They had lowered the curtain on the first act and separated themselves and the troupe from the cheering crowd, but Clara wouldn't stop peeking out at the audience. Constance crossed her arms with a huff. It was hard to focus on Nannerl's opera when all Clara could talk about was her stupid husband.
Over by the dressing room, she noticed Aloysia leaning against the wall, an expression of impatience on her face that was probably identical to the one Constance herself was wearing. She hadn't had much time to talk to her sister since she had arrived only moments before the first act began. With a final glance at Clara-or, rather, at the back of Clara's head-Constance left her there at the edge of the curtain. "So?" she asked, taking a spot at Aloysia's side. "Where were you all day?"
Aloysia shot her a hard look. "Does it matter?"
"Well, I didn't think so until you asked me that. What have you done now?"
"Would you leave me alone?"
"Come on," Constance said, shoving her shoulder. "It's not as though I would turn my own sister over to the public forces. How bad could it be?"
Aloysia cast a glance around the stage and the wings, confirming that the rest of the troupe was busy organizing props and changing into costumes for the second act. She glowered at the closed dressing room door, where one of La Cavalieri's stockings was tucked into the latch. "I need to talk to Nannerl," she said at length, keeping her voice low, "but every time I try that little snoop interrupts us. I- I think I made a mistake."
"I can try to pass along your message," Constance offered.
Aloysia merely scoffed.
"Oh, there you are!" Clara called as she joined them. She seized Constance's hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "I could just make out my husband up there in my box. You should see the way they're applauding! Of course, I can't see their faces since they're all in masks, but my husband isn't an easy man to please, which means-"
Constance jerked her hand away, then immediately regretted it when she saw the look on Clara's face. She let out a long exhale between her teeth, her cheeks burning. Why did every mention of Clara's husband annoy her so much? Was she jealous that Clara had the privilege of knowing where her husband was? That she still went home to him every night? Or was it the specter of the husband himself that made her feel so- so helpless? Was it the thought of him slipping into Clara's bed at night, of his lips on her ivory skin?
"What's the matter, Conrad?" she asked, dipping her head to catch Constance's eye.
Aloysia heaved a loud sigh and pushed Constance toward Clara. "If you're going to tell her now, don't do it in front of me."
"Tell me what?" Constance asked sharply.
Clara pursed her lips and exchanged a strange look with Aloysia. Letting her fingertips come to rest gently on Constance's arm, she gestured with her other hand toward the staircase beyond dressing room. "Come up to the roof with me?"
Aloysia just snickered.
Zahera and Charlotte agreed to operate the curtain for the second act in case Clara and Constance weren't finished talking in time, and the two of them made their way up the narrow wooden stairs. Constance had seen plenty of other people using this staircase during rehearsals: it opened to the roof above and to a passage leading into the ballroom below, making it a more convenient way to bring certain supplies up and down during their week of rehearsal. She had never had need of it herself. She knew Nannerl liked the solitude of the roof and the view it afforded of the city, but the height and the steep drop to the distant street had always seemed unnecessarily risky to Constance.
"Alright," Clara said as she closed the door to the staircase and faced Constance. "What is it that's really bothering you?"
Constance shrugged; unable to meet Clara's eye, she looked out over the dusky city. The sky above them was peppered with stars just as the windows of the city were dotted with candlelight. At the center of it all, the mansion upon which they stood seemed small. With a sigh, Constance turned back to Clara. Her angular face almost gaunt in the moonlight. "I don't know. The thought of the two of you just- just annoys me. Maybe I'm jealous."
"Jealous? You?"
She shrugged again. "We've spent so much time together these past few weeks, and just when I start to think that with your help I'll make it through this, through- through what Wolfgang's done... I don't need a reminder that you have a whole life outside of this show, outside of... outside of spending time with me. That when all this is over we'll just go back to whatever's left of our lives. That I won't see you anymore." She winced at how foolish the words sounded even as she said them.
To her surprise, Clara didn't laugh or bat her selfish concerns away. Instead, she caught Constance's hands in hers. "Well, you're wrong about that, my lovely Conrad," she said. "Going back to the life I had before I knew you would be nothing short of torture. A death sentence. I'd trade every moment I've ever spent in my husband's company for a half-hour with you."
Constance stared at their joined hands, her heartbeat loud in her ears. She thought back to the day she had met Clara in the box, to holding her chin in her hand and staring at her lips, to trying to imagine what Aloysia would do. It had never occurred to Constance until then to consider mirroring her sister's long-held proclivities: after all, she had had feelings for Wolfgang since the first time his late mother had brought him to their little house in Mannheim. After all, storybook romances always told of a Prince Charming sweeping in to take the fair damsel off to his castle to live happily ever after. After all, she had always prided herself on being nothing like Aloysia. But she had spent weeks now with the women of the abandoned chapel, had thumbed nervously through the deck of cards while she listened to them murmur into each other's ears, caress each other, hold each other. For the first time, it wasn't just the sort of thing Aloysia got up to when her husband was away.
"There was something I wanted to ask you," Clara murmured.
She lifted her gaze to meet Clara's, suddenly shy. At first, it had been her passing resemblance to Wolfgang that had caught Constance's attention, that had made her stand out among all the other women Constance knew. But now that she knew her, now that they had spent so much time together, she was so much more. Constance let her eyes travel from Clara's dark, smoldering gaze along the elegant lines of her neck, and suddenly she found herself staring at the top button of her blouse and wondering what would happen if she reached up and unfastened it.
Clara released one of Constance's hands. Before she had time to miss the warmth of her touch, however, she felt Clara's fingertips at her hip, then felt her arm encircle her waist as she pulled Constance against her. "Herr Conrad," Clara breathed, her lips brushing Constance's cheek, "what would you say if I admitted that I want to kiss you?"
Constance tightened her grip on Clara's hand as a warm shiver coursed through her. She turned her head until Clara's shallow breaths were ghosting across her lips, letting her eyes close. "Do it," she whispered. "Kiss me."
Salieri had felt the world spinning off its axis all day. Something wasn't right. Nothing was right. The faces of the troupe of Le Relazioni Pericolose were grotesque, with exaggerated grins and glassy eyes, and the music... the music was all wrong. It was as if damp rags had been shoved inside all the instruments. As if he was going deaf. As if everyone was going deaf but him.
He had soldiered on as he always did, grim and resolute, the picture of gravity, the model of reserve, but partway through the first act he had looked over his shoulder at the half-empty house and seen that there was no one in the emperor's box. There was hardly anyone in the theater at all, only over-powdered half-dead aristocrats who couldn't even hear the music through their ear trumpets, gray and listing in their private boxes. Only the sort of people who wouldn't have heard of the deviants' opera at the underground ball.
The sight of the emperor's empty chair felt like a hand closing over his windpipe. He had staggered in his conducting, the baton slipping from his fingers. The world shifted again; he seized the music stand for support. Someone touched his shoulder, a concerned voice whispered in his ear, but he didn't understand the coarse German syllables anymore. One by one the musicians had fastened their eyes to him, until Salieri had shoved the assistant conductor away and swept right out of the Burgtheater.
A chilly breeze ripped along the narrow street. Salieri's lips had never felt so dry. He shivered, only realizing when the air hit his brow that he was drenched in sweat. He turned in the direction of his house, but the image of the empty bed in the back room appeared before him. He hesitated, ignoring the stares of passersby, then pivoted on his heel and set off in the direction of his club.
A vendor outside the mansion was selling papier-mâché masks painted in absurd colors. Salieri shoved a handful of coins at the man and snatched up a black domino, tying the ribbon around his head as he entered the old mansion through its enormous double doors. The entryway was full of people, their voices a cacophony of enthusiastic nonsense, a few of them calling out in protest as Salieri pushed his way through the crowd and into the packed theater.
This was how he came to witness part of the first act of Mozart's sister's opera. If the other spectators hadn't been pressed around him so tightly, he would have sagged to his knees at the first note. It was music like he had never heard before, music that coursed in his blood and seeped into his bones, music so rich that it filled his thoughts with a deep, unshakable horror. He stared at Mozart's sister, the vulgar little woman who had stormed into his house last week, watching her long, bare arms as she led a makeshift orchestra of traitors, as she summoned this unearthly music out of them. The opera Salieri and Mozart had written together was worthless compared to this. Mozart's talent, Mozart's divine gift... it had moved on to his sister, of all people. The shame settled in the pit of Salieri's stomach like a knot, like a flame. When he had tried to possess Mozart's talent, tried to steal it for himself, it had left its vessel altogether rather than let Salieri touch any of its glory. Gefährliche Liebschaften was a sublime masterpiece, a glimpse at eternity. Le Relazioni Pericolose would be forgotten by the morning. He had destroyed Wolfgang for nothing.
He kept his position at the back of the house, as filled with the desire to flee the city as with the need to stay and witness the birth of the deviants' opera. Only the music, this divine music, permeated the senseless symphony of his thoughts. By the time the first act had ended, Salieri intended to end this night by throwing himself into the river and relieving Vienna of his mediocre existence, of his stolen talent.
But as the intermission ended, as the little Mozart sister raised those elegant arms of hers again, he saw Wolfgang Mozart emerge from the crowd. Salieri's blood ran hot at the sight of him. So here he was after all! Less than a day since he had left Salieri's house, since he had lost Le Relazioni Pericolose, and already he had come running back to his sister, back to his wife. When the sister pulled him into an embrace and then stepped aside to whisper conspiratorially with him before the whole crowd, Salieri felt the first hiss of fear curl through his body. If Wolfgang was working with his sister, if he had earned back the trust of his family, that meant that he was free to spread the rumors of what had happened with Le Relazioni Pericolose. He could destroy everything Salieri had worked for with a well-placed word.
The sister gestured toward the stage and Wolfgang climbed up onto it, pushing aside the curtain and joining the troupe of the deviants' opera as they prepared for act two. The sister returned to her place at the harpsichord and the second act began to the deafening shrieks and whoops of the assembled crowd. Salieri curled his hands into fists, raking his eyes over the harpsichord, over the bench. Yes, it was the one that had been sitting downstairs in the ballroom all those nights. The very bench upon which they had sat that while they had played a sonatina together, their legs touching, Wolfgang's eyes flashing from behind his mask. When Wolfgang had taken his hand and run his fingers across his wrist, had looked up at him through his lashes and complemented his playing. How much had changed since that night, the last night before the world had been knocked off-course!
Salieri turned his back on the opera, forcing his way back out into the entryway, through another doorway and down the stairs to the underground ballroom. It was empty and dark, the ball abandoned in favor of the opera that was raging upstairs. He cast a stare toward the corner where the harpsichord had stood, the place where he and Wolfgang had first touched, and he felt a wave of nausea engulf him. All he had wanted was an opera, one single shining work that would carry his name into the future! All he had wanted was a fragment of Mozart's talent! A month of his life! But the talent had moved on, and the man it had left behind had become a weapon.
He had to be stopped.
Salieri strode across the empty ballroom, his heels clicking hollowly against the marble floors, the rhythm of his steps off-kilter with the faint music he could still hear from above. At the far end of the room, behind an inconspicuous door, was a servants' staircase that led up through the theater and to the roof. He could get backstage and find Mozart without being seen by the Viennese who were crowded into the theater above.
He unlatched the door, letting the music spill out over him like a shaft of light, and peered up the length of the spiral staircase. The dim flicker of candlelight, the excited whisper of the troupe above, and, engulfing it all, that music. Wolfgang was up there somewhere, the secrets of what Salieri had done ready to spill out of him at any moment.
He lifted a heavy brass candlestick off a side table, weighing it in his hand as he curled his fingers around it. Blunt, but efficient.
Salieri adjusted his mask with his free hand and crept up the stairs, leaving the underground ballroom behind.
Constance threw back her head, her fingers twisting in Clara's hair as she worked her way down her collar to her breast. Her warm breath and hot tongue danced across Constance's skin, nipping here, sucking there, sending currents of heat through her veins, drawing ragged gasps from her throat. With her free hand she tugged her shift further down to expose even more skin to Clara's touch, arching her back. She hadn't felt like this in years, not since the first time she and Wolfgang had fooled around at the Gods Eye while her mother and sisters were out calling on friends. Clara pushed her the rest of the way onto her back as she finished unbuttoning Constance's waistcoat and untucked her shift from her breeches. She let the shift bunch around her middle as she ran both hands up the length of her bare stomach, cupping her breasts and teasing a nipple with her tongue. Constance caught her lip between her teeth but couldn't stifle a long, low moan. She clenched her eyes shut, the cold slate tiles of the roof chilling her through her clothes and contrasting with the heat of Clara's mouth, the heat of her own pulse.
When Clara released one of her breasts and slid her fingertips down the length of Constance's torso to the front of her breeches, she finally opened her eyes and caught her wrist in one hand.
Clara lifted her head and fixed her dark eyes on Constance. Her lips were still parted, her expression hazy. "Too much?"
"I just-" Constance began, breathless. She propped herself up on her elbows and nodded awkwardly toward Clara. "Don't you want me to- to do something? I could try to-"
Clara interrupted her with a kiss, her soft, warm lips brushing teasingly over Constance's. She was grinning when she pulled away. "The only thing I want you to do," she said, her hands perching on Constance's hips, "is to take off these breeches, wrap these thighs around my head, and tell me what feels good."
Constance swore, slumping weakly back against the roof as Clara kissed the exposed skin beneath her navel and began unfastening her breeches. She threaded her fingers into Clara's hair again, letting her eyes roll closed. But just as the first gust of her hot breath permeated the silk breeches, just as one of her hands was sliding up the inside of her thigh and Constance found herself twitching in burning anticipation of finally, finally being touched after so long, the door to the stairwell burst open.
Constance sat up so quickly that her chin nearly cracked into the top of Clara's head. She twisted awkwardly, crossing a protective arm over her bare chest and trying to slide her legs off Clara's shoulders without kicking her even as she craned her neck toward the door, her heart racing. She expected to meet the knowing grin of one of the women, maybe even Aloysia herself; she expected to hear a quick apology and for the intruder who had joined them on the roof to retreat and leave them to finish what they had started. She expected to be embarrassed at having been caught in such a ridiculous position, but secretly a little proud that she was finally worthy of becoming a real member of Aloysia's order.
She did not expect to see her own husband standing in the open doorway, his mournful brown eyes ringed with dark circles, his hair more unkempt than usual, his own clothing nearly as askew as Constance's. Constance scrambled to her feet, self-consciously tugging her borrowed clothes into place and positioning herself in front of Clara as though she expected to be able to hide her completely. "Wolfgang!" she panted, "I- I can explain!"
"Constance?" he said, his voice so low it sounded hoarse. Despite everything, despite the weeks with no word, despite the scene Nannerl had discovered at Herr Salieri's house, despite the way Clara's touch had awakened a heat she hadn't felt in years, Constance's traitorous, gullible heart leaped at the sound of his voice. She felt a flush come over her again. It was so much easier to be angry at him when he was missing. Wolfgang's brow was puckered as his glassy gaze drifted back and forth between the two of them. "Constance. I was looking for you. Uh- good evening, Frau Rosenberg."
She felt one of Clara's hands at the small of her back and leaned against it. An array of responses crowded together in her mind, ranging from the sarcastic sort of thing Aloysia would say to the practical reprimand she could imagine Clara would have offered up. But at the sight of him, at the sight of her foolish, bedraggled husband who had lied to her, who had betrayed their marriage, who had abandoned her at her mother's boarding house in a bed the two of them should have been sharing, her strongest urge was to throw herself into his arms and to beg him to let things go back to what they had once been.
And yet, she knew her husband. She knew that hollow look in his brown eyes, the defeated slump of his shoulders. Figaro's failure hadn't just shaken him: it had broken through the foundation on which he had built his life. Himself. Their marriage didn't fit him anymore, did it? Constance didn't fit the person he had become. She took a step back, pulling Clara's arm around her waist as she did. Wolfgang had been Constance's foundation for too long. It was time to rebuild.
"Constance?"
She inhaled sharply and steadied herself. "Nannerl told me where you were," she said firmly. "I'd rather you stay with him. Mother isn't going to let you move back into the Gods Eye."
"Constance, I really am sorry. I thought you knew. I tried to show you. The club- I took you so you'd understand."
"That doesn't make it my responsibility, Wolfgang! Your affair isn't my fault!"
"No, Constance, of course it isn't. I never- I never meant that."
"What did you mean, then?"
He shook his head. "I don't know." He paced away from the door and dropped to a seat beneath one of the stooped gargoyles, covering his face in his hands and leaning his head back against the beast's stone wing.
Constance gripped Clara's arm. For so many years, it had been her role to rush to Wolfgang's side when he was like this, to wrap her arms around him and murmur words of sweet encouragement until she saw his smile again. It didn't seem fair to reduce him to this state herself and to stand by while he struggled, alone for the first time.
When he drew a ragged inhale, Constance felt as though he had taken the breath right out of her own lungs. She stepped toward him only to be pulled back by Clara. She spun around in her arms to reprimand her, to remind her that Wolfgang was still her husband no matter what he had done, but Clara was not looking at Wolfgang. She inclined her head toward the doorway, where a dark, masked figure had appeared.
That was all it took: the pity that had filled Constance's heart was flushed away in a wave of rage. The man in black, the man with whom Wolfgang had slipped away all those nights at the underground ball. His lover. Of course Wolfgang wasn't coming back to her. He had come to apologize, to ease his own guilt, and then he was going back to Herr Salieri's bed, leaving Constance all over again.
Constance worked the ring off her finger and hurled it at her husband. It caught him on the back of one hand and bounced away, rolling right over the edge of the roof. Just like that, it was gone.
None of the whispering dancers darting about the wings had paid any heed to Salieri when he ascended from the abandoned ballroom. He had ducked behind a clumsily-painted backdrop to avoid being spotted by Signora Lange, who was sweeping about in a glimmering dress with a distant look on her face, her eyes turning first toward the pit, then toward a closed door on the other side of the staircase. Just as Salieri was debating the consequences of approaching her to find out how much she knew, Wolfgang himself had appeared. He had exchanged a few words with a visibly impatient Signora Lange, who had pointed at the staircase from which Salieri had just come. Salieri had pressed himself into the backdrop, holding his breath. Had she seen him arrive after all? Was she telling Wolfgang that he was here?
But no, Wolfgang had nodded absently at her and begun ascending the staircase, making his way toward the roof. Salieri looked down at the candlestick in his hand. The roof. No prying eyes, no attentive ears. It was perfect.
After Wolfgang vanished, Signora Lange reached out a tentative hand and let her fingertips rest against one of the bolts on the door she had been glaring at, but hurried away without drawing it. Salieri took advantage of the moment to dart back over to the staircase. He took the steps gingerly, hoping that his dark clothes made him inconspicuous as he followed Wolfgang up and out of the theater, away from the swell of otherworldly music, away from the all-encompassing opera.
The access door was open when he reached the highest stair. Salieri hesitated. The roof was long and flat, the edges framed with battered-looking gargoyles: in the middle of it stood Wolfgang's seething wife. She was dressed in men's clothes, though the shift was untucked and the jacket was askew. The wind had caught the clothes and her long, loose hair; her jaw and her eyes were hard with rage. She was more Greek Fury than the woman he had seen scampering around the Burgtheater all those years ago. He didn't even notice Signora Rosenberg standing behind her until she pulled the wife back and nodded toward Salieri.
They locked eyes for a moment, this desperate woman and Salieri. Her stare was sharp and unflinching, an unspoken accusation. And then a fire was lit behind her eyes and she flung something across the roof at Wolfgang, who was slumped in front of one of the gargoyles. He yelped and leaped to his feet, following his wife's gaze until he, too, spotted Salieri in the doorway.
A flush crept through Salieri's body as that stupid bright look came into Mozart's eyes again. He pressed the candlestick against the side of his leg, shooting a sideways glance at the women. He hadn't imagined that there would be witnesses up here. He hadn't considered that getting rid of Wolfgang meant leaving behind a widow.
"You're here," Wolfgang breathed. He even looked as though he might smile right there in front of his wife.
Salieri took a step back, unsure what to say, unwilling to trust his thoughts. The world had been knocked off-kilter, and Wolfgang was behind it. Everything would be put right again once he was gone, once Mozart was gone. He had to do this.
A shadow crossed Wolfgang's face but he moved closer, tentative. "When we parted ways this morning, I wasn't sure where the memories would die. These past few weeks..." He took another step forward, gesturing to his wife. "The life I had before- it's slipped away already. Like a sigh."
He was close now, close enough that Salieri could see a film of sweat on his forehead, could see that the corners of his eyes were wet. He lifted his arm reflexively, the base of the heavy candlestick catching Wolfgang in the chest, holding him at bay. Wolfgang looked down at it, then back up at Salieri, his large eyes traveling up the length of his body, the light draining out of his eyes as he studied Salieri's expression.
"You're never going to let us be happy, are you?" he asked. "This- this persona you've built, the role you think you fulfill in society... no matter what we have, no matter-" he ran his fingers up the length of the candlestick until they met Salieri's- "no matter how well we fit, how good we are together... you won't let go of it."
Salieri pushed the candlestick harder against Wolfgang's chest, gripping it tighter as his hand began to shake beneath Wolfgang's.
"Antonio, last night-"
"It didn't happen!" Salieri snapped. His voice was thin in his ears; he could feel the women's eyes on him like a weight. "Nothing you think happened between us means anything now, don't you understand? Just because you insist on clinging to- to the last thread of your twisted desires!"
With that, Mozart's eyes went dim. He stepped back at last, releasing Salieri's hand and leaving him brandishing the trembling candlestick. There was a tear in the front of his shirt where it had caught on a bit of filigree, exposing a narrow swathe of his bare chest. "But it was only yesterday," he murmured faintly. He looked over toward his wife, then back at Salieri again, and took another step backward. "It was only yesterday that you and I- that you finally stopped pretending. Antonio?"
Salieri gritted his teeth and said nothing.
"Constance?"
"How dare you try to bring her into this!" Signora Rosenberg hissed before Mozart's wife could speak. "You left behind a family who loves you for this man?"
"I... I thought..." Wolfgang stammered, but then he shook his head, his mournful gaze on Salieri again.
He couldn't find the strength to finish what he had started. The four of them held their positions for a long moment, so still that Salieri could make out a whispering melody from the deviants' opera that was raging below. Wolfgang's face had gone entirely blank. His eyes were glassy.
He suddenly fixed his empty stare on the women, crossing his hands over his heart, over the rip left by Salieri's candlestick. "You'll take care of her, won't you, Frau Rosenberg?"
"Better than you have," answered Signora Rosenberg darkly, while Mozart's wife asked, "Wolfi? What do you mean?"
Wolfgang dropped into a low bow, then faced Salieri. He took another step back. "Antonio," he said solemnly. "My maestro... we could have written such harmonies."
Salieri tightened his grip on the candlestick, that same indignant heat overcoming him, but he couldn't find the words to silence him. He simply stood there, helpless, returning Wolfgang's dark, bottomless stare while his half-drafted plans swirled around his thoughts. Poison, asphyxiation, a few sharp blows to the skull with this candlestick-why hadn't he been able to carry out any of them? Why was he letting Mozart endanger his career, destroy everything he was? The earth had spun off its axis.
Wolfgang bowed just as he had done to his wife. When he looked up, his expression was strange. Distant. As otherworldly as his sister's music. "We'll meet again," he said vaguely, "and none of this will matter anymore. But for now-" he spread his arms, taking another step back- "for now, I can only ask that you accept the regrets of a betrayed, humiliated man."
It wasn't until the wife screamed, "Wolfgang!" and broke free of Signora Rosenberg's arm that Salieri realized that Wolfgang's heels were hanging over the edge of the roof. Arms outstretched, Wolfgang Mozart took one more step into the empty space above the street and he let himself fall.