Chapter 13 · The Address in Red

The phone was still pressed to Maeve’s ear when every light in Saint Veyre Theatre turned red.

Not dim. Not flickering. Red.

The color flooded the balconies, the torn velvet curtains, the dust hanging above the stage. It painted Eli’s blood-blackened face in the same feverish glow as Henry Bell’s eyes. Somewhere beneath the floorboards, Celia Vane continued to sing. Her voice rose through the theater in a thin, beautiful thread, each note bending the air around it.

“Mom?” Maeve said.

Static answered first. Then came the soft scrape of a knife against a cutting board.

Her mother breathed into the receiver. “Maeve, darling, don’t come home.”

Maeve’s fingers tightened around the phone. “Where are you?”

A burner clicked.

“In the kitchen.”

“Get out of the house.”

“I tried.” Her mother’s voice trembled, but not with panic. With concentration. As if she were reading something printed just beyond Maeve’s sight. “The back door opens into the pantry. The pantry opens into the hall. The hall opens into the kitchen.”

Maeve went cold.

That was not how doors worked.

“Mom, listen to me. Leave through a window. Break it if you have to.”

“I can’t break the window.