Lia's back hit a wall of stacked crates hard enough to knock the air from her lungs, and before she could scream, a hand clamped gently but firmly over her mouth.
"It's me." Fendrik's voice, low and urgent, close enough that she felt it more than heard it. "It's me, don't fight me."
She went still, chest heaving, and he pulled his hand away the second he felt her relax.
"You scared me half to death," she whispered, fury and relief tangled together in her voice.
"Better scared than caught. Whoever attacked Michael was between you and the door. I didn't have time to explain."
"Where's Michael? Where are Isaiah and Aria?"
"Isaiah got Aria out through the passage before the fighting started. Michael, I don't know." His jaw tightened in the dim light bleeding from somewhere down the corridor. "We need to move before whoever's back there decides to come looking."
They kept low, following the wall through a maze of forgotten set pieces and rolled backdrops until they hit a door that, mercifully, gave way under Fendrik's shoulder. It opened onto a loading dock, cold night air hitting Lia's face like a slap after the stale dust of the east wing.
She barely had time to breathe it in before a voice cut through the dark.
"Don't move."
Renata stepped out from behind a stack of shipping containers, something metallic catching the dim security light in her hand.
Not a weapon, Lia realized after a heartbeat, a crowbar, held less like a threat and more like something she'd grabbed in a hurry.
"Renata." Fendrik's voice went carefully even. "Put that down."
"Not until someone tells me what's going on. I heard screaming from inside. I heard glass. Then you two come stumbling out here like you've seen a ghost."
"We found Aria," Lia said. "Alive. Someone had her locked in the east wing."
Renata's grip on the crowbar didn't loosen, but something in her expression cracked. "Alive?"
"Barely, but yes."
"Where is she now?"
"Isaiah's getting her to safety." Fendrik took a slow step forward, hands visible, careful. "Renata, I need you to think very carefully before you answer my next question. Did you know about the mirror room? The passage behind it?"
"What passage?"
"Don't lie to me, please."
"I'm not lying." Her voice cracked, raw and furious. "I know this theater has secrets, Fendrik, I've known that for years, mostly because you never let me forget it. But I didn't know about any passage, and I certainly didn't put Aria in it."
Lia studied her, searching for the tell that would settle this one way or the other, and found something else instead. Fear, plain and unhidden, the kind that didn't fit neatly onto a suspect.
"Then why are you out here with a crowbar in the middle of the night?" Lia asked.
"Because Isaiah asked me to meet him at the loading dock an hour ago and never showed. I've been walking this building for twenty minutes wondering if something happened to him." Renata's eyes narrowed. "Which, apparently, something did, since half the building sounds like it's falling apart tonight."
"He's fine," Fendrik said. "He's with Aria."
Some of the tension eased from Renata's shoulders, though the crowbar stayed raised. "Then who attacked Michael?"
"We don't know yet," Lia said. "Someone came out of the dark and took him down before any of us saw a face."
"And you two just left him there?"
"He shoved us toward the exit," Fendrik said, something tight in his voice that told Lia the decision hadn't sat easily with him either. "He'd already called it in on his radio before it happened. Backup should be close."
Renata studied them both for a long moment, weighing something Lia couldn't read. "You still haven't told me what you were doing in that wing in the first place. Nobody goes in there. Nobody's been able to since before I started working here."
"Somebody has," Lia said. "Somebody's been using it for who knows how long, and whoever it is knew exactly how to keep it hidden from everyone in this building, including you."
"Including me," Renata repeated, something bitter creeping into her tone. "You say that like it's a comfort."
"It should be. It means you're not automatically the person I have to watch tonight."
"Careful with automatically. That word does a lot of work in a sentence like that."
Lia's stomach dropped. "How do you know Michael was attacked?"
Renata's mouth opened, then closed again, and for the first time all night, she looked genuinely caught.
"I heard it happen," she said carefully. "Over the radio."
"You don't have a police radio, Renata."
"I have a scanner. In my car. I like knowing what's happening in this building before the theater's official story reaches me." Her chin lifted, defensive. "That's not a crime."
"No," Fendrik said slowly. "But it is a very specific coincidence, showing up armed at exactly the moment something goes wrong in a wing you claim you know nothing about."
Renata's grip on the crowbar tightened again, this time aimed less like protection and more like warning. "Careful, Fendrik. I've spent six years letting you decide what everyone in this building thinks of me. I'm not doing it again tonight."
Headlights swept across the loading dock without warning, tires screeching against pavement, and a car Lia didn't recognize came to a stop far too close for comfort, engine still running, driver's door already swinging open before the vehicle had fully stopped.
Jeff stepped out, breathing hard, something dark staining the sleeve of his jacket.
"Someone want to explain," he said, voice shaking with something that could have been fear or fury, "why there's a woman screaming inside my theater, and why my night security guard is lying unconscious in the east wing stairwell?"
"Your security guard," Fendrik repeated slowly. "You already know where he's lying. How did you?"
"Because I found him on my way in, before any of you decided to grace me with an explanation."
"That's convenient," Lia said. "You showing up right as everything falls apart, already knowing exactly where the trouble is."
"I own this theater, Miss Robetor. Trouble tends to find its way to me eventually."
"Does it usually leave you covered in someone else's blood?"
Jeff glanced down at his sleeve like he'd forgotten it was there, and for one unguarded second, something like panic crossed his face before he smoothed it away.
Renata's crowbar swung up between them all, no longer uncertain at all.
"Stay back," she said, and for the first time, Lia couldn't tell whether she was talking to Jeff, or warning the rest of them about him.