The curtain fell to surround the entire stage, and only after it completely hid the cast members from view of the audience did lights snap back on over the stage. They weren’t harsh like spotlights, but more ordinary lighting, signifying that they were in an Intermission. Delilah breathed a sigh of relief. They’d made it through the first Act unscathed.
“Uh, how do we get backstage?” Alice asked, looking around. “The curtain’s blocking all the exits.”
“Two separate ones,” came the chilling, imposing voice of Sen. Delilah watched as two doors appeared in the center of the stage, and the Sons of Night with Jormungand went through the one on the left, vanishing from sight.
“Wait, that’s it?” Alice asked, glaring. “Come back here! I have a lot of words for you punks!”
“Save them for the next Act,” Maribelle said. “Come, Intermissions are limited in time.” She pulled out a large pocket watch. “We’ll have forty-seven — ah, sorry — in Earth time, we’ll have twenty minutes. We must use it wisely.”
“So through the door we go!” Isabelle said, starting forward. Delilah and the others followed, passing through the door into a brand new room. The lights were dimmer here, but not unpleasantly so, and what was actually a very large room felt more compartmentalized and smaller, owing to a vast array of furniture, racks of clothing, desks, mirrors, props, and set pieces scattered all over, loosely organizing their backstage area into several different sections.
“What was the problem you guys were talking about before?” Delilah asked.
“We need to play to the audience, not just to whatever we like,” Isabelle said. “They’re judging us silently, but you can feel it if you pay attention.”
“That’s what hurt Alice’s duel with Sen,” Maribelle said. “For action scenes, it seems it’s important to follow the rhythm of the music, to play into the song being played.”
“And I was so cool, too,” Alice said with a sigh, flopping onto a couch and staring at the high ceiling.
“You were!” Isabelle said, taking a seat across from her, looking at Alice with wide, excited eyes. “I didn’t know you could do all those cool flips and jumps and stuff!”
“You’re not so bad yourself, kid,” Alice said with a smirk. “You’ve got some serious acting skills.”
“It would have helped you if you’d sang, too, though,” Isabelle said, tapping her chin. “Sen kind of dominated that scene, partly because he was the only one who sang.”
“I told you, I can’t sing,” Alice said, frowning.
“You’re sure you can’t?” Isabelle asked, leaning forward. “Come on, try.”
“Nope,” Alice said, rolling onto her side to face away from Isabelle. “You’re not luring me into that.”
“But I wanna know for sure,” Isabelle said. “It’s important.”
“You know for sure,” Alice said. “Because I said so, and I know.”
“Because I said so, and I know.”
Alice sat up with a start, and Delilah’s eyes widened. Isabelle’s mouth had been the one that had moved, but…
“That was my voice!” Alice said, staring at Isabelle.
Isabelle grinned. “That was my voice!” the little girl said, with a perfect imitation of Alice’s voice, tone, and inflections.
“Holy cow, kid,” Alice said, sitting back. “You can copy people’s voices?”
“Only if they’re similar enough to mine,” Isabelle said in her own voice. “So only girls, and not girls with lower or grittier voices, I can’t handle those. Mari’s and Sara’s are hard, too, because they’re so elegant. But yours is right in my range.”
“What about Delilah?” Alice said, grinning.
“Hey, wait, hold on a minute,” Delilah said, waving her hands frantically.
“Hey, wait, hold on a minute!” Isabelle said in Delilah’s voice, grinning along with Alice.
“That is so cool!” Alice said. “You’re not so bad after all, squirt.”
“You wouldn’t be so bad if you’d stop calling me that,” Isabelle said, pouting. “Especially since I’m gonna be your singing voice.”
“That’s why you started showing off?” Alice asked. Isabelle nodded, and Alice laughed. “Fine, then, you’re not a squirt,” she said. “Oh, I’m gonna have to get used to hearing my voice actually sing well.”
“Let’s not waste too much time,” Marcus said. “There’s plenty here we can use. Everyone take a look at sets, props, and costumes, and see what looks worthwhile. And also do as much as we can to explore this place in the time we have. We need to find clues to restore the Revue Palace from this broken, Lost version of it.”
“Probably find the Daybreak Engine and restart it, right?” Alice said. “Piece of cake.”
“The Revue Palace wasn’t so simple,” Maribelle said. “It uses a Daybreak Engine rather than a Light Catcher, yes, but this was once the Prime Bastion, a role the Library of Solitude now occupies. It was one of the first Bastions, and it’s inner workings are… complex. I don’t think even Mother entirely knew how it functioned.”
“This is the Lost of the Lost,” Marcus said. “It’s still affecting our memories, and until it’s restored we may never remember what we once knew of it.”
“That all sounds way too complicated,” Alice said. “Let’s just win the Revue, right?”
As the conversation went on, Delilah wandered through the vast backstage area, marveling at the variety of costumes and sets, props and accessories. So much was well-maintained, in excellent condition save for the occasional layer of dust. There was a beauty to this place, mingled with a sense of being haunted, a melancholy nostalgia.
There’s so much history here. This place… it’s ancient, isn’t it? Older than any other Bastion or Location I’ve been to by so much.
And it’s all been forgotten.
No wonder it feels so sad, just being here, seeing this, touching it, taking it all in.
Her Felines wandered with her, and Reginald in particular seemed most curious and interested in all there was to see. He was also the smallest of the Felines, not even half as tall as Delilah, and he often went under tables and racks of clothing while others had to go around.
The conversation grew very faint, but Delilah didn’t pay it any mind. She was supposed to be exploring, so there was no harm in her breaking away from the group. The more spread out they were, the more ground they could cover.
And Delilah was pulled, curiosity tugging at her, keeping her moving forward without a thought for anything else but discovery.
Suddenly, Reginald ducked under a low shelf, vanishing from sight. Delilah could feel his surprise, his interest, could feel how he’d discovered something different from everything before. She examined the shelf unit, something she couldn’t go around, and the space Reginald had slipped under was too small even for her. But she soon found it wasn’t very heavy. With Nekoma’s help, the shelf unit slid aside easily, revealing a short, hidden hall that led to a stairway descending out of sight. Reginald stood at the top of the stairs, looking back at Delilah expectantly.
Delilah paused, not immediately following, so she could listen.
There was a voice.
It was faint, coming from a long way off — somewhere far down the stairs, she thought. It was a woman’s voice, and she was crying.
But then she was laughing.
And then crying again.
“Be cautious,” Delilah said softly, stepping forward. Slowly, she descended the stairs, lit on either side by round, flickering white lights. Every step, the voice became more audible, growing closer. And there was something strange about it. Delilah could swear it was a single voice, the voice of one woman, and yet sometimes that voice overlapped with itself — crying and laughing at the same time, not like some people sometimes do, when laughter brings them to tears, but as if there were two women with the exact same voice, one crying, one laughing, each at their own rhythms and intervals.
There was a light now, far below, and when Delilah reached it, she reached the bottom of the stairs.
The narrow stairway opened up into a dome, in which was a small, circular stage, like a one-tenth scale version of the massive stage that Delilah and her team had been performing on. A lone, flickering spotlight shone down on a woman in the center, while much of the stage around her was shadowed and hard to see.
Delilah stood at the entrance to the dome, staring in amazement at the woman. She was tall — three times as tall as Delilah, and even though Delilah was small for her age, that still made this woman a fair amount taller than anyone she’d ever met. And she was a breathtaking, ethereal woman, clearly something magical, neither Human nor Enchanted. Her skin was stark white, shimmering like actual porcelain in the flickering light, and her face was like a dramatic mask, long and drawn into a visage of beautiful sorrow, tears tracking gently down her cheeks like milky white stars, while scarlet hair cascaded down her shoulders, melding with her dress like paint onto a canvas, flowing cloth of scarlet and azure and pearl. Her arms were bare from shoulder to elbow, at which midnight blue gloves started, all the way down to her hands, which were adorned on the wrists with gold and silver bangles glittering with gemstones.
The woman was standing, but she was bent, her shoulders slumped, her back bowed, lending weight to the sorrowful expression on her masklike face. She wept with soft, broken sobs, punctuated by sudden dramatic gasps of anguish.
Delilah opened her mouth to speak, but was stopped as a voice — the woman’s voice — spoke first.
“It seems we have a visitor,” she said. But the woman’s mouth didn’t move, and she kept weeping, so this voice, this exact match for the woman’s voice, must be coming from someone else. That second, identical voice laughed, a gleeful sort of cackle that cut off suddenly. “Ah, but we aren’t in the spotlight. We must take the stage, or how can she see us in all our glory?” Another cackle, and then a second woman glided into the spotlight.
She was nearly identical to the first, in her height, her masklike face, her ethereal and alien beauty. But her colors were different — hair black as night, blending into a feathery dress of deep blacks and purples. Her long gloves were violet, her wrists adorned with gleaming white bangles that dangled with moon- and star-shaped charms from thin black chains.
And her masklike face was different. Long and warped like her twin, it was instead twisted into a wide, grotesque grin, eyes like giddy slits. She continued to laugh right alongside her twin’s weeping.
“Are you —” Delilah started, reaching out her hand.
“All right?” the cackling woman asked, laughing as if finishing Delilah’s sentence was the funniest thing in the world. “Don’t worry about her, love, she’s a mess. In mourning, she is, and there’s nothing you or I can think to do for it.”
“Mourning over what?” Delilah asked. “Who… are you two?”
“Two?” the laughing woman asked, looking to her twin and then back at Delilah. Her movements were exaggerated and dramatic. “Whatever are you looking at, child?”
“Who, uh…” Delilah hesitated, confused. “Um… who are you?”
The laughing woman cackled, shuddering all over with her laughter. “Who are we indeed, love, who are we indeed?”
“I am Etude,” said the weeping woman, lifting her head to look at Delilah.
“I am Nocturne!” said the cackling woman, spreading her arms wide in a spotlight-ready pose.
“I am Revue!” the women said in perfect unison.
Suddenly, both women bent forward, holding their masklike faces in their hands. “Revue…” they said, still in unison. “Revue…” They shook their heads, shuddering. “Revue… Palace…? No!” Both suddenly arched their backs, gazing up at the flickering spotlight above. “Drowned! All Drowned! Drowned Palace! No, no, no!” They were frozen, like statues, for three long seconds. Then, suddenly, they slumped forward, Nocturne’s head bobbing back and forth as she chuckled softly, Etude’s head slumping deeper as she quietly sobbed.
“Revue…” Etude said. “Revue… Drowned… why does that sound so wrong? Why does the other… no, it can’t be the other. Why is…?”
“This place was the Revue Palace,” Delilah said. “But you’re… you’re struggling to remember.”
“Remember!” Nocturne cried, shuddering with giddy laughter. “Memory, lost, lost it was, lost it is, love! Ah, the girl sees so much. To think we forgot!”
“Stay away,” Etude said, putting up a hand as a shield between her and Nocturne. “You are poison. Poison, infected, the loss of the Palace, of Revue… Revue…” She sobbed dramatically, bending even lower, her face only a few feet from the floor now.
Infected? Poison?
Delilah looked around, peering into the shadowy areas outside of the spotlight’s flickering glow. And then she saw it, and her eyes went wide.
Pools. Small, shallow pools of inky black living darkness. They bubbled gently, rippled softly, blending into the shadows, staying quiet to hide behind Etude’s weeping and Nocturne’s laughter.
Madness for one, grief for the other. But why? Who are they, really?
“What is this place to you?” Delilah asked. “Why are you here when everyone else is gone?”
Nocturne burst out laughing. “As if we could ever leave!” she crowed, burying her face in her hands. For a moment, it was as if the mask faded, and she was grieving as deeply as Etude. But it was the briefest of glimpses before the mask returned, and Delilah wondered whether she’d even seen it at all.
“Is this your home?” Delilah asked.
“Was, was, was,” Etude said, shaking her head back and forth, back and forth, milky white tears scattering, gleaming, to the floor. “Now poisoned, infected, infested. The dark ones came, and no one was here to help us. No light, no Daybreakers. All gone, abandoned us, left us, forsook us.”
“Who needs the light, love?” Nocturne asked with a giggle. “The night, that’s what we can look to. The light forsook us, so forsake them! We don’t need them.”
“She needs the light more than any,” Etude said, holding up her hand once more as a shield between her and Nocturne. Looking closely, Delilah saw the same liquid darkness that pooled here and there around the stage also dripped from Nocturne’s fingertips, leaked off of the hem of her dress.
The darkness didn’t just take this place. It took her. So Nocturne’s lost to madness, and Etude mourns for her, but can’t do anything for her.
“Daybreakers…” Does she mean Paladins?
I’m… sort of a Paladin, right?
“Do you know how the Palace can be restored?” Delilah asked. “Do you know how we can turn it from the Drowned Palace to the Revue Palace?”
“Drama, love,” Nocturne said, giggling. “Put on a show! Let the whole world know!”
“What are you?” Etude asked, leaning forward, gazing at Delilah with unblinking, masklike eyes. “Human, yet…”
“Human?” Nocturne asked, gazing with Etude. “Human, are you? That’s a very nice bracelet you’re wearing, for a little Human girl.”
Delilah clutched her bracelet, the Sub-Paladin bracelet from Marcus. “It was a gift,” she said. “I… think I can help you. If you’ll only tell me how.”
“Time is short,” Etude said, shaking her head. “Light. Light we need.”
“Light is useless!” Nocturne cried. “What good has it done us? What good can it do us?” She crowed with laughter. “Light’s a traitorous farce! Bring back the crowds, bring back the music, the dancing, the drama! Forget the light.”
“Every show needs light,” Delilah said. “Spotlights to highlight the actors, special lights to add color and atmosphere… you can’t have the music, the dancing, or the drama without light, right?”
Nocturne laughed, but it was surprisingly subdued. “The girl knows something, does she?”
“Revue must be made whole,” Etude said, and then gasped with anguish. “We must… please, make her whole. Healing… light is healing… but light must be promised, and it must not break its promise… not again…”
“Promises are made to be broken, love,” Nocturne said. “Got our hopes up, that’s what did us in. Lack of self-reliance!”
“No one can get by all alone,” Delilah said. “Especially when this is your home… you need the crowds, and you need actors, don’t you? But you lost all of that when this place was forgotten. A promise… you need a promise, and light…”
A realization was dawning on her, when a bell suddenly chimed.
“No!” Etude cried, burying her face in her hands. “Too soon! We finally found something! Some light to grasp at!”
Nocturne cackled with glee. “Pathetic! Taking hope from a child? You’ve gotten too lost in your grief. Take the darkness, love. It washes all the tears away. All the… all the tears…” She suddenly bent over, and Delilah thought she saw again that briefest of glimpses of grief beneath the laughing mask. But it was gone in a blink, and Nocturne giggled, bobbing her head from side to side. “The Drowned Palace! It’s a beautiful…” But she trailed off, letting the unfinished phrase linger in the air.
“Go, child,” Etude said, waving a hand towards Delilah. “Your time to take the stage has returned. But please… do come back. There is still hope for this place. Please…”
“I’ll be back,” Delilah said, loud and clear, a determined gleam in her eyes. “So please, don’t lose hope.”
She turned then, leaving Etude and Nocturne behind, rushing up the stairs.
Daybreakers…
A promise from the light…
Make Revue whole again…
An idea was taking shape in Delilah’s mind. She needed to talk to the mysterious, otherworldly pair again to confirm her suspicions, and she wouldn’t have a lot of time. Three Acts, two Intermissions.
She’d only get one more chance.
And she had to survive this next Act, one where the Sons of Night and Jormungand would undoubtedly be throwing all they had at her and her team.
I’ll be back.
And I’ll make sure you get exactly what you need.