Page 61 of Reap & Sow

“Don’t trust everything Wolfram says. He’s a politician, which is twat spelled backward. Anyhow, do you intend on breaking into the keep this very evening?”

“No, but—”

“Then don’t be dull. An hour longer in the city won’t hurt.”

She couldn’t believe his cavalier attitude. “They could be mistreating them right this minute. Beating them. Torture, even!”

“What a depraved mind you do have.” He pushed through the crowd. “The bishop might have been rough in his treatment of your kin, but now they’re under Martine Tenelle’s beady eye. By all accounts, she pisses honor, no? A woman like that won’t suffer needless brutality in her prisons.”

“Even if she thought forcing information out of them might protect innocents?”

He turned in place, walking backward. “That’s why I said ‘needless.’ Your brothers have no information Tenelle wants. She’ll figure that out quickly.” His expression turned eager. “Come. We’re almost there.”

Kit led her to one of the widest buildings on the street, tall and sagging under its own weight but solidly built. Its face curved outward like the rounded bow of a ship, replete with crisscrossing timbers. The doors were open. A crowd gathered there, being admitted by a youth taking coppers. Above, a painted sign read Maiden’s Lyre Playhouse.

It was familiar. She’d likely passed it before and never paid any attention. “A play?”

Her incredulous tone didn’t dissuade him. “You said you’ve never seen one. Don’t you want to?”

She hadn’t. She did. Eda bit her lip. “What if someone recognizes me?”

“You have the mantle. But we won’t be sitting with the riffraff anyway.” He held out a hand.

Accepting it, here in full view of everyone, felt weightier than the other times she’d done so. Kit wiggled his fingers.

This isn’t what you’re here for, that silky voice whispered. You cannot indulge selfish pleasures, Eda. You are better than that.

But Eda suspected she wasn’t. It was Mr. Night’s voice she heard whenever her thoughts turned to disdain and resentment—he had long been the one to feed them. How much had she not seen, not done, not allowed herself to feel, all in pursuit of his whispered words of praise? She’d held herself apart from her fellow man out of misplaced pride. But what did she have to show for it? Mr. Night had used her for his own ends, as he would any other mortal.

Then there was Kit. Eda saw understanding in his eyes—a fondness, if she dared label it such. She’d balanced on the edge of tears back under that bridge, and Kit had seen. Now he was doing something about it by means of distracting her. Eda did not want his pity, but she also sensed his eagerness. A rare and genuine excitement in sharing something he cared about with her. She wondered if he’d ever brought someone to a show before. If she was the first.

If he felt as lonely as she.

Eda wanted so badly to see this world as he did.

She took his hand. An hour, I can spare an hour.

Kit led her down the side of the playhouse. He shifted into a little black mouse and scurried over the threshold of a side door. A man with a powdered face and vibrant costume sat there, smoking a pipe. He didn’t notice Kit, and his eyes slid over Eda as if she’d been a mere breeze.

A thrill ran through her. She’d often lamented moving unseen about the world, but there was no denying the power in going unnoticed and unbothered. Maybe that was why Severin Lich conducted his affairs belowground.

Inside it was noisy, full of bustle and costumed actors muttering lines. They were in the wings, she realized. The pungent mixture of body odor, face powder, and animal hair fabrics was cloying. A long stage with drawn curtains hid the growing audience beyond. The atmosphere hummed like bottled lightning. How exciting!

Eda hardly knew where to look, but she couldn’t risk losing Kit. She hurried after him up a set of winding stairs.

A boy in a blushing pink dress clipped her shoulder and jerked, as though she’d appeared from nowhere. “Oi, you one of the seamstress’s ladies? You seen my wig?”

“No, sorry.”

“Shit.” He hurried away. A handbill fluttered in his wake. Eda picked it up.

Viola and the Viscount.

She glanced at Kit on the step above. “A comedy? I thought your tastes more refined.”

He bared little—and disconcertingly sharp—teeth at her, then scurried onward. At the top of the stairs, a narrow walkway hung suspended above the stage. Kit ran down the walkway and veered left, crossing an even narrower wooden beam that extended down the middle of the amphitheater…directly over the audience.

Eda’s stomach dropped. “No. Come back!” But her frantic whispers went unheard.