The first act concluded with the Protector hearing the good news, that every soul in Hofingrad had been slain. A villainous laugh, and Cuttle rubbed together his palms in satisfaction. On the opposite side of the stage, Stoat and Marlin vowed beneath a spotlight that their slaughtered families would be avenged. The lights dimmed, and Fiepet felt a tug on his sleeve, as Vole dragged him offstage to the muted applause of the audience.

At last, Fiepet could see his brother.

Or he would have, if Delphin hadn't been spirited away by the dancing girl. Behind the curtain, all pretense of Cuttle's patience was cast aside. Between the audience's poor reception and the disruption of the drunken guest, the leading man was about ready to put his fist through the wall.

"Your brother certainly has a penchant for distruption, does he not?!" he wagered at Fiepet.

"What did my brother do?" he asked in innocent return, "More's to the point, where is he?"

Looking around the backstage space, there was little but the looking glass and the littered line of shelving on which the performers readied themselves. He hadn't noticed him exit via the stage, and yet there was no other way he could have left.

"Delph..?"

"Another cry for attention no doubt!" raged Cuttle, "A mere nobody and still intent on causing mischief!"

"Did you see him leave?" Fiepet asked of the Zauber Players, as panic rose the pitch in which he spoke, "Did you? Have you seen him? Anyone? He was here but a moment ago... there is no one here he knows!"

Stoat was preparing for his transformation into the mighty Warlock, and Fiepet's incessant questions were beginning to distract him. If only to grant himself a reprieve, he offered a pleasant smile and a glimmer of hopeful possibility.

"He cannot have gone far, and it's unlikely he would have intentionally left with a fuss. I'm sure he'd have been mobbed by the patrons had he made a noticeable exit, so it's likely he just slipped out discreetly in the dark to relieve himself."

Cuttle rolled his eyes. All this commotion over a stand-in when the star's anger had yet to be pacified.

"Then where might he have gone for that?" asked Fiepet, his vexing concern continuing to annoy the others, "He... he was with one of the dancers, do you think she might have shown him the way?"

"Oh so that's it," said Cuttle with a smirk, "You're jealous."

"What?"

"Keep up the brother act as long as you like, but when a third party gets involved I imagine it's not so easy to pretend. And there's no sense in hiding it really, not when the Warlock himself intends to wed a man."

"Sir," began Fiepet, "My brother and I are here at your request; I would beg you not make such wild claims about our familial relationship. This place and its people are unknown to us, and my brother is of a delicate constitution. Should he find himself entangled with a pretty young lady I shall think it most fortunate, but I'll be damned if I don't first ascertain his safety before granting them my blessings!"

Cuttle's cheeks turned red.

"There's a backhouse through and to the right..." he told him sheepishly, "But hurry back, you're still to be killed in the next act!"

Fiepet flung the curtain open and marched into the auditorium, leaving the players entranced by his passionate prose.

"He wouldn't be a bad Rel," said Marlin, "But I can see why you had misgivings about him and the other one; they don't look very alike."

"I was mistaken is all," admitted Cuttle in a rare moment of reflection, "But now I see the resemblance. They're both of them quite handsome."

It was a chore to make his way through the crowd. Those that had waited inside to watch the show, or see if the troublemaker would start a fight, were all hurrying to use the backhouse before the second act began. Fiepet's costume drew some attention; but when they realized it wasn't the pretty soldier's face atop the uniform, they went back about their business.

"Delph! Delphin! Delphin Strahl!" Fiepet called his brother's name as he rushed back and forth across the Sirrup House. The maddening dream was becoming a nightmare; Delph had vanished without a word and was nowhere to be found. 

"Excuse me!" he cried, stumbling upon Master Pie, "My brother is missing! He is dressed the same as I, or at least he was when I last saw him. Please sir, do you know where he might have got to?"

"Have you tried the backhouse?" came the useless reply.

"He is not there. He is not anywhere that I have seen. Please sir, he was speaking to one of the dancers before I left them, and now he is gone."

"Liar."

"Pardon?" challenged Fiepet, "I assure you, I do not lie."

"L-y-r-e," Master Pie spelled out to him "Lyre is not one of the dancers, however. She is the only dancer. The rest are her illusions; puppets if you will."

"I don't follow," puzzled Fiepet, "But this girl, might you ask her where my brother has gone?"

Master Pie sighed deeply and motioned for Fiepet to follow. Back through the mob and onwards to the curtain, only the Zauber Players inhabited the cramped and shabby space.

"We are not yet ready!" Cuttle exclaimed to the proprietor.

Dismissed with a wave of his hand, Master Pie tapped on the wall behind him and waited for a response. When the door failed to show itself, his temper began to flare.

"That girl!" he grumbled, proceeding to turn around and head back the way they'd come, "She's been crafting passageways again and sealing them up thinking I won't notice! I warned her the last time, the Sirrup House can't take her meddlesome shortcuts; the bricks will likely fall before our ears if she keeps rending them apart so."

"My brother, sir..."

"Oh yes, yes, she's likely taken him off to play in the kitchens. But I'm afraid we'll have to take the long way round to get there."

A puff of air from the opening of his hand, and a small ball of light was spat into the space before them. For such a minor spell, Fiepet's wonder did not go unnoticed.

"Yes, I do have quite the flair with my fingers," Master Pie professed proudly, "I'd have fancied myself a showman in another life. Ah, this way now!"

The long-abandoned kitchens had been without a cook since a mishap in the time of King Vireo. One teensy little mass-poisoning, and the patrons were left with only the stewpot by the bar to fill their stomachs. The toxic mushrooms found growing through the floor were diligently cleaned away, and yet no one was convinced they wouldn't end up once more in their bowls.

Clearing his throat as he kicked some little blue caps off their stems, Master Pie looked around the empty room, only to determine that Lyre had likely left through another door of her making.

"Well," he confessed, "It seems we are a step too late."

"What does that mean?" asked Fiepet, "Where else might they be?"

Not one to disappoint, Master Pie turned again on his heel and marched back through the corridor, through the auditorium once more, and out into the evening air. Lyre and her tricks made light work of the Sirrup House walls, but for Master Pie and his limited skill, they could only walk around them.

"Ah," said Master Pie, noting that Lyre's cart was gone.

"My brother..?" begged Fiepet.

It was impossible that Delph would have left with a stranger. His timid brother had no cause to leave Fiepet behind; there had to be an explanation. Standing in shock, the flustered Master Pie had no words. But on the side of the building, a rustle of ivy had drawn his eye.

"You! You wretched girl!" cried Master Pie, taking hold of Lyre's skirts before she could open a door to run through, "What did I tell you?! This building is too old to play with! If it all falls down, you won't be asked back again."

"Please!" said Fiepet.

"Ah, and another thing! This gentleman's brother is quite misplaced. He left him in the alcove and it appears you've gone and hidden him away. Out with it, what have you done with him?!"

Lyre looked guiltily at Delph's anxious brother, though in truth it hadn't been entirely her fault.

"I only meant to borrow him for a spell," she confessed.

"What spell requires a human man?" cried Master Pie in alarm.

"I mean, for a while. I only meant to borrow him for a while... You know as well as I do that my 'sisters' aren't exactly company. What's the harm in adding a face like his to the act? I wouldn't be the only one to benefit, he didn't like the stupid Zauber Play anyway!"

"Where is Delphin?!" demanded Fiepet, "Is he safe?" 

"Likely still sleeping," said Lyre, "Or he was when we put him in the cart."

Master Pie sent his orb of light around the vacant space where the cart should have been. He was curious how she'd magicked it away without a trace.

"It's not there," she told him with a sigh, "It's been stolen. A bearded drunk has ridden off with it, and taken my beautiful prize!"

"My little brother has been kidnapped, by a drunken stranger..?" 

Fiepet felt sick.

"Well, Lyre was responsible for the kidnapping part," Master Pie pointed out, "The drunk merely stole him by mistake." 

Lyre agreed with a considered nod. Only Fiepet seemed to be aware how urgent the situation had become.

"Which way did they go? I need a horse! Someone alert the watchman!"

"The what man?" asked Master Pie, "Oh come now, the mystery's been solved, why not finish the play first? You may find he returns on his own. Or, perhaps the thief will think to bring him back if he hasn't any need to keep him."

"My brother is gone! Gone, sir! He has been taken, and I'll be damned if you think I'll just sit around and wait! Hurry now," he said to Lyre, "The man who took your cart, what can you tell me of his appearance? Was there any indication as to where he might have been headed?"

"Away from the Counsel, it looked like. I spied him and his lackey not far off; and there's no mistaking the ghostly pallor of the Warlock's right-hand man. But I couldn't tell you which way he might have run from him when the cart reached the road."

Master Pie raised his brow and pursed his lips. "Bearded, you said, this thief..? Quite tall and rather drunk?"

Lyre nodded her head.

"It appears our evening's troublemaker has caused another spot of trouble. I didn't catch his name, but if he's known to the Counsel and dares to speak against the witch; he's unlikely to be any ordinary man!"

"This Counsel," Fiepet began, "Might he know where to find the thief who took my brother?"

Master Pie scoffed at the suggestion. One did not seek the Warlock's Counsel.

"Even if the Counsel may know, he is not someone you can ask. Relmund's Velvet Palace is not so hospitable as our dear Sirrup House..! Follow your feet back to the stage, young sir. Your brother may yet reappear by the curtain call."

"You there, kidnapper!" snapped Fiepet to Lyre, "Do you know where this Counsel may be found?"

"I do," she admitted, "Surely as do we all... all of us from the Madning Isle that is. Tell me, where do you and that pretty prize of mine come from? The words he said tonight were awful strange."

"Easterners in our midsts, is it?" chimed in Pie, "Well an evening jaunt will do him good then, give him a chance to see more of our dear country."

The unusually unbothered pair had failed to grasp that Fiepet was at breaking point. While they casually spoke by the back door of the Sirrup House, Delph would be waking up, alone, beside a man who'd been drinking. What's more; it was the man who'd interrupted their performance and clearly held the actors in disdain. A glance at Delph's costume could be enough to set him off again.

"The blaggard who has stolen your cart, and my brother along with it, may be just as likely to throw my brother out than ride him merrily around the countryside! Have you forgotten his tirade against this evening's play?! What do you think he'll do when he finds he's journeying with one of its cast?!"

Master Pie looked to Lyre for an answer that might abate Fiepet's temper.

"You've nothing to fear on that account!" she asserted, "The mustard didn't suit him; so when I got finished inspecting my prize, I changed his clothes quite prettily."

Her answer had rendered the desired effect, and left Master Pie quite satisfied. With such an affront to moral decency, Fiepet Strahl was far too shocked to be angry.