look.”
Dougie. This was the guy whose incompetence had provided us with the clue to the door code. I physically turned to point this out to Ripley—then remembered that he hadn’t come with us. A ball of heat seemed to form in my chest.
“Um,” Dougie said. “This is a closed rehearsal.”
“I know, dude. It’s not a problem.”
Dougie looked dubious but nodded, and Rico clapped him on the arm. Then we followed him through the door.
The stage was a vast black deck a hundred feet from wing to wing and almost as deep. Devereaux was nowhere in sight; he must have finished his run-through while we were still on our tour. Rico looked relieved.
“Do you mind?” Dad said to Rico, gesturing toward the stage.
Rico glanced over his shoulder, then nodded reluctantly.
Dad stepped onto the stage and the lights spilled over him, blanching his skin and making the silk threads in his dark jacket shimmer. His face lit up and his eyes sparkled a deep blue. Despite our predicament, he was completely at ease, as if there was nowhere else he belonged. He strode to the apron and spread his arms wide as if to receive a standing ovation. He looked so natural onstage. For him, the real world required performance; only on the planks, under the lights, could he be his authentic self. He turned to me and reached out his hand, inviting me to join him. I shook my head; I needed to keep a level head right now. I couldn’t afford to lose my grip on the moment, no matter how good it might feel.
Higgins, meanwhile, was staring at the rigging overhead. No doubt he was looking for wires. Rico smirked, confident that any visible secrets would be inscrutable to him.
“My goodness,” a voice said. “It’s the Uncanny Dante.”
The voice was calm and low and seemed to issue from every direction at once; it was coming through the sound system. I looked around to see who was speaking, and then Daniel Devereaux stepped out from between the long drapes on the far side of the stage. My father turned, too, and at the sight of Devereaux, his whole body stiffened as if a thousand volts had just shot up his spine. Devereaux walked toward Dad. My face went numb. Was this really happening? I turned to Rico, who moved forward and tugged Higgins back into the wings.
“I saw you perform once,” Devereaux said, his voice no longer amplified by the sound system. “Years ago, at the Castle. Your Sub Trunk was flawless.”
My dad looked flabbergasted. “I’m . . . I admire your work very much.”
“Thanks,” Devereaux said. “That means a great deal coming from you.” I noticed Devereaux didn’t shake his hand. I wondered if he was a germophobe, or if he just didn’t want to risk injury from a fan’s overenthusiastic grip.
Devereaux’s eyes drifted to the wings, and when they found me, my stomach dropped out.
“Rico,” he said. “Introduce me to your friends.”
I heard Rico mutter a curse under his breath, but he covered it with a smile.
“This is Dante’s daughter, Ellie.”
Devereaux strode toward me, stopped, and looked down at me as if I were a mildly interesting zoo exhibit.
“Hi,” I said.
“It’s a pleasure.” Devereaux turned to Higgins. He squinted, seemed to recognize him, and his face took on a calm but exasperated expression. “Hello, Jif,” he said, sounding like a mother greeting her teenager’s delinquent friend. “How are you?”
Higgins looked like a cat about to be hit by a car. “Hi. Um, good.”
“Dougie,” Devereaux called. The guy with the headset appeared from the wings. “Grab me three blank nondisclosure forms from the office, would you?”
Dougie scuttled off to oblige.
Devereaux put his hands on his hips, shot Rico a look I couldn’t interpret, then glanced back at us as if unsure what to do next. Finally, he turned to Higgins.
“You deserve some credit, Jif.”
“What?” Higgins said.
“You’ve helped a lot of a performers retire with more than they would have otherwise. You probably don’t get thanked very often.”
Higgins’s eyes went wide. “Never, actually.”
“Well, that’s because you’re a giant pain in the ass.”
Higgins looked confused. Dad stifled a laugh. Now it was Rico who looked like the cat in the road.
Devereaux folded his arms. “I’m not selling, Jif. Never, ever, ever.”
Higgins’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. Thirty minutes ago, he had looked a kid on Christmas Eve; now he resembled an addict midintervention. He gave me a sort of oh, well look, and his message was clear: we had failed. I