They were drawing stares, whether because of Suthe's foreign appearance or Nem Koel's shabby attire, Suthe didn't know. Probably both. Nem Koel, Suthe noticed, seemed far more confident than she herself felt, and not for the first time, Suthe wished that it was Nem Koel who was playing the part of Namija, and not her.

As they squeezed through the crowd pouring into the building, Suthe struggled to keep sight of Saer Lon, who was far ahead of both her and Nem Koel, and somehow doing a much better job of navigating the hordes of people. Suthe was so focused on not getting lost that it took her a few moments to take note of the dark-paneled hallway and hanging tapestries decorated with colorful dancing figures. The hall eventually opened up into a large room with circular tables set at intervals in front of a large stage, each table big enough to fit eight people. Above, a balcony ran along three sides of the room, its occupants in private box seats shaded by painted wooden paneling that acted as a canopy.

"Do you see Saer Lon?" Nem Koel asked, standing on her tiptoes. "There are too many people!"

Suthe lowered her gaze and searched the crowd. "There!" She pointed, just in time to see a figure in a dark robe and green cap bump into Saer Lon, bow in apology, and swiftly turn and head for a staircase going up to the balcony. Suthe would have continued watching, but the jostling of the crowd forced her to concentrate on not getting stepped on. Nem Koel grabbed her hand, and together, they somehow managed to finally reach the third member of their party, who by now had taken a seat at one of the tables near the wall and propped a foot up on the chair to her left and slung an arm over the back of the chair to her right to save the seats.

When Saer Lon saw the girls arriving, she lowered her arm and moved over to the seat she had been previously using as a footrest so that Nem Koel and Suthe could sit next to each other. As soon as Nem Koel had taken her seat, Saer Lon had leaned over and whispered in her ear, passing a piece of paper under the table.

Suthe watched silently as Nem Koel read the paper, and then leaned in when Nem Koel motioned to her.

"One of Irikri's people passed this note to her just now," Nem Koel explained in a whisper just loud enough to be heard over the susurrus of the settling crowd. "She'll send for us to meet with her when she's ready. For now, we're to enjoy the performance."

"Performance?" Suthe eyed a couple who sat down at their table, then glanced over to the stage. "How many songs will there be?"

Nem Koel shook her head slightly. "Not songs. Acts."

"Acts? As in, a play?" A group of five gentlemen in rich silk robes passed behind them, looking down at Suthe's outburst, and she ducked her head.

"Shh!" Nem Koel leaned in closer. "Don't be so impatient. Andilirish theater is different from any other performance in the region. You're in for a treat."

Suthe bit back a retort, the impatience gnawing within her manifesting as the biting of her lip. How could she enjoy the performance, she wanted to ask, if the whole time she would be worrying about what to say to this Irikri person?

She looked around again, taking some consolation in the fact that she wasn't the only foreigner there. Closer to the front of the stage, a Sylterran man was chatting with a woman in a long green dress, and two men who looked to be Crevvanese were standing at the back of the room, looking for open seats. If it was popular enough to draw foreigners, Suthe supposed, then perhaps the performance would be worth paying some attention to.

A strum of strings from behind the stage silenced the crowd, and as Suthe watched, a curvy woman with a long braid wrapped around the top of her head stepped out onto the stage, carrying a silk-stringed zither by its back. The audience applauded as she bowed, then descended the stairs at the front of the stage to take a seat in a chair that had been set up for her, along with a small slanted table for her zither. Once she was seated, she struck the strings again, and was answered with a clack from the somewhere behind the stage. This time, a man stepped out from behind the curtains, a red strap around his neck holding up the double-sided drum in the shape of an hourglass. He continued to strike the drum in a series of thrums and clacks as he made his way across the stage, coming to a stop once he had joined the woman with the zither.

Nem Koel leaned in to whisper, "Wura and Ori are among the best musicians in the whole country!" She tugged at her jacket, as if wishing she had something less shabby. "I can't believe we get to see them perform!"

Suthe raised her eyebrows and gave a close-lipped smile, attempting to look at least somewhat interested, for Nem Koel's sake. But internally, her mind was still churning with thoughts about their own upcoming performance with Irikri.

A shared glance between the two musicians was all the notice given before the pair launched into a melody, and three figures in brightly-colored costumes and makeup shuffled out onto the stage, their footsteps keeping time with the rapid beat. Two of the actors were dressed as women, and upon the next beat of Ori's drum, flipped out their fans and began a swaying dance, while the man opened his mouth and began to sing in a low, warbling tone.

Suthe tilted towards Nem Koel. "I thought you said it was a play, and not a song?"

"Shh! This is the prologue to set the scene," came the reply, and Nem Koel sent an apologetic smile to the couple at their table before continuing in a lower voice. "It's a satire on the hypocrisy of the ruling class and natural human desires. The nobleman is supposed to be an advisor to the king, and those are his two lower-class lovers, neither of whom knows about the other." She paused, listening as the singing narrative continued. "Now he's lamenting that if only he had paid attention to the fact that mingling with the lower class would bring such ruin to his future—ha! This is going to be good."

Suthe frowned. "What do you mean?"

Nem Koel tore her gaze from the stage just long enough to grin at Suthe. "It's a comedy. The nobleman gets into trouble trying to cover up his own mistakes, and eventually ends up involving the whole palace in trying to cover up for him, but at the end of the day, he'll blame it on the poor."

Suthe's frown only deepened. "That doesn't sound very funny to me."

Nem Koel shrugged. "It's a bit of a – what would you call it in Montese...comedy of errors?"

Suthe raised her eyebrows. "Oh."

She turned back to the performance, but found it hard to concentrate without knowing the language. The man had by now stopped singing, and the two women were calling out at intervals from opposite ends of the stage, sending the nobleman running back and forth between the two in his haste to respond to their comments. The women's calls grew more and more rapid, until the man was barely taking a step in one direction without suddenly being called in the other. Ori's drumbeats grew more rapid, until finally they stopped, and the man collapsed on the stage in mock fatigue. Then another figure stepped out from the wings of the stage, and the audience laughed as the nobleman suddenly jumped to his feet.

"That's the king," Nem Koel explained, as the two ladies lazily fanned themselves while the nobleman fretted.

Suthe squinted. It was difficult to tell with the makeup and the lantern light, but something seemed off, even as the king began to speak with a low voice.

"Is that...a woman?"

"All the male characters are," Nem Koel explained, "And all the female characters are played by men. Otherwise, it would be seen as a deceitful and mocking portrayal of royalty—the audience has to be shown there is a clear difference between real royals and those just meant to be entertainment in a play, but the actors can still be very convincing."

Suthe studied the characters of the lovers. Their makeup was exaggerated to stand out in the theater lighting, and she figured that was perhaps why she hadn't realized that the actors were men any sooner.

The play continued, a blend of dance, song, and dialogue accompanied by Wura and Ori's instruments. Background characters wove in and out of the scenes, tending to the king or rearranging the sets and making exaggerated faces in reaction to the protagonist's antics. Other characters were introduced as well, including a jealous sister to one of the nobleman's lovers, a hopelessly bad cook, and a general with comically-long feathers in his helmet.

"Trying to compensate for something else, I think," Nem Koel muttered, causing Suthe to giggle at last, as that was one thing she could understand.

The scene with the general finished, and so did Wura and Ori's playing. The musicians stood up and bowed to thunderous applause, then ascended the stage to disappear behind the wings. People in the audience began to stand up and stretch, and many chatted excitedly as staff in green caps began to emerge from the back of the room, making their way between the tables.

"What's going on?" Suthe asked.

"Intermission!" Nem Koel answered with a grin. "Now we'll have a server take our order, and we'll get to eat! It's because there's a banquet scene in the next act, and traditionally it's rude to watch others eat while not having anything for yourself."

Suthe gave a bittersweet grin. If only she had an appetite for eating—but the idea of still having to meet with Irikri was putting her stomach in knots.

One of the servers approached their table, going first to the couple that had sat down on the other side and taking their orders. While the couple was engaged, however, another green-capped figure came up behind Saer Lon and cleared his throat before leaning down to whisper in her ear. Suthe and Nem Koel watched impatiently as Saer Lon listened to the man, then raised her eyes to lock with Nem Koel's. The man stepped back, and Saer Lon nodded.

Suthe leaned in to hear as Nem Koel translated Saer Lon's words.

"We're to go upstairs now to meet Irikri. She'll be in one of the private box seats close to the stage."

They went one at a time, so as not to draw too much attention to their departure. Suthe was last to leave their table, trying to ignore the burning in her cheeks as she tried to be as subtle as possible. It felt like they were being too obvious. Surely everyone would have noticed their odd departure? But when she rejoined Nem Koel and Saer Lon at the back staircase and looked out, all the occupants of the tables seemed to be engaged in their own conversations, eagerly awaiting the food that would soon be served.

Nem Koel tugged at her sleeve. "This way, S—uh, Namija."

They climbed the stairs in anxious silence, the warm hum of the audience at complete odds with Suthe's racing worries. The man in the green cap led them down a dark-paneled hallway, along a thick red rug that muffled their footsteps. At last, they came to a stop at the final door, and their guide's polite knock was met with an affirming reply from within.

The man in the green cap held open the door, and Suthe followed Saer Lon and Nem Koel inside the room.

The paneled canopy of the balcony that Suthe had noticed earlier shielded much of the light from the large lanterns hanging in the main theater hall. It took a moment for Suthe's eyes to adjust, and when they did, she was surprised at the lavishness of the room. A small round tea table, surrounded by four wicker chairs, sat beneath a dim lantern. A woman was standing at the railing, looking down at the stage, but turned when her three guests entered and gestured for them to take a seat before sitting down herself. The man in the green cap closed the door and came to stand behind her, like one of the attending actors to the king's character in the play.

Suthe followed Saer Lon and Nem Koel's leads and took a seat, squaring her shoulders and pretending to smooth out her dress for a few moments longer than necessary to gather her courage. It would just be like a play, she told herself. She was the character Namija, looking for her lost family jewelry. Nothing so sinister as arrests and war were at stake. She had to forget that.

Taking an encouraging breath, Suthe looked up. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Grimota," she began, but her words faltered at the end of her sentence as the dim lantern light illuminated their host, and the full extent of their situation. Irikri, it seemed, wasn't just any woman who enjoyed going to the theater while engaging in a bit of rare and illegal trade on the side.

The person before them was dressed in rich blue robes and had styled their hair in a similar fashion to the characters of the women in the play. The difference was that Irikri's clothes were not as bright as the costumes, and the clips in her hair were made with real gems that glowed in the dim light. But the woman's makeup was nearly done in the same style of the actors' as well, exaggerating the use of traditional feminine styles to soften Irikri's sharp jaw and accentuate her eyes and lips with pink eyeshadow and bright red lipstick.

Nem Koel was translating Suthe's words to their host, but Suthe could only hear the sound of her heartbeat in her ears as Irikri's calm, sharp gaze bore into her. He—she—was an actor herself, and by the looks of it, a very successful one. Suthe would need to do more than just act her part if she wanted to get any answers. She would have to believe every word she said, or their performance would be over before it even began.

A/N: Hey everyone, I'm back for a moment and wanted to share another chapter.  Hope it isn't too drawn-out/boring etc.  I've been switching jobs among other things lately, so I can't make any promises when updating will be semi-frequent again, but with a long holiday I was able to find some time this week.  ^^  Thank you for reading!