Chapter Text
He came to her in her dreams, but tonight she was awake. The golden arms held torches out to guide her way, but she needed them none. His voice was guide enough. He sang and despite the ugliness of his heart and the dryness of his hands when he touched her, the melody was beautiful. His voice drew her to him until she was deep in the catacombs and she barely noticed the hem of her dress dipping into the murky waters of the river. Then her bare feet grew wet too and the feeling stung.
“I am here, sweetling.”
He was singing, still. “Slowly, gently…” In his boat he bent low and took her hand, pulling her onto the boat with him.
He pushed her shoulders and she settled at his feet. He liked her like this, a flower with its petals spread at his feet, as he drove her to where he wished to go.
This was so beautiful when it was just a dream, Sansa thought, staring at the glittering lights on the surface of the water. But awake, knowing what she knew, the vision was cruel and for a reason she could not place it made her breath feel choked and tight. For so many nights now she was awake, painfully awake when the phantom visited her—or was it she who visited him? Sansa did not know. She slept each night before the clock struck ten and the phantom chose when to appear to her, when to take her below.
When they were on the shore he sat on his throne and bid her stand before him. He crossed his legs and smiled his small little smile, a sliver beneath the white half-mask.
“Sing…”
Sansa opened her mouth and gave him what he wanted.
She harmonized first, performing the notes he asked her to, and even after everything she could not help the swell of admiration in her chest whenever he joined in or demonstrated. His voice was beautiful, the voice of her teacher, the voice of an angel.
But it was he who called her angel, murmuring it again and again, until his voice rose and strengthened and he was singing too. Or was he pleading? His eyes were glittery with tears and his face seemed alive, taught with tension, his voice rang with desperation.
“Sing, my angel! Sing, sweetling!”
She obeyed, vocalizing a beautiful high note that rose and rose until it shook the cieling above them. His face shone with delight. To her it only sounded like a scream.
“Sing for me!”
He was trembling. He took pleasure in owning her voice. Sansa let him own it. It was better than owning her.
“Dearest! Have you heard?”
In the changing room of the ballet girls Sansa was peeling her shoes off her aching feet. She was a chorus girl but in her heart preferred singing to ballet. Madame Tyrell wished dearly it was the opposite—tall and willowy, Sansa was an ideal ballerina. But Madame Tyrell had also heard her sing, so Sansa knew she did not disapprove of her aspirations.
“What am I to have heard, Margaery?”
The beautiful girl bounced to where Sansa sat and delicately settled in beside her. Her face shone, from the exertion of the performance they just shared, or perhaps from the gossip she was eager to deliver. Knowing her friend, Sansa guessed it was the latter.
“We have been bought.”
“The opera house?” Sansa frowned. She would miss Monsieur Luwin, absentee as he was. He was a good man who treated all the workers, performers, and boarders of the opera house well. “Why has Monsieur Luwin sold it?”
“He is retiring. For his health, he says, though I suspect it’s to get away from that wicked diva Cersei… handling her must have aged him thirty years!”
Sansa privately wished that if such was the case, Cersei be the one to leave instead. The prima donna was insufferable and not worth all the trouble she caused, in Sansa’s opinion. She was not alone in thinking so; she had overheard Madame Tyrell complaining about how the audiences were lessening because Cersei was losing her touch. Perhaps Monsieur Luwin was leaving to cut his losses.
“There are two new owners, they’re saying,” Margaery continued. “One is an Essosi lord who has made a fortune here—in… mining? I believe? I’m not sure. The other his business partner, a Northern ex-military man...”
A Northern military man? Sansa’s heart clenched, her hands stilling on the ribbons of her shoes. She thought of father and her brother, she thought of mother’s pretty face which, in her memory, was starting to soften at the edges. They all were.
She felt Margaery’s hand at her elbow. “Sansa, are you alright?”
Fear struck her heart; she looked wildly around her. “Hush! You must never call me that. You know that.”
“Oh, sweetheart…” Margaery sighed, her doe eyes going sad. “It’s not really a secret.”
Sansa’s shoulders tightened. “The phantom will kill anyone who knows. He has a plan for me… a plan I must follow…”
Sansa watched the indecision and the pity play across Margaery’s face. Let her pity me, let her think me insane, as long as she didn’t use her real name and risk the phantom’s wrath. Sansa may be the only one who’s met the phantom, the only one who knew he was real beyond a shadow of a doubt, but everyone in the opera house had their experiences with him. They saw his destruction and heard his demands. Monsieur Luwin paid him a salary, after all, and that was real enough.
“Then be Alayne if you wish,” Margaery finally spoke. “I don’t know if that protects you from the ‘phantom’ but I know it will protect you from Cersei.”
“She hated my family,” Sansa agreed. The Lannisters were old enemies of the Starks, and they were powerful enemies. “As Alayne the chorus girl I am invisible to her.”
Margaery squeezed her hand in reassurance. “If you wish it, it will stay that way.”
A moment later Margaery was called away by some task or another and Sansa rose, bone-weary and eager to retire to her bed.
The passages to the ballet dormitories were long and winding but Sansa could walk them in her sleep. She lived here for so long—though it was less than half her life, it felt like the true life she led. The life that had come before, the one with mother and father in the cold and stillness of the north that she’d hated so much as a child, felt like a dream.
Sansa passed an old woman leaning against the wall and slowed her step. She thought she recognized the woman from the costume shop. Sansa approached her cautiously. “Madame? Are you alright?”
But the woman clutched her chest and gave no answer. She clutched Sansa’s shoulder as soon as she was close enough, gripping it so hard Sansa thought she was the only thing holding her up.
“Madame! Should I fetch the doctor?”
The old woman nodded. “Yes… please… take me to my bed first…”
Sansa immediately obliged, supporting the woman’s weight as they walked as briskly as they were able. They passed a couple of stagehands who, eager to help, took over accompanying the old woman while Sansa flew off to call the doctor.
At the woman’s bidding, Sansa waited in the corner of the room while the doctor examined her. She smiled at Sansa once the doctor had left.
“You are a sweet one,” she muttered. “Truly a good one.”
“I’m relieved you will be well.”
“Come here.”
Sansa drew closer. The woman waited until Sansa was bent over her bedside; then she pushed something thin and leathery-soft into her hand.
It was blood red and the stem had a sharp edge, as if it had been cut with a blade. Sansa straightened. Now it was she who felt faint. A weirwood leaf.
She was afraid to look at the woman, but she did. A smile was playing around her mouth. Her eyes told her she knew.
Sansa felt the blood freeze in her veins—she knew? But how could she know? Was the phantom listening now, would he hurt her?
But the old woman was ignorant to her struggle. “The North remembers.”
Sansa closed her hand over the leaf and swept from the room quick as she could. Only when she was safe in her bed did she allow herself to look at the leaf, crumpled from her tight fist. It would join the newspaper clipping she had hidden in the secret pocket stitched into her mattress; two things left of her family, two things most precious of her. She stared at it until her eyes grew heavy, and then she clutched it to her chest. And as she fell to sleep she prayed for the first time in years, feeling the old gods beside her. She prayed for a true protector, a true angel to deliver her from this hell.
Monsieur Varys Lys emerged from his carriage with an unbridled smile. To a stranger it might have looked like a mere quirk of the lips, but he was truly ecstatic. His partner, on the other hand, wore a narrow eyed expression of suspicion, but that hardly bothered Varys. Monsieur Mance Rayder was known for to err more on the cautious side of cautious optimism.
They beheld The Highgarden Opera for a moment in all its splendor, the tall marble columns and the abundance of gold filigree. “You cannot say it is not magnificent,” Varys needled his partner.
Mance did not appear moved. “What I can say is that it’s ours.”
The two ascended the stone steps and joined the small party waiting to receive them. The papers were signed and all the business finalized; Monsieur Luwin was merely there as a courtesy. He seemed stooped and aged as he detailed to them the minutiae of the opera house without much enthusiasm. Normally this would alarm Varys, but he had a shrewd head for business and had looked over the numbers carefully. Besides, he had a bit of a golden touch—a few days here and he knew he would have more than a few ideas that would increase their revenue considerably.
It was Madame Tyrell who showed true passion and knowledge of the opera house. Varys enjoyed her company immensely, her dry wit and sharp tongue was a complement to his own spirit, and they often interrupted the flow of conversation with minutes of banter. Yes, she was impatient and partial to thinly veiled insults, but invaluable. She came from generations of Tyrells tied to the opera house in one way or another, and she herself had practically been born in its walls, the prima donna of her day.
A rehearsal was clearly underway, and as they drew closer to the stage they had to nearly shout to be heard. Eventually the conductor called for a stop, exasperated, giving them a dark look.
“Good gods, please! Can’t you see a rehearsal is underway! I am an artiste!”
“Patience, Monsieur Lannister,” Madame Tyrell said. “I think you’ll find this interruption worth your time, in quite the literal sense of the word.”
The short man climbed out of the pit, his baton still twirling absently in his hand. Varys had to nudge Mance, for the latter was staring, perhaps not used to seeing dwarves in the north, but Varys had seen all manner of creatures and men and was unbothered.
“Ah! Then one of these fine gentlemen is our new patron?”
“No, they are your new managers.”
The words started a flurry of talk that only stopped when Monsieur Luwin moved to the center of the stage and raised his hands. “Yes, the rumors are true. I am retiring, and it’s my pleasure to introduce you to the new owners of the Highgarden Opera…”
Varys smiled and nodded, waiting politely for the applause to die down, and he was relieved when he heard Mance mutter, “Oh, thank the gods. Snow. There he is.”
Monsieur Jon Snow had appeared—or perhaps he had been there the whole time, before Varys and Mance even arrived, as he was standing obscured in shadow on the left wing of the stage, somehow invisible among costumed performers and stagehands and maids alike. The man had an uncanny skill for doing that, and perhaps a desire for it too; in their dealings Varys always sensed the younger man was uncomfortable in the spotlight, uncomfortable with the fortune and the status thrust upon him. Jon Snow seemed to prefer standing in the shadows, with the common folk.
Varys smiled graciously and extended a hand to where Jon stood. “It is my honor to introduce our patron, the Targaryen prince, Monsieur Snow.”
He did not miss the dark glare Jon shot him as he moved to Mance’s side. Oh well. Jon had—mystifyingly, in Varys’s opinion— refused to take the Targaryen name, but it seemed he did not want to be referred to as a Targaryen at all; Varys knew this from a few tense introductions and heated corrections. Yet there was an undeniable advantage to the use of the name, and Varys knew he made the correct choice with his phrasing when he saw the wondrous awe ripple through the crowd. Change such as the one they were going through could be alarming, unsettling, and Varys knew they wanted to felt taken care of; secure. To be taken care of by a prince… that would make them feel more than secure. It would make them feel special. Jon Snow’s discomfort was a small price to pay.
One of the two men flanking Jon stepped up. He whispered something in Jon’s ear and Jon faced the crowd. He did not smile.
“It’s my honor to support the arts, especially… an institution as fine as The Highgarden Opera…” He faltered. “Thank you for your trust in me. I do not take it lightly.”
It was awkward and the bit about the trust didn’t really apply, as a patron would not be involved in the management, but if the crowd’s reaction was any indication, it worked. For all his unwillingness to be in such a position, Jon Snow had an excess of… unintentional charm. After a few key introductions were made, Jon was free to leave, and he did so immediately—but not before Varys made him promise to return for that night’s performance.
Then Varys and Mance settled in to watch the rehearsal, although Mance looked like he would have liked to follow Jon.
Varys lent one ear to Madame Tyrell’s snippets of facts about the performers and the opera, and the other to the performance itself. The leading soprano, a golden haired woman in a splendidly garish dress, was causing quite a stir, and not a positive one. Varys’s keen eye picked up on the chorus girls who stood on the sidelines and snickered behind their hands, the maids who stuffed their ears as they worked. Her voice was technically skilled, Varys supposed, but not anything more, and he filed this away in his mind. He would have to learn more about the politics of the opera before he made any decisions, to be sure, but already he knew his pockets would benefit from bringing in a star singer with more soul. And at least ten years younger.
Her name was Lannister, Madame Tyrell told him. Same as the conductor. Varys felt familiar with the name—perhaps they were an affluent or notorious family. He would have to learn before making any decisions.
A beautiful ballet performance started and it seemed even Mance was impressed. He was asking questions of Madame Tyrell, pointing out ballerinas with his walking stick.
“That is my granddaughter, Margaery,” Madame Olenna said, with no small amount of pride. “She is our best ballerina.”
“There is no one more talented or lovely,” Monsieur Luwin agreed diplomatically.
“And the red haired beauty?”
Varys did not have to point—there was only one. Madame Tyrell sighed, and for a moment he thought it was because he had drawn attention away from her granddaughter, but when she looked at him he could see this was not the case. “I suppose you should know, as the new owners…”
“What should we know?”
“That is Sansa Stark.”
Mance’s response was instant and taken from Varys’s own tongue. “Daughter of Ned Stark?”
“Yes, the very same.”
“Poor girl,” Varys said. “It was such a tragedy.”
“She has blossomed here,” Madame Tyrell promised. “But she does not prefer everyone to know her true identity. We call her Alayne.”
Varys smiled. “Understandable.” But it was not understandable, not understandable at all. He filed this oddity away as he continued to watch the performance, for his perusal later. Something odd was at play.
