Page 105 of Songs and Spun Gold
Pushing upright, he grabbed Katy and pulled her forward even as he dragged her to her feet. She stumbled but quickly caught herself. His eyes darted around, verifying that his parentswere already forcing their way up the aisle, the guards attempting to organize the evacuation from their position while expediting the monarchs’ exit.
“Come on, Your Highness!” Bertram tugged him through the panicked crowd. People pushed against each other as they fought to escape the orange flames flickering at the edges of the room. Even as big as the room was, the center was already growing warmer. The acrid smell of smoke began to fill his nostrils.
“It will only slow things down to try to get me out from here!” Axel argued. “Do what you can to calm people down and get them moving faster instead. We don’t want anyone to—Lotti!” Spinning, he lunged in the direction of the stage.
“Axel, what are you doing?” Katy held tight to his arm. “That won’t be faster!”
He strained against her, but Bertram latched onto his other arm, and Otto grabbed him around the waist. “That was Lotti singing before everything went crazy! The way her voice cut off, she might be hurt! Unconscious! I have to help her.”
“You’ll have to trust the cast to help her.” Katy’s voice was urgent, but he could hear her attempt to be soothing. “You’ll only slow everyone down trying to fight the flow. Besides, how are you going to make it onto the stage?”
He looked at the line of fire spreading to the orchestra pit. His shoulders dropped as he recognized the truth of Katy’s statement; the flames were already licking at the edges of the stairs. By the time he could fight his way down there, it would be completely cut off. Even if he ran through the flames, there was no guarantee he could escape out the back. He certainly wouldn’t be able to return the way he had come.
Relenting, he allowed his guards and Katy to lug him back into the flow. He would simply have to hope that Lotti had the strength to escape on her own or that the flames lit up her shadows enough for someone else to see her and rescue her.
In the meantime, he would have to hope that he and the rest of his people in this theater would make it to safety themselves. The flames grew at an alarming rate, acting as if the furnishings had been doused in oil beforehand. Shouldn’t it take longer for the fire to spread, even with as many points of ignition as it had had?
The panicked cries of his people and the crackling of the flames beat against his ears, but he still heard when other, louder shouts joined them from the back of the auditorium. A sharp hissing noise sounded, followed by another. To his relief, he saw men standing at the doors of the outer aisles, hurling water from buckets as quickly as they could. Steam began to join the smoke at the back of the room. Axel feared there wouldn’t be much to salvage by the time they extinguished the blaze, but their arrival had brought hope to the people still trapped within. The panic settled somewhat, and people stopped pressing so hard against each other, allowing the evacuation to speed up.
By the time he and Katy stumbled through the door into the entry hall, the flames had spread farther than the row in which they had sat. The crew fighting the fire had knocked back the flames along the walls, but they struggled to make progress against the inferno eating through the center. He knew they would have a better chance once the patrons had been cleared and they had more points of access.
“Axel!” His mother’s voice pierced the tumult on the streets outside as he appeared. “Thank the heavens!” He could make her out in the crowd, her hands clasped under her chin and her face an expression of horror and utter relief. Startled, he realized that her face and the crowd around her were lit with an orange glow that didn’t quite match the street lamps.
He turned, jaw dropping open as he realized that while the flames had been beaten down in the back of the theater, theyhad climbed higher in the front. The sky above the theater was lit by the hungry fire flickering across the roof of the building.
How long would it take to recover from this much damage?
He hoped everyone backstage had made it out through the alley door. With the way every light source had hit the ground inside the auditorium... But the entry hall had not been aflame. Surely that meant the cast hallways had been spared as well.
A strong pair of arms wrapped around him. “Son. You made it.”
Outraged, he twisted his head to look over his shoulder. “Is that enough of a disaster for you, Father?” he snapped. “Or will the whole building have to come down, with a dozen or more people trapped inside, for it to qualify?”
“The perpetrator of the accidents has simply grown bolder,” the king stubbornly replied, releasing him. “You see that I was right to keep you off the stage. And you can be certain that I will not be allowing you back inside that building for a long time.”
“No one will be going back inside that building for quite some time! The time and cost of repairs—”
“With which the crown willnotbe helping. Not until I’m satisfied that the building is safe from its ghost,” the king interrupted, his voice unyielding. “That was no act of a man, Axel. Not the way everything lit at once. Not without a soul near any of it.”
Axel ground his teeth together but held his peace, knowing it was futile to argue with his father. Besides, what could he say? He was convinced the fire was the threatened disaster, but he had no more explanation than his father as to how it had occurred.
Because the only explanations that came to mind were ghosts and magic. But as neither existed, both were impossible.
“Your Majesties, Your Highness, we should get you back to the safety of the castle,” one of the guards gently prodded. “The fire might spread farther, and the arsonist might be waiting for you out here.”
The king motioned to the guard to lead the way, and Axel allowed himself to be chivvied along as the guards forged a path for them. As he did, he turned to look over his shoulder at the burning building where he had spent so many happy hours over the last decade. He didn’t know if his voice tutor had made it out. Even if she had, he didn’t know when he would be allowed near the place again.
With a heavy heart, he turned back to the front, wishing he had figured out a way to defy his father. He couldn’t see how any punishment could have been worse than this.
CHAPTER 31
Katy
Axel had paid for a hired hand to watch the sheep so that Liesl could come to the wedding. He had offered to pay for someone to care for their mother as well, but Adele decided she would rather stay home.
As for Katy’s father... She didn’t want him anywhere near a royal wedding. Axel had concocted a brilliant excuse for why he needed to stay in Flussendorf. It was just a good thing she was writing it in a letter; Katy could never have pulled it off in person.
Since Angelika and Liesl would be Katy’s wedding attendants, they had been tied up in last-minute fittings and missed the performance at the theater. Katy was relieved that they had escaped that, but Liesl was disappointed to have missed it.
