Oasis: Origin Phase Cycle, #3

Chapter 1

Quintus roscius gallus, star player at the Palatine Theatre, stood at Alyse Enkros’s towering doorway, hesitating before he knocked. He despised this sort of thing—begging for alms, he thought—but it was necessary in order to keep the Palatine going in the high style it was famous for.

Without the support of the isands in Astor City, his theater would be just another mundane venue. Just another run-of-the-mill stage with the requisite competent but uninspired robot actors, a repertoire of mildly interesting stock plays, and a pleasant but utilitarian atmosphere.

The exact opposite of the Palatine, whose lush appointments, house company of exceptional actors—all robots, since humans hadn’t appeared in live performances in centuries, if they had ever done—seductive atmosphere, and of course the presence of Q. Roscius Gallus himself made it the premiere theater in this—or perhaps any—hemisphere.

Quintus looked down at the odd item in his hands—a handwritten letter. He’d been startled when he’d received it the day before, never having seen a letter, and certainly not a handwritten one, before. If Alyse had gone to this much effort to summon him, he knew he had to appear when she’d suggested.

Although he ordinarily wouldn’t have left the theater building that day, since he was to perform as Sayt in Inferno that night, and he needed to prepare for the demanding role, needed to be alone as he always was the day of a performance.

He brushed his heavy, dark blond hair back from his face, straightened his shoulders, and knocked twice. Felt the luxurious paper in his hand. It seemed to have an energy unlike any other object he’d ever held. But of course that was an illusion. He’d been mesmerized by the handwriting, that anyone could do such a thing, and he’d thrown that fascination onto the object itself.

He waited, but unlike the stereotypical robot, Quintus was not at all patient. He knocked again.

The door opened. Standing inside on the sea of black-and-white tiles was a woman he didn’t know. She had wavy brown hair falling just below her shoulders, olive skin, and intense green-yellow eyes. She looked up at Quintus, who was nearly a foot taller than her, and as she did, something unfamiliar washed through his body. He shook it off with partial success.

Yes, she said.

Q. Roscius Gallus, he said. Here for Alyse Enkros, he added, since he had to remind himself why he was there, why he wanted to see Alyse when what he wanted to do instead was reach over and rearrange the strand of hair that had fallen onto the forehead of the woman he was speaking to.

Her eyes were like a cat’s, he thought. He kept his hands at his sides, then showed her the letter.

Come in, she said. Alyse’s waiting in the study.

The two of them walked through the vast entryway. Tall windows flanked the wide hallway, and Quintus ignored the views. He’d seen them before—the distant mountains to his right and the wild-grown garden to his left. His focus was on the woman in front of him.

There was nothing terrifically special about her, he thought, yet he couldn’t—didn’t want to—stop contemplating her. She could play Amaryllis, he thought, although Celandifer, who’d always played Amaryllis, was far more beautiful and enticing than the rather ordinary-seeming woman walking in front of him down the glassed-in corridor.

Yet he despised Celandifer in a way that he’d never even disliked anyone else, and he was somehow drawn to this unknown woman. As though a power outside himself were bringing them into proximity. As though he were destined to meet her. As if that were possible.

He shook his head to displace such thoughts.

At the end of the corridor, she led him into the room where Alyse always saw him—her study, whose panoramic view of the mountains outside Astor City was both stunning and calming.

Alyse herself was, as always, in an isand box, the walls translucent, since she knew Quintus and apparently felt relatively comfortable in his presence.

The woman who’d taken him into the room turned to leave.

Stay, Quintus said. It was an impulse, a reflex almost. He didn’t know why he’d said it. She had to stay. He needed her there, although he didn’t know the reason for that, either.

Please leave, Alyse said to the woman, and she left.

But she turned on her way out and looked at Quintus, who returned her gaze.

Who is that? Quintus asked after she’d gone.

I asked you here today for a reason, Alyse said. Please, sit down.

Quintus folded his tall, muscular frame into a huge sofa upholstered in hundred-color paisley. He glanced at the doorway as he sat.

She’s the scribe, Alyse said. I have her do all my correspondence.

I didn’t know there were any scribes, Quintus said. I thought—well, only in plays, in fabulas, he said.

She’s the only one, I think, Alyse said. Dead art, as many of them are—yet very useful. Private.

I might have a job for her, Quintus said on impulse. He had no such job, but he needed to see this woman, talk with her. He needed to commune with her, he thought. Commune. Why did he think that?

He wasn’t sure why he did, but he knew it with a passionate certainty that exceeded his most passionately performed roles, the ones he was most famous for, the ones that took the hardest toll on him. The ones that kept the Palatine’s boxes packed to capacity.

Tell her to come to the performance tonight, Quintus said. I’ll speak with her afterward.

Yet he never spoke with anyone after a performance, particularly after portraying Sayt, one of the most taxing roles in the company’s repertoire.

But he would speak to the scribe. He was compelled to.

Chapter 2

Quintus roscius gallus, the scribe thought. In the flesh. If flesh was what you called the corpus of a robot. She shivered as a thrill streaked through her spine.

She sat outside on a low bench in the wild garden, which was Alyse’s sanctuary. Alyse herself had designed it and tended it, and it was a product of the odd isand’s energies and interests.

Odd, because unlike most isands, Alyse didn’t live in Torni but instead her house was out here past the borders of Astor City proper, so far away from both other isands and the rest of the population that the location didn’t appear on any Astor City map.

The scribe sensed that Alyse would live still farther away from others if she could have arranged it. Even though the scribe had worked for Alyse for a few months on several different projects, Alyse always remained in her isand box while she spoke with the scribe.

Alexander would pick up the scribe and bring her here. There was no other way to do it, since the scribe didn’t own a PV and no public transport stopped anywhere near here, wherever here was.

She didn’t like being at anyone else’s mercy, but she did like the work, and she needed it.

Years ago, when her grandmother had told her she was to be the next scribe, she’d refused. She didn’t want to be a scribe.

"What do you want to be?" her grandmother had said.

I haven’t decided yet, she’d said.

She was three years old, and she hadn’t decided on anything other than what her favorite color was, although that decision changed from day to day. The day she became a scribe, her favorite color had been lavender. She remembered that even now, although it was no longer her favorite color.

You are the next scribe, her grandmother had said. And you must start now. There’s no other way.

What was her favorite color now? she wondered. Blue, she decided. The blue of Quintus Roscius Gallus’s sea-blue eyes.

She wanted to stare into them, merge with them. As if the most famous, charismatic actor of her time would even want to have a meaningless conversation with her, much less gaze at her in the way she was inexplicably yearning to gaze at him.

She’d never wanted to gaze at anyone. She certainly didn’t want to stare at . . . Not after the devastation that she never allowed herself to think about. It was better to be alone, as she was supposed to be anyway, until . . .

That was the life of a scribe—solitariness and contemplation. They were necessary to the perfection of her art, a perfection she’d never achieve, but she’d had glimpses, and she hoped for more.

That Q. Roscius Gallus had been at the door when she was there.

He was more than the magical, magnetic presence that everyone who’d seen him perform said he was. And he hadn’t been performing—he’d just been standing there, holding the letter she’d written to him for Alyse.

If he would’ve taken her in his arms, she would have given herself to him.

She shook her head in disbelief at her own imaginings, wilder than the wildflowers in the field in front of her.

Her hands had been on the letter he held—she’d created it—and when she saw his hands on it when she opened the door, a connection had formed in her mind—a connection that wasn’t there, she reminded herself.

Not only would Q. Roscius Gallus not be interested in her, a very ordinary-looking person—and he was always in the midst of the extraordinary-looking females of the Palatine company—but she was certain that actors were not allowed to have relationships with anyone outside the theater. Even those within the theater were merely tolerated, but not encouraged.

At least that’s what she’d heard. None of the actors she knew about were involved with anyone, much less with a human, even less so with a person such as herself, remarkable only because she was the only living scribe, a profession she’d fought hard to avoid, but which, as it turned out, had been unavoidable.

It’s your fate, her grandmother had said. As it was mine. Embrace it, girl. Your life, your work, your name. You are the scribe, as I’ve been for nearly a century.

Last night, when she’d gotten back from a job she’d done for Sallie Beckwith, an isand who lived in Torni in a near-palace, the scribe’s nightly writing had said: If this is all, then I must find something else. I keep myself from knowing my own desires. Perhaps that’s safer. I cannot risk love. I cannot overcome my own fate. Or the promise. Yet Sallie Beckwith, an isand, spoke with me in person. She wasn’t in a box. She shook my hand. We ate lunch together. She’s getting married. I’ve never heard of an isand getting married. And to a robot. She’d broken away. Where is the courage I need?

She used a precious piece of paper for this every evening. Using her favorite pen, her favorite darkest blue ink, which she made herself, she wrote down her thoughts from the day. With her own hand. Something only she could do, since no one else knew how to handwrite. Only her. The only living scribe.

The scribe: her life, her work, her name.

And last night, as she did every night when she was finished writing her thoughts, she burned the paper to ashes and washed them into the drain.

On nights when she wrote her most dreaded fears, she released the ashes into the air, as though this would cause her fears to disperse, as though reducing something to its burnt-down parts and scattering them to the ethers would make it disappear.

In the hallway, she heard footsteps, then heard the front door open and close. She sighed out her held breath after hearing the latch engage.

Q. Roscius Gallus was gone. She imagined him walking across the path to his pale yellow PV, which she’d glimpsed when she’d answered the door. She imagined herself riding away with him, leaving behind her life and maybe her very self.

How foolish. She’d certainly never see him again no matter what she might imagine. That she’d met him at all was an accident, an unusual coincidence. She wasn’t supposed to’ve been at Alyse’s today.

She told herself to forget about him, to stop thinking about him, to stop feeling his presence streaming through her.

Q. Roscius Gallus himself. Not an idea of what the renowned actor might look like, since she would never have seen him perform, and not an image, but the very person, the very robot himself.

Was his acting as exciting as his mere presence had been? If so, no wonder he was so famous.

She shook her head, pulled a hair away from her forehead, put her hands on the seat of the unpolished stone bench.

She’d been promised—and the devastation would be unbearable. As it was, she was living on a swath of brittle ice. She dared not disturb it.

Yet later, when Alyse told her that Quintus had invited the scribe to the Palatine for the performance that very evening and that he had a job for her, she didn’t hesitate in her acceptance.

Even as she heard the ice cracking beneath her.

Chapter 3

Quintus drove around for an hour before going back to the theater. He enjoyed the time he spent by himself in his small PV, which had room for just himself and one passenger. Although he rarely had a passenger and seldom wanted one.

He hadn’t agreed to Alyse’s request—that his company perform outdoors on a stage she’d offered to build for him in Crichton Park so that everyone else, as Alyse had said, when what she meant was an audience other than just isands, could see a live play.

He told her he’d think about it, that he’d speak with the other players and see how they felt, what they thought. He was pretty sure they’d refuse.

Performing outside of the protective surround of the Palatine Theatre? In the outdoors? To anyone who might attend? It seemed impossible.

Alyse’s request had startled him. Coming from an isand who even in her own house was forever in one of those damnable boxes, keeping her distance from any other being, he hadn’t thought she’d be at all interested in everyone else. It seemed more like she’d be interested in keeping those everyones far away from herself.

But he’d noticed that lately something about Alyse had been different. Not just because her box was more translucent than usual, but because it was positioned a bit closer to the sofa where he’d sat. And she’d smiled several times, as though she had a tremendous piece of secret news she was just dying to tell him about, only she wouldn’t.

Or as though she’d gotten laid.

Maybe that was it, Quintus thought. Sex was known to do that to people—give them a different energy, new interests, and a kind of liveliness that without it they couldn’t summon. A sort of happy smugness. A relaxed yet radiant self-possession.

He himself had forgotten. Actors were forbidden to have sex—celibacy was part of the life of the theater. Actors’ passions and sexual urges were reserved for their performances. Any erotic expression off the stage was not just a break with tradition and a waste of their talents but an insult to the other performers and a slight to the audience.

Especially at the Palatine, where the performances were expected to—and did—deliver an emotional experience that couldn’t be obtained in life.

He knew other actors regularly violated this restriction, and in the case of Celandifer, her sexual activities not only didn’t deplete her performances, they seemed to electrify them, but since becoming an actor Quintus had remained celibate and had been tempted only once.

He’d resisted and was glad he had. Because Celandifer was despicable.

In that scene in Act III of Inferno he often felt he might actually harm Celandifer’s Amaryllis as her self-satisfied breaths mocked his every word, his every movement. Her performance ever more convincing because Celandifer disdained Quintus with an intensity probably beyond even what Amaryllis felt for Sayt.

The audience might despise the character of Amaryllis—while simultaneously wanting to be her—but the actor Celandifer always had more than her share of ignorant suitors, isands who were sure a robot would be more than willing to satisfy their desires in any way they chose.

Quintus didn’t know what exactly Celandifer did for these suitors, but he knew that she was seeing at least one of them regularly—Charles Hanover, an isand who’d been a patron of the Palatine for over a decade. The guy walked around the theater like he owned the place and seemed to revel in his associations with the actors. Quintus made a point of avoiding him.

He’d have to make a point of avoiding the scribe, too, he thought, even though he’d impulsively invited her to the theater that evening and had lied about having a job for her. Even though his rigid schedule had already been fractured once today by visiting Alyse and might be hopelessly broken by seeing the scribe again.

He’d get through tonight, though. His focus would be on playing Sayt, on being Sayt, and not on the unwanted and unfamiliar longing he couldn’t set aside.

He’d asked Alyse what the scribe’s name was, and Alyse didn’t know. She was an isand, but he’d expected more from her. That she didn’t know the name of a woman who’d regularly done work for her, who she trusted enough to answer the door of her house, was just the kind of thing that infuriated Quintus about the elite isands.

Quintus pulled his pale yellow PV over, got out, and walked into an open field. The tall grasses brushed against his legs and a breeze blew his hair back from his face. He hadn’t been outside in days, he realized. Was it good out here, outside, or intolerable? Would this interfere with his performance tonight?

Usually at this time of day, he’d be in his dressing room or maybe just emerging from his apartment upstairs on the top floor of the Palatine. Like most members of the acting company, he lived above the theater, although his rooms were much more impressive than any of the others, since he was the star, the headliner, of the place. More than that, he was its pulse.

What he liked best about his quarters on the top floor was the view—he could see out beyond Astor City, into the mysterious area that he hadn’t been able to find when he went on walks. He’d come back to the theater in confusion, and he’d use that confusion in his performance. Like other nonintuitive actors’ tricks, that one worked.

He lay down in the field. He was alone and liked being alone. A breeze blew across him. A raven flew by.

He thought he might run away in the same way he’d run away and become an actor. Only this time he’d become the scribe’s lover.

Chapter 4

Alexander drove the scribe home. On the way, she asked him if Q. Roscius Gallus was a regular visitor at Alyse’s, and Alexander had said he’d seen him there perhaps five or six times, which, for Alyse, might be considered regular.

I’d thought she, you know, Alexander said, because he’s so charismatic. I offered myself to him once and he laughed, but it wasn’t meant to be insulting. He was just letting me know that he would never consider it—with anyone. Although, despite the rules, I’ve heard stories about other actors . . .

I don’t know anything about actors, the scribe said. He’s the first one I’ve ever seen in person. You know, not in a fabula.

They’re not all like that, believe me, Alexander said. He’s in a category by himself. I’m not sure the Palatine could survive without him.

You can stop here, the scribe said.

You never let me take you to your house, Alexander said. It’s really not a problem.

I like to walk, the scribe said. But thank you.

See you in eleven days, he said. Same place?

Yes, she said. Right here’s fine.

First and Ward, like always, Alexander said.

The PV’s door closed behind the scribe and she walked down the street, then turned into an alleyway. She loved these alleyways, these winding passages between Astor City and her home in what Sallie Beckwith called the Desert.

The name was so appropriate that the scribe had also started referring to it as the Desert. It was empty and barren. No one else lived there, or if they did, she’d never seen them.

Before she’d met Sallie—she was doing her wedding invitations for her, quite an unnecessary job but one that the scribe was enjoying, especially since Sallie had done lovely artwork for the backgrounds—she’d had no name for the area where she lived.

There were no signs on the streets, no names on the buildings, and the district didn’t appear on any map she’d ever seen.

Sallie had told the scribe that she’d stumbled upon the place by accident and had immediately started calling it the Desert. Inspired, really, the scribe thought. She herself couldn’t name things. Everything seemed uniquely itself to her, nameless, unknowable.

She walked quickly down one of the broad boulevards near her home, loving the pale stone buildings, their deep, wide staircases, the absence of anyone else, the calm atmosphere, the sparkling paving blocks under her feet. The architecture, the proportions, the boulevards—all of it felt like home to her.

She stopped finally at her building. She’d been fascinated by its façade since the day she’d first seen it. Carved into the pillars in front were animals and strange symbols. What did they mean?

She’d promised herself she’d find out. Were those letters? Words? Because if they were, they were the only written images in the district, and perhaps they offered an explanation of the place, which was currently inhabited by only herself.

She went to the rear of the building, where her rooms were, and walked up the three flights of stairs.

There was no power in the Desert but there was working plumbing in her building, which was all the scribe required. It was why she’d initially chosen this building, although she’d been drawn to it the instant she saw it.

But plumbing was a necessity, and her renewing lantern supplied all the light she needed for her working and studying.

At the moment she was working on mastering two different alphabets, slow-going yet satisfying work.

I never wanted to be a scribe, she thought. I don’t want Quintus Roscius Gallus, she thought.

She went to her bedroom. Her sleep mat was rolled up in a corner, her clothing folded in various baskets she’d brought home as she found them. She made her inks in the room at the rear, nearest the water supply.

In the largest of her rooms, which overlooked the boulevard, was her beloved desk, low to the floor, where she sat and did her work. Other than her renewing lantern, her writing supplies, and the square, flat pillow she sat on, there was nothing else in the room. Nothing to distract her.

Other than the door on the outside of the building, there were no doors in the scribe’s rooms, only wide archways. The twenty-three-foot ceilings made everything seem even more spacious and grand than it was.

She stripped out of her gauze pants and plain top and put on her best dress, a midnight blue taffeta gown that Salvatore had given her from his extensive collection of costumes at the Exotica.

The scribe now had a small collection of her own, all gifts from her friend Salvatore, who she’d known since childhood and who had given her far more than these gowns.

She pinned her hair back and up, then smudged her favorite ink into the creases beside her eyes.

On her walk to the Palatine, she saw a raven sitting on the balustrade of the building across from hers. Had there been a raven in the Desert before this? She couldn’t recall seeing one, but perhaps she had.

What did ravens symbolize? Although perhaps this raven wasn’t an omen, a sign. Perhaps this or any raven had no significance.

You will be his lover, the raven said to her, although he didn’t move his mouth but just sat there, not even looking at her.

You can’t speak, the scribe said. She walked over to the raven, making sure not to disturb him.

I can’t be his lover, the scribe said. What’s promised, she said.

Empty, the raven said.

You don’t know me, the scribe said. She brushed her hands down the front of her gown, smoothing out the creases.

You will have a name, the raven said.

I can’t be talking to you, the scribe said. I’m almost late.

The raven seemed to laugh then, looked directly at her, then flew away, in the direction of the theater.

The scribe turned to leave, but glimpsed something on the balustrade where the raven had been sitting: a coin? She picked it up. On one side was Pegasus, the flying horse. On the reverse was a man’s head and words she didn’t know.

She held the coin to her chest, then put it in the pocket of her gown before racing down the street, following the raven’s trail.

Chapter 5

Don’t talk to me, Quintus said to Roderick Elms, who’d come to Quintus’s dressing room.

An hour, Roderick said. He didn’t care what the star player had to say—it was Roderick’s job as house manager to let everyone know how much time until the performance. And Q needed to be told at the hour mark so he could compose himself.

Roderick stepped back from Quintus’s door and was about to go down the hallway when he heard Quintus call to him.

Say, Roderick!

Q? Roderick said. He was the only member of the company who could get away with calling the great Q. Roscius Gallus merely Q.

Why Quintus put up with it, he wasn’t sure. Maybe because Roderick did his job and didn’t annoy Q with any needless details. Q had no tolerance for that kind of petty interference in his day. Neither did Roderick, really. And, of course, they were friends.

I told you, didn’t I? Quintus said.

That someone’s coming? Roderick said. Yes, you told me twice already.

She won’t sit in a box, I’m sure, Quintus said. Let her stand in the wings.

If you say so, Roderick said. Q had already said so—twice.

Roderick untied then tied the flowing scarf at his neck, the latest fashion, and Roderick was always quite fashionable. He enjoyed it, as everything looked both beautiful and decadent on his long, sinewy form. I’ll tell the others, he said.

Don’t bother, Quintus said. He was looking away, already disinterested in the conversation. Already half of himself was Sayt, the slave in Inferno. Roderick knew Q so well he could actually see Q edging off and Sayt taking his place.

So they won’t be disturbed, Roderick said in explanation, in defense. Usually it’s just me back there.

Take care of it, Quintus said, and shut the door just as Roderick backed away.

On the way to Celandifer’s dressing room Roderick mentally canceled all his plans for that evening, including the tryst he’d set up with Vivian Godwin, although he would stop by her box at intermission.

He’d been having an affair with the delicious isand woman for years, and they’d both be hell to deal with if they didn’t get their hands on each other before the night was over.

But that hell might be minor compared to the performance he sensed Q would give tonight. Because the energies radiating off the actor had been like nothing Roderick had ever felt before, and he didn’t want to miss a moment of what was going to take place onstage.

Roderick knocked on Celandifer’s door and said, Hour.

Come in, she said through the closed door.

He did, and looked away. She was wearing only her transparent underthings, and Roderick made a point of never looking at any of the actors’ bodies. It was bad form. And besides, he could look at Vivian Godwin all he wanted, and she was quite something to look at but not demanding or mean, as Celandifer could be.

What’s going on? she said in one of her least demanding intonations. She might be nasty, but she was a consummate actor. Even Q wouldn’t deny her that. Or he would’ve kicked her out of the Palatine years ago, Roderick was certain.

A guest, Roderick said. Nothing more.

He never has a guest, Celandifer said. She was keeping her voice deliberately bland, but Roderick knew what she meant.

Nothing’s going on, Roderick said, turned, and closed the door behind him. Celandifer called after him again, but he ignored her and went to the next room, knocked on the door, and said, Fifty-seven minutes, Jasper.

Thanks! came the voice from behind the door.

Celandifer seethed when she heard Roderick’s voice as he continued down the hallway. How dare he leave like that? And the way he’d never look at her, yet she knew she could have him anytime she wanted, as she could have anyone she desired.

She could have anyone she didn’t desire as well. She could pretend desire better than any other actor—she was certain of that. She’d had lots of practice.

She’d almost had the great Quintus Roscius Gallus himself, but he’d left her that night. No one did that. No one. Not even a supposedly celibate actor, as though any of them were celibate. Ridiculous rule. Or tradition. Whatever it was, it didn’t pertain to her.

Every night she was on the stage she proved that sex was not only not an impediment to a great performance, it was necessary to it.

She’d always assumed Quintus must have a lover, but she couldn’t find out who that was.

Maybe it was Roderick, she thought. He’d never tell, or show it. Ideal for Quintus’s purposes. Although didn’t Roderick have that second-rate isand woman, Vivian something?

Celandifer sighed and lightly stroked her crotch. There was an unaccustomed thrill backstage tonight. Quintus had a guest coming—everyone knew it.

Charles was coming tonight too, and she’d go to his box after the performance and have him right there. Maybe even at intermission, although her costume change was time-consuming. She’d decide later.

Fifty-four minutes, Adams, she heard Roderick saying down the hallway.

Celandifer lay down on her couch and closed her eyes, visualizing every moment of the performance she was about to give. If Quintus’s guest was a female, as Celandifer was almost certain she must be, she’d show this useless woman what a real lover was.

Fifty-two minutes, Chance, she heard Roderick’s voice calling.

On the other side of the wall of Celandifer’s dressing room, Q. Roscius Gallus, in his dressing room, had nearly completed his transformation into the character Sayt. It may not have been his favorite role, but it was his most beloved.

Playing outside in front of everyone else, the part of him that was still Quintus thought. Robots would see the performance. Could he dare do this? What had gotten into Alyse Enkros? Or maybe, who had gotten into Alyse Enkros?

Before he became Sayt, Quintus glimpsed himself in the mirror. His pikorua showing, as it always did onstage. The mark that was on every robot. Indelible, everlasting.

Quintus hadn’t been made to be an actor, but he’d become not just an actor but the most renowned actor of his era.

He touched his neck, then glanced away.

He was Sayt now, yet, disturbingly, even Sayt wanted the scribe with a passion he’d never before shown Quintus.

Chapter 6

Ten minutes, jasper! Roderick said outside Jasper’s dressing room. Jasper liked to be reminded as often as possible. He was usually playing a game in his dressing room and lost track of the need to go onstage.

He was in the first scene, playing Cyrus, Sayt’s original master, so he had to be ready for the opening.

Roderick retreated down the hallway to the back door of the theater. He often met Vivian here after the performance, so the place had a special resonance for him.

The scribe stood outside the back door of the Palatine. She’d been there for twenty minutes now, deciding if she should go in, when the door opened unexpectedly and an incredibly good-looking, lean, brown-haired man appeared.

There you are! Roderick said when he spotted the woman who must’ve been Q’s guest. Who else would be standing at the theater’s back door? "Come in, come