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gang.”
    â€œBecause if he couldn’t have me, he wanted you, and you weren’t interested,” Tonio said, toneless now. “And also because he figured hurting you was a great way to get back at me. It was complete stupidity. It shows just how twisted his brain is. He didn’t have even half of one leg to stand on, and he knew it.”
    Max grunted.
    â€œI just said Nighttimes . I didn’t say Major anything,” Nicholas reminded anyone who was listening.
    â€œDidn’t have to. I know exactly who’s covering theater for Nighttimes . He’s just so anti-Outlaw that I didn’t think he’d bother to show up, even if we did go more or less mainstream. The only reason he ever checked out one of our productions was to make rude, suggestive comments about magic and to try to make it sound like we were consorting with the criminal element in Faerie. I guess I’d hoped he was over that.”
    â€œWishful thinking. It hardly ever works,” Max said. He sounded apologetic.
    Tonio nodded. “But it’s nice to hope.” Almost as an afterthought he added, “And he didn’t get back till after we’d leased this building.”
    â€œWait,” I said. “All the ‘You’ll Know It When You Find It’ stuff—you’ve been hiding from one guy? I mean, just one guy?”
    â€œHe’s got a lot of pull for just one guy,” Max said, grim.
    â€œHe’s amazingly vindictive,” Floss added.
    â€œHe knows the right people, too,” Tonio said. “He knows how easy it is to get someone in trouble. He works loopholes like nobody I’ve ever met before.”
    Nicholas, Lucia, and I stood there like a group excluded from a party. We listened. And apparently not one of us knew what to say next because we clumped together like mimes looking for something to mime about.
    The timer we used as a ten-minute reminder binged. It sounded like it was a very long way away. Lucia jumped the smallest bit. Nicholas said, almost to himself, “I’m getting pretty good at loopholes,” but his voice was a low shadow of normal, and noone reacted to his comment.
    Floss sighed. “Ten minutes,” she said. “Make it count.”
    In spite of Major, in spite of the gloom-and-doom scenario that I still didn’t really understand, we put on a good show. The audience seemed to love us, which is at least half the reason for putting on a show, after all. (The other half, I guess, is the sheer giddiness of a good performance, and the ability to overcome all of those little niggling fears that hide in the sides of your mind.)
    Two productions ago we’d started an audience participation segment on the nights when it felt right. This consisted of opening up our secrets backstage and inviting in onlookers. Why Tonio decided that the night Major was there was a good one for this I still don’t understand. Apparently, Max didn’t understand either.
    â€œNot tonight. Really. Not tonight,” he said to Tonio.
    â€œHe won’t come,” Tonio said in a voice edged with scorn.
    â€œAnd if he does?”
    â€œThere is nothing,” Tonio responded, in hard, precise words, “he can do to me.”
    â€œThat he hasn’t done before?” Max asked. It could have been a taunt, but his voice was too gentle for that. “Why court it?”
    â€œI know what I can and can’t do. What I should and shouldn’t do,” Tonio snapped. “I don’t need an over-the-hill boxer telling me how to handle my life.”
    The gasp by my ear came from Lucia. “Persia,” she whispered. “Do something. Make them stop.”
    I understood exactly what Lucia meant. Tonio saying something cruel to Max was unheard of. Ever since I’d known them they’d talked together, laughed together, even fought together, but I’d never before heard this kind of rudeness. And I’d certainly