On This Unworthy Scaffold, Heidi Heilig [best books to read for success .txt] 📗

“Bring what back, exactly?” I say.

“The balance.” She reaches out to touch my hand, squeezing my fingers in her own. “We have plenty of death, but not enough life, and precious little knowledge.”

She looks like she’s about to say more, but just then, one of the musicians comes racing up to the stage with a grin on his face. “Ayla! Jetta! Come eat!”

At the announcement, I tense; had the king sent a meal? Did he have spies hidden in the theater—or among the performers? Was he watching us make our preparations? But Ayla pats my hand and follows the musician, and then I smell it: the scent drifting through the theater. There is no way this meal was prepared in an Aquitan kitchen.

Reaching the lobby, I see the feast laid out on the marble floor. Vegetable pancakes, curries, and a crispy fish to share—the flavors are both familiar and strange, as though the cook had to make do, but the dented brass platters and bowls remind me of home even more than the food. These dishes made the journey across the sea just as the rest of us did; they must have served many meals both there and here.

We sit cross-legged on the marble, like we all did at home. When everyone is done eating, I notice that all of us have left a little bit for the spirits, though I am the only one who can see them clustering. I watch them dip and swirl until the sound of a violin makes me turn.

My first wild thought is that it is Leo, but of course that’s impossible. No—one of the musicians, who came prepared with her long-necked erhu and her worn guzheng, has also brought a violin. Her hand is not as confident as his—she is clearly still learning the Aquitan instrument. But as she plays, I hear another song: the refrain of the melody Leo had been working on the past few weeks. Haunting and tentative as the notes reach for resolution. Has he finished it yet?

I am so lost in my reverie that I jump when I feel a tap on my shoulder. Ayla is there at my side, and she nods toward the stage. Turning, I see men coming in the loading door, their backs bent under burlap sacks that shift and rattle on their shoulders.

As the king’s servants had done with the fantouches from the salon, we bring the sacks full of bones to the stage. There is more space here, after all, and it will be easier to clean afterward. The bones themselves are old, stripped of flesh by worms and weather, and free of dirt. Still, there are so many to string together.

The puppeteers and I set to work, wiring the joints, stringing vertebrae like beads, arranging the tiny bones of feet and hands. It is painstaking work, but as Ayla said, art leaves its mark.

The work continues into the night. The others leave in small groups as they tire, but Ayla and I keep going till our fingers are raw and bleeding and the last bones are strung. Only then does she say her goodbyes, and I walk her, yawning, to the stage door.

“How can I repay you for your help?” I ask as she wraps her cloak around her shoulders, pulling her hood down to hide her face once more.

Her smile is even deeper than the shadows. “You can save me a seat.”

“Front row,” I promise, but she shakes her head.

“For this, I’d like to sit in the back,” she says. “The performance will be a sight to see, but I’m most interested in the audience’s reaction.”

“Me too,” I say fervently. She bows deeply, and I return the gesture. Then she starts off into the predawn light.

I squint at the sky—and the barest glimmer of dawn above the side street on the theater. Then I smother another yawn. I want nothing more than to leave as well—to go back to my rooms at the palais and the soft bed there. But I still have work to do.

On the stage, my fantouches wait, as lifeless as the dead. But in the theater, souls glimmer in the corners. So I return with bloody hands to the bones, and set to work building not an armée, but a cast.

Act 3,Scene 22

Under cover of night, AKRA stalks through the now-empty streets of Nokhor Khat. Though the bleeding has stopped, the bullet wound in his side still aches, as does the pain in his heart.

Although he saw fresh clothes in the costume shop, AKRA hasn’t bothered changing out of the bloody uniform. When he was a capitaine, a ruined shirt would have counted against him, but now it should only make it easier to slip in with the rest of the dead soldiers. Then he reaches the docks and curses. The pier is deserted, and the Prix de Guerre is already halfway out into the bay.

AKRA: Why can’t you keep your own damn timetable?

He kicks something toward the water—a muddy shoe, lost or discarded in the riot. The docks are littered with similar items: hats and handkerchiefs, broken bowls or bottles of wine. Something catches his eye—a little fantouche in the shape of a man. A children’s toy, too small for a stage, but carefully made, and lovingly worn.

Crouching, AKRA picks it up; the limbs of the puppet dangle from his hand, connected by black thread to slender sticks of bamboo. It is not unlike the toys he used to make for JETTA when she was small.

Setting the puppet down, AKRA gathers himself, gauging the distance across the dark water. The Prix de Guerre hasn’t yet reached the open sea—above the ship, steam floats in wispy tatters. It seems the soldiers were right about the ship being low on coal. Still, AKRA has never been a strong swimmer. He casts about the pier, but there are no boats left in the harbor.