After putting the wolf girl and the blacksmith boy in their place, Sandor tightened a couple loose sandbags up in the rafters just before the overture began. As he reached the last rung on the ladder, he heard a voice behind him.
"Clegane, I'd like to speak with you."
Turning, he saw no one at his eye line. He waved his hands before him. "Must be the opera ghost," he muttered.
"You are hilarious, Clegane. Remind me to include you as entertainment at my next club soiree. Meanwhile, I actually have something rather delicate to ask of you."
Sandor smirked down at Tyrion. "What could you possibly want of me, Imp?"
Tyrion held up a letter.
Sandor warily recognized the red skull seal. How many letters with that seal had he passed back and forth between Baelish and the managers?
He took it, eyeing Tyrion suspiciously.
He read it.
His dark eyes shot down to Tyrion's, flames dancing in the Hound's irises.
I wonder if this large mutt does have something to do with all this, Tyrion privately mused. "'A disaster beyond imagination' will occur if our dear Miss Stark does not take the stage as Jonquil tonight," Tyrion summarized.
"Could just be a prank," Sandor said too quickly. He practically pushed the letter back into Tyrion's hand, as if it were on fire.
Tyrion laughed sardonically. "Why, that's exactly what our good employer Lord Baelish said." He smiled as Sandor scowled. Give the Hound this, he had the good sense to feel affronted at the comparison to Littlefinger.
"Anyway, I'm not so convinced. Someone was able to come in here and kill a stagehand and then my nephew, and then stuff said nephew into my sister's dressing room closet. I hope this is no more than an ill-bred practical joker, but in case it isn't…well, no one is as intimate with this place as you are, given the many little assignments Baelish sends you on. Keep an especial eye on everything tonight, will you?"
Sandor snorted derisively, bending down to move some crates. "What about Selmy and his men?"
The twist of Tyrion's lips revealed his frustration. "Our good employer also requested that Selmy no longer post his men backstage during the opera. 'Bad for morale', he claimed. Since there hasn't been any real disturbance since Joff's death, he was able to finally convince Selmy – just in time for this letter to arrive."
Sandor didn't reply, but his face was drawn in bitter lines.
"You should also keep an eye on the Stark girl." Sandor's back stiffened. "Something odd is going on with her…unlike my sister, I don't think it's as dire as direct involvement in murder, but…well, the letter mentions her specifically…." He trailed off, lost in thought. Raising his eyebrows after a time, he said, "Just keep an eye out, like the good dog you are." He inclined his head and left.
Sandor fumed. Sansa. So the rumors some pageboys lingering outside Baelish's office spread were true: the Phantom wanted her to sing the lead role.
He kicked one of the crates as the music started.
The instant Arya became aware of the music above, she sped to the higher levels, Gendry behind her.
"We can't keep sneaking up here during performances! We're bound to get caught!"
"Not unless you look all nervous about it! That's a sure way to bring attention to ourselves! Just act natural."
"Now, see here" –
"We have to look after Sansa!"
So saying, Arya dove behind the very pile of crates Sandor had packed near the right wing. She climbed on top of the bottom crate and peered over the one in front of it.
Helpless, Gendry crouched down behind her. He could just leave and head back to the stables, abandoning the girl to whatever trouble she was bound to get herself into.
But seeing those determined, caring eyes peer out over those heavy crates, Gendry stayed put, crouching.
Sandor was securing the ropes on one of the village set pieces as the overture finished. Outwardly he revealed nothing but single-minded focus, while internally he was desperately trying to stoke the flames raging, scorching him.
This was nothing new now. This was his usual cycle whenever he knew he'd see her.
He told himself, again and again, that what was done was done, and to forget about Sansa Stark. It had been an odd romantic episode, unusual for the Hound of all people, but a short episode, at least. The girl was either mad or had come up with some deliberate lie to evade him.
He told himself this so often he almost believed it, until he saw her – and at night.
With night came dreams. He dreamed of her. He dreamed of her blue eyes wide with mesmerized terror. He dreamed of her singing alone, kneeling in a dark space where only a dim light shone on her. She sang and cried, yearning for release, but still she sang, and her voice was so terrified and lost….
When he woke from those dreams, he was overwhelmed with fury at himself for still, deep in the caverns of his fucked up brain, caring about her.
His engrossment with her had become so much a part of him that it was as if he had an extra limb or organ, something he always carried around with him, always. Someone born with eleven fingers does not always notice the extra appendage. However, it is always there, as much a part of that person as the other ten.
Sandor could convince himself he'd moved on from the girl, but still he positioned himself in the wings so her bright auburn hair was always in his line of sight. He was always close by on her way to her dressing room, and he stood outside leaning against the wall staring into the night as she walked out to the carriages.
He did not have to think about looking after her. He simply did.
The flame that shot from the top of his skull down to his toes was the only tell-tale sign that reminded him unavoidably of that eleventh finger.
He felt that flame now as he spotted her huddling with Stone and Royce in back of the chorus.
Her face was a white mask of confused ecstasy.
She must be mad. She must.
But the voice in the dressing room….
So she's lying. There's another man in her life.
But the look on her face, in her eyes….
He swallowed down the rush of crazed concern and stood, giving the ropes another quick tug. Baelish's visit earlier today made more sense now that he'd spoken with Tyrion. The Hound was surprised when Baelish came by, the owner revealing himself backstage a rare occurrence. He'd stuck his hands in his pockets and looked around with a pleasant look on his face, in a bullshit attempt to come across nonchalant. Smiling and keeping his voice nice and honeyed, he told Sandor that there'd been some minor word of vandals around the place, so would he be so good as to double check the rigging and the props to make sure all is well before the curtain rises?
Sandor saw something in Baelish's gray-green eyes that he'd always suspected lurked within the impresario but never seen so clearly: sour desperation.
Now Sandor knew why.
The emotions that letter stirred in Sandor were wry irritation accompanied by a stifled anxiety. Perhaps it was just a prankster. The opera house usually got a couple letters per season from some crazed idiot claiming to be the opera ghost but was obviously a forger.
Then again, the Phantom himself is nothing more than a forgery. Baelish, Varys, or someone. Me, even. I've done things that were later blamed on the Phantom, like smuggling goods away for Baelish and carrying the ghost's so-called salary to Box Five.
Yet the murders, the supposed accidents whenever anyone talked too much about the opera ghost, spelled more than a mere conspiracy between managers.
Sandor fought down the images of Baelish's uncharacteristic concern, the little bird's unworldly expression, Tyrion's request, the murders. If he dwelled too much on all this he was liable to crack, roaring and grabbing the girl and – who knows what.
He backed into the shadows, hushing dancers and stagehands around him. The curtain rose.
As the chorus sang in noisome harmony, the anxiety Sandor had tried stamping down roiled to the surface. Now that everything was in motion, everything so far gone smoothly, Sandor could taste the tension humming in the air.
He gazed out at the audience. They sat indifferent to any danger, some whispering amongst themselves about Cersei's return and about Sansa's reduced role.
Cersei stepped to the center and sang. "Ah! To think the great fool Florian should visit our sleepy little village! What delights shall he reveal to us?"
Sandor could imagine the suppressed disappointment the audience felt at her conventional and lackluster notes compared to the youthful enthusiasm Sansa brought to the role.
Sandor studied Cersei dispassionately. Although she still looked mostly the same, she was a changed woman. Grief had hardened her features even more, and the increased drink and food were telling in the bleary bloat to her pale face.
She was still a handsome woman, but now Sandor felt Sansa was more beautiful.
Tyrion Lannister was one of the first to note the growing loveliness of Sansa's features. "There's a sort of haunted, vulnerable look to her now that makes her an absolute dish to look at, I must say," Sandor overheard him tell Varys in the wings one night.
He'd wanted nothing more than to smash the imp's nose into his face as he gazed at the girl with ill-concealed lust.
It was disgusting to say that of her in her evident distress. But shit, it was disgusting on his own part to compare a grieving mother's looks to a frightened girl's.
Once again, Sandor inwardly winced at his hypocrisy but shrugged it off. He was no saint. He just observed, the opera's loyal fucking hound.
The sisters approached Jonquil, cooing about her. Sansa sang her first solo lines.
Westeros, having learned to love her, applauded these few notes.
That was when Sandor saw the ferocious hate of the lioness enter Cersei's emerald eyes.
Sandor's muscles tightened in apprehension for Sansa.
Cersei soon proved his worry right.
She took every opportunity in this first act to block Sansa from view, to sing so loudly and shrilly that she drowned her out. Once in the bathing scene Cersei even tried to throw off Sansa's balance by brushing past her violently.
Sandor noticed that Sansa accepted this with surprising passivity. A consummate professional, Sansa played the giddy sister with nary a look or act that could be construed as out of character.
Sometimes, though, Sandor thought he spied her eyes flickering upward, as if waiting for a sign.
Outside of Cersei's growing animosity toward Sansa, nothing else seemed amiss. Once or twice Sandor climbed the rafters and poked his head around the corners.
Nothing.
He'd just settled back into his position in the left wing when Cersei took the stage alone for her fist big solo: The Jewelry Song.
Tyrion calmed down by degrees. The temperature was a bit stifling, ladies batting their fans vehemently, succeeding only in moving the warm air around. He sat bored in his box seated next to Baelish, Varys behind them. Tyrion leaned his elbow tiredly on the box's banister, head in hand. He certainly didn't look the part of the attentive brother supporting his grieving sister's return to the stage, but Tyrion knew both he and that sister were beyond that particular charade.
Against his will, his eyes crawled to the box beside theirs.
Box Five was popularly known as the Ghost's seat. Per tradition, Baelish usually did not sell it; however, Tyrion had at last talked him round the past couple months. Waste of good money to keep the seat unoccupied.
Still, Tyrion would not lie to himself that tonight he was glad Baelish had insisted on keeping Box Five empty.
Even if it was just a prankster, and even though Tyrion was far too rational to believe in any actual specter, you could never be too careful –
-Good gods, could Cersei be more lifeless?
She sang her lines now directly to the audience as if she were at some elegant drawing room recital rather than playing a part. There was no attempt at character building, at acting. When Tyrion recalled the breadth of spirit and excitement the Stark girl brought to the role, he wanted to sink even lower into his seat in second-hand embarrassment.
He'd barely spoken to Cersei alone since Joffrey's death and her return. She'd holed herself up in her mansion with the children, never leaving. Whenever Tyrion tried to pay his respects, he was informed the mistress was not receiving and he had nothing else to do but visit the children and try to cheer them up a tad. Poor Tommen walked around now like a pale dazed ghost of a child, and Myrcella was chomping at the bit to go abroad to boarding school – anything to escape the suffocating grief encasing their mother and their home.
Cersei's sudden return had thrown him off guard just as much as it had Sansa. His older sister arrived that day in their office with an odd air of serenity, offset by the uneasy dangerous light in her eyes. She insisted they send a telegram right away to Sansa, and to not move a muscle until she appeared. "We shall wait," she announced in a perfectly peaceful and queenly tone.
The stiff, awkward pose Sansa found them in was one they'd maintained since sending the wire.
Even though Tyrion suspected all along that Joffrey's death would affect his sister's hold on reality, he'd no idea how deep her crazed bitterness ran until she accused Sansa. That he hadn't expected.
He shivered, looking at his patrician sister in her incongruous medieval country girl get-up. Her face was composed and disinterested as she sang, but oh, how those eyes blazed mercilessly.
The light flickered.
Tyrion looked around. Had it really flickered, or in his boredom had he just nodded off for a brief second?
He spied a few heads turning to their companions, leaning in to whisper questioningly. One or two turned their eyes upward to glance at the chandelier hanging above.
Although Tyrion's heart rate skyrocketed, he forced himself to focus on the stage. He'd hand this to Cersei, she'd given no indication she'd noticed –
Another flash of darkness.
Tyrion's heart thudded in his ears as he heard creaking before the lights came back on.
Cersei's voice wavered and the professional mask slipped just a bit. All eyes were on the chandelier now.
This chandelier was comprised of crystal glass, supported by gilded brass and weighing a little over eight tons. It glowed a beautiful golden-red when lit, with specks of glittering silver.
They used the same model as the one Gregor Clegane destroyed all those years ago. The style was classic yet timeless.
Right now the crystals jangled together as the giant mass swayed, back and forth. The flames waved like bright scarves blowing in the wind.
The light flickered, on and off, on and off. Alarmed murmuring floated up from the crowd. Several people were inching away toward the aisles.
Tyrion looked to Baelish. Littlefinger was halfway out of his seat, face paralyzed and sharp as he stared at the mobile light fixture.
Tyrion glanced behind him.
Varys was gone.
The youngest Lannister could not help the faint spike of pride and pity in his heart as Cersei rallied her defenses and sang again. Her hand was tight around Jonquil's looking glass. Her voice was soft, unsure, her face plainly showing her lost anxiety, but still she soldiered on.
All at once an uncanny tenor sang seemingly from the chandelier itself, overpowering Cersei. As he sang Jonquil's words, the voice took on a nasty, mocking edge. Through the mass of shifting crystals, Tyrion thought he could just make out a dark silhouette standing on the ceiling edge next to the chandelier's chain.
Cersei's voice faded as the tenor's raised higher and higher. The audience was as paralyzed as Baelish now.
The voice called out in a rich, theatrical, ominous accent:
"Behold! She is singing to bring down the chandelier!"
Tyrion was on his feet on top of his seat, crying, "Don't - !"
The small clink of the chain detaching was all that could be heard until the chandelier landed on the seats below.
Had the chandelier fallen months prior, Sandor would not have hesitated to rally the crew, to investigate, to organize and direct. His training and experience would lead him to take immediate action.
Now he did indeed snap into action, but his motives were vastly different and more urgent than they ever were before.
Little bird. Little bird little bird little bird Sansa.
She of course was safe, he told himself as he pushed through the crowd of flabbergasted cast members backstage. The chandelier fell on the audience, and she was just behind the curtain with her fellow sisters, prepared to call offstage for Jonquil after her solo.
And yet the words of the Phantom's note, and that damnable protectiveness that overwhelmed him where she was concerned, set his heart racing as he struggled to near the area she should be watching from.
He registered the cries from the audience and the hubbub of the company. As he went he barked orders – "You, get out of the way! Trant, see to Lord Baelish, and find out what he needs! Blount, dammit, sober up and get the ballet girls away from the stage!" – Until he spied Stone and Royce gawking frozen in their spot behind the curtain.
He snapped at a few shrieking dancers and then pushed through to the two singers. "The girl? Where is she?"
Mya blinked once or twice. "Girl? You mean Sansa?"
Sandor leaned closer, struggling to hear through the chaos around them. "Aye, Sansa! Sansa Stark! Where is she?"
"The moment the chandelier crashed, she headed off like a shot that way." Myranda pointed where, face numb. "She looked so strange…."
She pointed in the direction of the dressing room. The dressing room: down the corridor, isolated….
Without a word more, Sandor turned and battled his way through the crowd.
One small dark-haired figure took after him.
"Wait! Where are you going? Wait!" Gendry reached out for Arya but was blocked by several large stagehands bustling by. He lost sight of her.
Sandor at last pushed past the remaining gawkers, and found himself near the corridor.
His sense of foreboding was at such a fever pitch he barely breathed.
He reached the corridor and then he heard it.
That tenor voice again. The one he heard speak to Sansa, and the one he heard condemn the audience from above the chandelier. It was singing now, from far down the hall, from the dressing room. He couldn't hear the words.
Growling, Sandor increased his pace, running like a madman.
By the time he reached the door the singing had faded.
As he fumbled for his key with one hand, he beat on the door with the other. "Sansa! Open the door! Sansa!" His voice rasped like the roar of some primitive beast's.
At last the key was in the lock. He burst into the room.
There was a strange breeze. The light still dimly burnt in the lamp.
Some instinct made him move past the partition to the wall-mounted mirror.
There was no Sansa.
He touched the glass.
Sandor's breath returned to him in jagged huffs.
No Sansa.
He turned at the sound of footsteps halting in the open doorway. He returned to the dressing room's entrance.
Arya stood there, panting, cap gone and short hair mussed.
She stared with razor-like intensity at the man before her.
Simultaneously they asked, "Where is she?"
They answered each other only with searing stares. They were helpless and frantic. Each recognized the look of animal frenzy in the other's eyes.
A/N: If all goes according to plan, the Phantom's big reveal should be next chapter! I request you keep any suspicions to yourself for now, since even though I have a feeling I might have made the identity kind of obvious, I like the pretense of surprise, heh!
Thanks so much to tumblr user rjdaae for clueing me in on how big the Paris Garnier's chandelier was. I made it a little bigger here, because DRAMA! *throws glitter in your face* And hey, at least I didn't exaggerate as much as Gaston Leroux did in the novel – he claimed the chandelier was 200,000 kilos, which is apparently 30 times the size of the original! My, my.