‘It’s open,’ Irene replied. She reached out to test the handle and it shifted in her grasp. ‘We should get out of here.’

The opera house was nearly silent. Tosca was singing. ‘Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore …’ Her voice, and the orchestra behind her, filled the air like light through stained glass.

‘You can’t possibly get away,’ Lord Guantes said softly. Power seemed to crystallize in the air around him, almost physical and solid, as he drew himself up to his full height. It wasn’t a threat. It was a prediction. They would not get away. They were lost. He had already won.

I almost said yes to him … The brand across Irene’s back burned with her anger, as if etched in live acid. I almost betrayed the Library.

Her finger tightened on the trigger.

Lord Guantes caught the motion and took another step back, grasped the edge of the box with one hand and swung himself over. He dropped out of the line of fire and out of sight, into the audience below.

His action shattered the spell that his power had cast. It was as if a brilliant light source had blinked out, leaving observers dazzled in the ordinary light of day. Irene glanced sideways to Vale and saw that he still had his gun pointed at where Lord Guantes had been standing, his grip so tight that she could see the bones of his hand taut beneath the skin. ‘Come on,’ she said urgently, shoving her own gun back into her skirts. ‘We have to get out of here.’

Some inner tension snapped. Vale nodded, slid his own weapon back into his doublet and was pulling her outside and down the corridor almost before the echoes of her words had died away. Fortunately Sterrington had followed the orders to leave Lord Guantes alone and the corridor was empty.

I should have shot him, Irene’s brain chattered feverishly. I should have shot him …

‘Move, Winters,’ Vale snapped, dragging her along. ‘I’m astonished that nobody’s reacted to a man dropping out of his opera box.’

‘Well, it was the middle of Vissi d’arte,’ Irene argued. ‘Nobody’s going to stir until that aria’s over—’

A burst of shouting and commotion came from the main auditorium, echoing through the walls of the corridor as they scrambled down the stairs.

‘Of course, I could be wrong,’ she allowed. But a more important question presented itself. ‘How on earth are you here? Now?’

‘I will be delighted to tell you, when we have the time.’ He steered her through a side door into the backstage passages. ‘If we can get out of here and into the crowd before they can cordon off the opera house, we may be safe.’

Irene decided that was as good a definition of ‘safe’ as they were likely to get for the moment, and nodded. She grabbed someone’s discarded shawl as they ran past it, dropping her own. It might help camouflage her a little. Vale was already anonymous enough.

‘Act normally,’ Vale directed, slowing abruptly to a casual saunter and letting go of her arm. The buzz of voices came from ahead.

‘The sad thing is, this is all fairly normal for me,’ Irene said wryly. ‘It’s spending a few peaceful months in your world that was the unusual experience.’ She followed his lead, smoothing her skirt down. Then they turned a corner together, to find the corridor nearly blocked by a group of stagehands and chorus.

‘Do you know what’s going on?’ one of the chorus asked Vale. He was a young man, ready in uniform for the next act, his make-up fresh and lurid in the candlelight. ‘Someone said there had been a duel.’

‘No, I heard it was a murder,’ another man put in, one of the stagehands. He was blotting sweat from his forehead and neck with a dirty rag. ‘The way I heard it, he strangled her in her own box.’

‘Neither,’ Vale said. His Italian was clipped, a little slangy, but his body language had changed to the same absent-minded swagger as the men around them. ‘Someone was about to be arrested by the Doge’s guard. He jumped from his box to try to escape.’

The group fell silent. Most of the men crossed themselves. ‘The guard is still back there?’ one of them asked.

Vale shrugged. Irene shrugged as well, and tried not to look behind her to see if anyone was chasing them.

‘So why are you trying to get out the back way?’ another stagehand asked. ‘Got reasons to avoid the Doge’s guard, have you?’

Before Vale could answer, Irene tugged at his sleeve imploringly. ‘Darling, we must hurry! If Giorgio catches us together, you know what he’ll do. These are honourable gentlemen, they won’t betray us to him …’

Glances were exchanged between the men. ‘We didn’t see anything,’ one of them said, extending an empty palm.

‘Quite right,’ Vale said. He dipped into an inner pocket, brought out a purse and dropped a few coins into the meaningfully extended hand. ‘To drink the Doge’s health.’

With a few more nods they were out through the backstage door, and a couple of minutes later Vale was handing Irene into a gondola. No frenzied mob of guards came after them, and Irene was beginning to think they might actually get away.

‘Round to the Doge’s Palace and then around a bit, so we can enjoy the scenery. And let’s have a song,’ Vale instructed, tossing the gondolier another coin. He helped Irene seat herself in the main area of the boat (she still didn’t know the right vocabulary for it, rather important for a Librarian), settling a cushion behind her, before folding his long body down next to her. The posture might have been casual enough - a man and a woman together in a gondola, his arm against her shoulders - but she could feel the tension in his body.