The woman she saw might not even have been Rebecca Dasko. It's an off-chance, at best. Why should anybody visit a country they couldn't point out on a map?

Maybe that's unfair. Not just because Henley's only met her twice and you have to give the benefit of the doubt, you have to assume two blessedly brief collisions in crowded rooms isn't long enough to have formed a fair opinion, but because they don't make you point out your destination on a map at the airport. In an age of online booking, you don't even need to be able to pronounce it right. And if, like so many of the other hopefuls, she came here with some other troupe only to be cut late, she might not even know what country this is.

This is cruel, isn't it? It's mean and unnecessary and Henley ought to stop. She's lowering herself to petty bitchery, letting a long strange day get to her. And the woman she saw might not even have been Rebecca Dasko; it's ridiculous to let it affect her at all.

But Rebecca thinks Amsterdam is a country.

This is something Danny told her. His idea of an apology, after one particular argument which, like so many, was ended at the mention of trapdoors. Hours later, coming to find her, with the word 'sorry' forever trapped behind his lips and never to cross over, he told her instead that, despite having been there and in fact flown into Rotterdam – you'd think the existence of another city would have given something away – Rebecca was convinced Amsterdam was an entity all by itself. She is also certain that 'Dutch' means they speak German.

Doesn't Monte Carlo seem just a little off Rebecca's radar, these facts considered?

And the woman Henley saw might not even have been Rebecca Dasko. She keeps returning to this thought, word-for-word complete, that single sentence, clear and perfect and unmistakable. She keeps coming back to it, and every time it feels fresh; not sinking in. Not accepted. Not registering, the way truth will, to be filed away and stop itching, stop scratching at the door to be let in. Getting to her; it was probably delicious, but Henley can't remember what dinner was. She can't remember what she said to escape Joseph for the evening. She sits on her spacious balcony with the Mediterranean spread out beneath her, blackened by late red light, and feels nothing for it. Her toes stroke a gleaming mosaic of glass and porcelain. But there's no texture. She won't recall the pattern when she walks away.

No. No, this won't do. Whether it was or wasn't Rebecca Dasko is now irrelevant; her plush, free, hard-earned working vacation is under threat. Henley grabs up her folder – the notes, the applications, the blueprints for the show so far – and leaves the room. She'll come back when she can properly appreciate it.

Besides, there are worse ways to spend an evening working. Her route down to the prop store takes her right past the service entrance to the kitchen; this is something she discovered on her very first day here. In a matter of seven steps, less than three seconds, she can make a careful wrong turn through that door and leave unseen with a plate from the dessert cart. There's the smallest of thrills in it, less from stealing and more because the necessary speed means she never knows quite what she's getting. She can't even check until she's out and around the corner.

Tonight she's come into possession of some sort of open tart, layers of fruit under fine, sharp glaze. There are, absolutely, worse ways to spend an evening.

She juggles the plate and the folder with her keys, undoing all four locks on the prop store door. She had three of them installed before she'd agree to have the equipment unloaded. These rigs are her living, after all. That, and it meant she could sneak in her secret twin assistant safely. One was out front with her magician, making a grand performance of arriving, and Henley was bringing the other up the staff stairwell.

It's not the first time she's had to stifle a laugh, thinking of that story. Not the first time she's wished she had someone to tell it to.

Locking the door behind her again, she spreads out her work on top of one of the huge steel cases, seating herself on a smaller one that has the swords inside. She makes coffee – an advantage to half the crew being English, there's always a kettle around. "We're not leaving," she says aloud, to settle herself, "until we've figured out how to get both Evies on stage for the teleportations."

This is better. By the soft light of the neons in the dunk tank, she plots every step of a ninety minute performance, positions to the inch, Henley conceals and engineers and manipulates. Light and darkness are nothing more than colours to paint with. Physics stops being a limitation, turns into a challenge. This is the work. When the decision was made to hide her, she is glad this is the life they chose to hide her in. She's grateful.

It's a terrible thought to have, it knots up her stomach, but Henley doesn't know if she could have kept the faith quite so wholeheartedly, if she hadn't been given this.

But tonight she only gets an hour. Just as she's beginning to vanish into it, become fully absorbed, a soft step makes the stage above her head creak. Henley glances up and sighs; they'll have to have a new nail put in that before rehearsals-proper begin. Then she stands and goes to boil the kettle again.

By the time the creeping feet turn onto the backstage stairs, she is waiting with a second cup wiped hastily clean. She ducks her head to look up to the landing above, "Coffee or tea?"

"Tea, if it's all the same."

Rebecca is still overdressed. It's not quite so obvious as it was in her true-blue sequin swimwear, but there is just a little too much of everything. Too much black liner, too much red lipstick, too much cleavage, too much thigh, too much heel. Henley can't decide if she's missing something, some deliberate intent, or if this is just painful. "I have to admit," she says mildly, "I half-expected you to spring out of the snake-basket or something like it."

"Oh, Lord no..." Rebecca teeters down the last of the stairs and doesn't waste a second stealing Henley's place on the sword case. "I don't contort for anybody anymore."

Don't exercise either, but Henley stops herself on the very point of –

"Go on. Say it. You'll feel incredible." Henley freezes. "Something like So I see or Yeah, it shows. Just because it's nasty doesn't mean it's not funny. Say it or it'll just about kill you."

"I…" Henley stammers. "No, I wasn't thinking..." She clears her throat. "It's a little strange, is all. Didn't I see you in the audition line this afternoon?"

A terrible smile, "Didn't you have me removed from it?" Then, shrugging off the poison honesty, "Yes, I was there. But really I just wanted to see you. The lapdog's cute, by the way; where do I get one of those?"

"Community college media courses. But go back; what do you mean you wanted to see me?"

"Come on; aren't you Abby Valentine? Aren't you the biggest producer in stage magic worldwide?" The slightest flicker of hope; what Henley wouldn't give for an ordinary psychotic wannabe right now. Just a regular obsessive who wants the job. Hell, Henley will take the crazy up to the stage and audition her right now, if that really is all she wants. But then she turns, to carry the tea back to the makeshift table. Those eyes are on her, flashing back the neon that lights the shark-like teeth below in glowing blue, grinning until they part on a giggle.

Henley sets the tea down. As she does, the plate, her half-eaten pie, shoots past it, the edge caught squealing between gold acrylic nails. Three inches long and filed to points; she can't be serious, can she?

"Sorry, couldn't resist. I hope you didn't pick that name yourself, by the way. It's horrible. The hair's not great either. Doesn't suit you. No offence. Really, I just wanted five minutes of your time. Tried to explain that to Lapdog-"

"His name is Joseph."

"Like you care. Anyway, he wouldn't listen. Insisted on making a scene."

"As I heard it, you were the one who made it a scene."

Henley literally heard it; closed inside the auditorium, listening to the screaming, she took consolation only in the knowledge that Joseph was having the time of his life when he called over hotel security. But Rebecca shrugs, forces on another grin; this one isn't cruel, something more like a blush, like bashful pride, "I couldn't not. Let an opportunity like that pass? I'd be breaking all the rules." Henley opens her mouth to ask what rules those might be, but Rebecca presses one talon-tipped finger to her own, "Anyway, hush! What was I saying?"

Whatever she wants – Henley sits back, sipping her coffee. She makes a show of being half-interested, of having dismissed Rebecca the moment she first set eyes on her. But beneath it she listens intently, analyses, could repeat it verbatim, and her mind races trying to figure it out.

What did it take to even find her? Henley was deliberately hidden. She's worked in casinos, with the most stringent recruitment processes in the world, in a country that holds a federal file on her full to bursting. She herself does not know how it was done. And yet here Rebecca sits. It would be foolish to believe the phony line she rattles off now – "Oh, I just thought I'd come and congratulate you on your life in hiding, on the run, where you can't even have your own identity anymore. I'm just so happy everything worked out how you wanted. I'm glad you got all that fame and glory you stole from me." Foolish, or extremely arrogant – a flash of fear interrupts Henley's thoughts, that maybe there's a reason she hasn't heard from Danny, that maybe Rebecca got to him first.

Does this constitute an emergency? Who does she contact? What's the real danger? That last question is where Henley gets stuck; how do you even describe this? So far Rebecca has done nothing but endlessly talk and steal a piece of already-stolen pie – now gone except for one last crumb stuck in her lipstick. How do you tell somebody about this and make them understand that there's a threat? In amongst it somewhere, like a switchblade in the mess at the bottom of her purse, there's a threat.

Because her heart is already pounding, it's not until Henley's head begins to spin that she notices anything wrong. The cool sweat might have been situational, but the heat rising up from her chest, burning in her face, that's not normal.

Henley looks down into her coffee. She turned her back on it, while she made tea. She turned her back on Dasko. Now she sends what's left splattering over her blueprints at a swipe. Too late.

Finally, Rebecca stops talking and squeals laughing instead. Checking her watch, "Look at that! I didn't even need five minutes. Three and a half. It's a body-mass thing, you know, you've got nothing to soak it up."

A glance at the door; Henley's fingers twitch in her gloves, feeling thick, clumsy. She'd fumble with all those locks. So she staggers back instead, towards the stairs, the way Rebecca came in. Behind her, little rustles, shuffling feet; Rebecca will follow but doesn't seem to think there's any hurry. She's arranging herself, "Let me see, now, have I got everything I came with? Everything but the sedative, obviously. You've got that now." She's a warped vinyl, an underwater soundtrack. Her voice slides the way the world does when Henley is at the fourth stair and it tilts, pitches her against the rail.

But she gets her feet beneath her body again. Keeps going, putting one in front of the other. She climbs all the way to the stage, the auditorium funereal, shades of grey in the pin-prick safety lights. Off stage, it would be easy; just the long straight aisle to the double doors and the safety of the lobby. She'll fall right past the restaurant. There'll be staff as well as guests, security; Rebecca won't get away, and there'll be help.

Henley lifts her eyes. She looks just once into the dark of the opposite wing before she forces herself forward again, straight on towards it.

"Reeves!" Rebecca is halfway up the stairs, staggering from foot to foot. She bawls breathless, "Reeves! Stop running! You'll make it worse." A groan of exertion, pulling herself up at the end of the banister. "Do you think you're dying? Is that what you're scared of? You're not. Cross my heart and kiss a pig. You're just going to sleep."

Sleep. Just the word itself and it's almost over. Centre-stage, Henley stumbles. She falls to one knee, a spotlight short of a tragic heroine, with sleep washing over her, trying to force her eyes closed. Too powerful, almost, could swallow her up right now.

With one hand, she grabs out, clawing the stage until her fingertips catch the edge of a board. Not enough grip to pull herself along but it gives that sense and gives her the strength to fight a little longer. And it pains her, it really does, to crawl with Rebecca Dasko at her back still laughing between her panting breaths, not knowing why this is happening to her. But it's more important to reach the dark behind the other curtain. Henley keeps going until her shoulder brushes heavy velvet. That's where she falls. She makes sure to do so on an angle, so that she rolls onto her back. One elbow supports her. Her other arm is flung out into shadow.

From this new angle she can watch Rebecca getting closer, shaking step by step on her spike-heels. She's recovered, by now, from dragging herself upstairs, and is clutching fistfuls of papers out of her purse.

"See this? Hello? Still with me? Yes? All these papers are you. And I do not mean Abby Valentine. Look at all this proof, ooh, there's just tonnes of stuff here that all tells the good people of the world who you really are! Reeves, precious, you're going to wake up handcuffed to a hospital bed!" Rebecca squeals with delight, drumming little dances on the spot. "Look on the bright side; you'll have your own name back."

Henley puts her last strength into smiling. "Won't work."

"Oh? And how's that?" Henley tries to answer and chokes. Rebecca leans in close, craning, cupping her ear. "How's that, sweetie?"

How that is, is because Henley's hidden hand is holding a rope. She undid the hitch tying it to the stage while Rebecca couldn't help but explain herself. She pretends to choke again. Then, when Rebecca is closest, when her head is right by Henley's shoulder, then she opens her fist and releases the rope.

A five kilo sandbag dropping from the rigging, unfettered by anything but air resistance - that's how it is.

It comes down on the back of Rebecca's neck and she flattens like a dropped doll. Henley winces at the sudden weight crushing down on her right side, tries to wriggle free but hasn't the energy. She hasn't the heart either; if she turns her eyes, she can just see over Rebecca's shoulder, down to where one handful of papers has scattered. Another handful was flung reckless halfway across the stage. There's a whole purse full of it.

She fades out knowing her freedom still hangs in the balance, and depends on nothing more than who wakes up first.