Read Chapter 10: The Missing Stagehand

The smell of dust and gaslight greeted Camille like an old friend as she slipped through the stage door of the Théâtre des Arts. The morning rehearsal was already underway—she could hear the muffled cadence of M. Fournier's voice barking directions from the pit—but something was wrong. The usual bustle backstage had thinned to a nervous quiet. Two chorus girls huddled near the costume rack, whispering, their eyes darting toward the wings.

Camille hung her coat on its usual peg, feeling the weight of the stolen envelope shift in the lining. She had grown used to its presence, that thin sheath of damning paper pressed against her ribs like a second heartbeat. She crossed to the makeup table and began unpinning her hair.

"What's happened?" she asked, catching the eye of Marguerite, the eldest of the chorus girls.

Marguerite glanced around before leaning close. "Étienne. He hasn't shown up for two days."

Camille's hands stilled. Étienne—the stooped, gentle stagehand who smelled of tobacco and old wood, who had once fixed her shoe buckle during a frantic costume change and never asked for thanks. He had been kind to her since her first week at the theatre, when she had tripped over a loose cable and he had caught her elbow with surprising steadiness.

"Two days?" Camille repeated. "He's never missed a call. He was here for the flood scene last month with a fever—"

"I know." Marguerite's voice dropped to a whisper. "The superintendent went to his lodgings this morning. His room is empty. Bed unslept in. His cat was mewing at the door."

An icy thread wound through Camille's stomach. She thought of the Baron's men—those two hard-faced figures she had glimpsed near the theatre three days ago, loitering by the alley entrance, watching the stage door with flat, patient eyes. She had dismissed them as creditors or petty thieves. Now she recalled the way one of them had looked at her, long and assessing, before turning away.

"Has anyone spoken to the police?" she asked.

Marguerite shook her head. "M. Fournier says stagehands vanish all the time. Runs off to the docks or the circus. But Étienne—" She stopped, biting her lip. "Étienne wouldn't leave his cat."

No, he wouldn't. Camille knew that cat—a scruffy orange thing Étienne had rescued from a gutter and fed with scraps from the theatre kitchen. He talked about it constantly, a softness creeping into his voice that his weathered face never showed.

She finished pinning her hair with mechanical movements, her mind racing. Étienne had been working late the night she crept into the Baron's study. She had seen him in the hallway outside the theatre's office wing, mop in hand, his face half-lit by a dim gas lamp. He had nodded at her—just a friendly nod—and she had nodded back, heart hammering, praying he hadn't noticed the flutter of her skirts as she slipped past.

But he had been near the Baron's office. Near the Baron's study. And now he was gone.

The rehearsal bell rang, and Camille moved to the wings as if through water. Her lines came automatically—she was playing a modest ingénue in a revival of a Scribe comedy, a role beneath her talent but above her station—and she delivered them with enough polish that M. Fournier didn't call her back. But her eyes kept drifting to the empty space where Étienne usually stood, adjusting the sandbag ropes or checking the fly system with practiced, absent care.

At the midday break, she found Julien in the prop room, sorting through a box of tarnished candlesticks. He looked up as she entered, and something flickered in his eyes—wariness, or perhaps hope. Their last conversation had ended with her denying everything, lying to his face while the stolen envelope burned against her heart.

"Étienne is missing," she said without preamble.

Julien's hand paused over a candlestick. "Missing?"

"Gone two days. His lodgings are empty. No one's seen him since—" She hesitated, then pressed on. "Since three nights ago. I saw the Baron's men near the theatre that same day."

Julien set down the candlestick slowly. His face had gone careful, the way it did when he was weighing information against suspicion.

"I haven't seen him either," he said. "But Étienne doesn't move in the Baron's circles. Why would his men be interested in a stagehand?"

Camille swallowed. The lie sat heavy on her tongue, but she could not tell him the truth—that she had been in the Baron's study that night, that she had stolen something, that Étienne might have seen her and been questioned. If she admitted that, she would have to admit everything. And she could not afford to lose Julien's knowledge, not now, not when the Baron's shadow was closing in.

"I don't know," she said instead. "But Étienne was working near the Baron's office that night. I saw him."

Julien's eyes sharpened. "What were you doing near the Baron's office?"

The question hung in the dusty air. Camille felt the weight of the envelope against her ribs, a physical presence, an accusation.

"Serving," she said quickly. "The Baroness had sent a note requiring a response. I delivered it to the household staff." It was a weak lie, full of holes, but it was the best she could manage.

Julien studied her for a long moment. She could see him turning the pieces over—her evasions, her sudden rise in the Baron's circle, the way she had refused to confirm whether she'd seen forged documents. He knew she was hiding something. The question was whether he would press her.

"Étienne was a good man," he said finally. "Quiet. Kept to himself. But he noticed things." He paused. "I asked him once, a month ago, if he'd seen anyone unusual in the Baron's household. He said the Baron kept his secrets close, but secrets have a way of breathing through the walls."

Camille's blood went cold. "You asked him to spy."

"I asked him to watch." Julien's voice was flat. "The Baron's railway scheme has destroyed families. Mine nearly among them. If Étienne saw something that could help me prove it—"

"Then the Baron's men took him." Camille's voice cracked. "And it's my fault. If I hadn't been there that night—"

She stopped herself, but the words hung in the air anyway.

Julien stepped closer. "What happened that night, Camille?"

She wanted to tell him. The truth bubbled up in her throat—the locked door, the hidden envelope, the Baroness's lies about her dead son, the list of payoffs that could topple a government. But if she told him, she would have to surrender the envelope, her only leverage, the only thing standing between Lucien and Marcel Bonnet's men. And Julien might use it recklessly, and then the Baron would know she had stolen it, and Étienne—

Étienne might already be dead because of her.

"I served dinner," she said. "I saw nothing."

Julien's jaw tightened. "You're lying."

"You've accused me of that before." She met his eyes, willing steel into her voice. "I don't have to prove anything to you. But Étienne—if he's in danger, we need to find him. Not argue about old suspicions."

Something shifted in Julien's face—a crack in his certainty. "The Baron has a country property near Fontainebleau. A hunting lodge, isolated. I've heard rumors that inconvenient people are taken there for questioning." He paused. "It's a long ride, but I know the way."

"Then we go tonight." The words came out before Camille could think them through. "After the performance. I'll meet you at the stage door."

Julien raised an eyebrow. "You're willing to ride to Fontainebleau in the dead of night to find a stagehand?"

"I'm willing to ride to Fontainebleau to find out if the Baron killed him because of what I did." Her voice was quiet, raw. "I owe him that much."

For a long moment, Julien said nothing. Then he nodded, slowly, a new understanding passing between them—not trust, not quite, but something that could grow into it.

"Midnight," he said. "Bring warm clothes. And Camille—if you're hiding something that puts us both in danger, I'll find out. One way or another."

Camille turned and walked out of the prop room, her hands trembling, the stolen envelope pressing against her heart like a warning. Tonight she would ride toward the Baron's hunting lodge with a man who suspected her, toward a truth she was terrified to face, toward the possibility that her lies had already cost a good man his life.

And somewhere in the wings, unseen, a shadow moved—a silhouette she almost recognized, watching her leave.