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WHISPERS TRAVELED QUICKLY. Ketya found herself packing up costumes as dancers would hand them back to her, tears streaming from their eyes. Birsk was no longer safe anymore, they would tell her. Their families had sent for them to return home.
The rumours of war spread like a disease.
"Yelena left yesterday." Palnova would mumble as she collected her share of Bessmertny's pay every night. "One of my best dancers, gone!" Bags haunted the old woman's eyes and dug even deeper with each passing day. Ketya wondered if Palnova had any place to go if the Deathless truly ever did invade.
The truth was, the rich were leaving Birsk like birds in the winter. The rumble of their horse drawn carriages brought noise to the streets as Ketya walked to the theatre every morning, a black coat always in hand.
When will I leave? She wondered to herself, feeling the weight of coins pressed against the pocket of her own new coat. Ketya had saved up every single coin that he'd given her and that Palnova hadn't taken. It was enough to buy her warmer clothes, but not enough to buy her a passage out of Birsk.
When Ketya walked into the theatre that morning, it was all she could think of. She hadn't even noticed Palnova's clapping heels as she marched over to her until she was face to face with the scowling woman.
"Wh—"
"Sh!" Palnova hissed, grabbing her arm and dragging her to the wall opposite to the office doorway. "Soft steps girl, you walk like a horse." She said as Ketya stumbled when she was pulled against the wall, not another sound to be heard in the theatre.
"I need to go in and give the General his coat."
"Yes, I know." Palnova gave her an incredulous look, "But you can't right now, Victor is in there with him."
"Victor is here?"
"Don't act too excited, suchka." She hummed sarcastically, always using swear words and insults against Ketya as if she was uttering an endearment. "They've been in there since I let the girls in, I've tried to listen in but I can barely hear a breath in there."
Ketya fixed her gaze on the door to the office, silence coming from beyond the thin walls. She wondered what they were talking about in there, if they'd even had been supposed to meet. Would Victor be angry she was taking in money from somewhere other than the theatre?
"Maybe Victor was just wondering what a General was doing sitting in your office." She whispered, not quite believing what she was saying. "It's probably nothing."
"I always knew you were a stupid girl. But I didn't think you could be this stupid." Palnova pursed her lips, an action memorized by most of the dancers and Ketya. Irina Palnova always pursed her lips when she thought something was distasteful, one of the dancers had told Ketya many years before. Perhaps she found the fact that she didn't know what was going on in her own office as distasteful as a bent pirouette.
