengeance, no doubt. Friedrich’s shoulders sagged.

  “You still don’t see it, do you?” he said. “It’s too late for us. We’ll never escape.”

  They were halfway down the steps, running, when Charlotte re
alized the truth. She froze for a moment in pure horror. Then she began to run faster than she’d known she could.

  “Madam?” Anna called, as Charlotte overtook her. “What is it? What—”

  “Sophie,” Charlotte gasped. “Sophie!”

  Sophie, who shouldn’t have even been here tonight. Sophie, so willful and impossible to check. Sophie, whom Charlotte had nearly abandoned—again.

  She threw the heavy door open and barreled through the group of soldiers.

  “Fire!” she screamed. “Fire!”

  But she kept running, running around the turn in the front hall, down the corridor to the ground floor entrance.

  She prayed as she ran, hurtling through the words of the rosary with every moment that brought her closer to the flames.

  She prayed that she hadn’t failed her younger sister again.

  Carlo had snatched a sword from the entranced soldier who stood outside the royal box. Now he fought his way down through the Esterházys’ opera house with the weapon bumping awkwardly against his side.

  The supernatural fire had cut across the auditorium in twin lines of unmoving flame. Now flames caught and spread onto neighboring wooden chairs and the clothing of the people within. Carlo felt his way along the side of the auditorium as the fire spread inexorably outward from its original central triangle. Above him, the fire had already spread from the corners of the royal box down to the balcony. It spread along the roof above the auditorium, dripping flame onto the paralyzed guests below and catching on the velvet hangings that hung from the edges of the balcony. The smell of burning wood, paint and velvet mixed with smoke and the hellish stench of burning meat.

  The deaths had already begun.

  Nausea threatened to overwhelm him. He fought it down. He couldn’t drag each one of the still-breathing, helpless bodies out of the theater, but he could at least do his best to wake them all up and let them save themselves.

  Behind and above him, the sounds muffled by the wadded-up cloth in his ears, Carlo could faintly hear men’s raised voices, shouting orders. Help had arrived—and gone directly to the royal box, of course. He didn’t bother to look back to see if the soldiers had been in time to save the royal families.

  If Radamowsky had left after his betrayal, then all of Carlo’s hopes were for nothing and he would be proven useless indeed. But if the alchemist had stayed to witness the progress of his plan, as a prudent man might, he would have waited in concealment, either backstage or in the Chinese ballroom connected to the opera house.

  Gripping his borrowed sword, Carlo plunged through the door beside the stage, into darkness.

  “Of course we can escape,” the singer said. He blinked up at Friedrich from a blood-covered face. “There’s a door backstage that leads out to the grass. We—”

  “And then what? The bloody Brotherhood hunts us both down, or the Emperor tortures and executes us and they read our stupid letter, and they find out about everything, and—and . . .” Friedrich’s words dried up in his throat as he took in the other man’s expression.

  “What letter?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Friedrich said. “Nothing matters. I just . . .” He sighed and pulled out his sword. “If I kill you, I’ll have followed all their orders, so at least they can’t blame me. And after that . . .” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  The actor’s voice was bizarrely calm, almost curious. “Doesn’t anything matter to you anymore, lieutenant?”

  Friedrich stared at him. The fire was approaching across the stage, crackling along the dusted floor, creeping up the palm trees and painted wooden sets, and catching on the bottom of the curtains, but he couldn’t make himself care about any of it. His mind was occupied, turning the man’s question over and over. Doesn’t anything matter?

  His honor had mattered, when he was younger. His parents had raised him to be proud that he was a von Höllner, proud of what that name meant. But he had lost that consolation a week ago.

  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.”