When they reached the top of the steps, instead of leading them through the grand arched doors of the museum, Lyric slipped around the corner to a side entrance. Stopping, she pulled out a key. “My sister, Kay, is a stage assistant,” Lyric explained, fitting it in the lock. “She was asking Mama to come drop off so many things that the director finally gave Mama her own key so she wouldn’t have to stand out here so long and be questioned by the Wraith Watch. They’re usually here to guard the Love Knot Tine, but after the Forger attack yesterday, I think they’ve all been sent to the city’s perimeters instead.” She gave the door a push. “Welcome to the Historium!”

All the museums Claire had ever been to—with the exception of a children’s museum the Martinsons visited every couple of years—had been quiet places, somewhere between a church and a library.

Needle Pointe’s Historium was anything but.

Claire jumped at the roar of noise that greeted them as Lyric ushered her inside.

“Mind the ropes!”

“Where’s my hat?” a boy dressed in a green jerkin and tall boots called as he rushed through the hall. “I’m on in ten minutes!”

“Did you ask Roberto?” a woman called as she hustled, arms full of long gowns, toward another door. “Dancers, don’t forget to give me your props when the number is up!”

Claire blinked. “Where—?”

But she was interrupted as a Spinner wearing a wig of gray curls and drawn-on wrinkles hobbled by and exclaimed, “Patches, Lyric! Where have you been? Your sister has been looking for you!”

“Sorry, Bard,” Lyric said and nodded down to the box in her hand. “But I have the spare ribbons. Where should I put them?”

From somewhere down the chaotic halls came a bellowing. Bard winced. “Probably best to head to the stage directly. They started rehearsal already and … uh, the director has been a bit …” He trailed off as the bellow grew louder. “Touchy,” he finished.

Before Claire could quite wrap her mind around the conversation, Lyric had nodded and broken into a jog.

“Lyric?” Claire panted, slightly out of breath. “Why didn’t you say the Historium was a theater? I thought it was going to be a museum!”

“What’s the difference?” Lyric asked, opening yet another door and walking behind a set of pulleys and ropes. “Performance is how we remember our history. Why should the past be confined to books and objects? Besides, it’s more fun this way!”

She swooshed Claire into an auditorium of plush red seats and pushed her into one just as the conductor lifted his hands and the curtain raised. Dancers, all in shimmering silks and holding fluttering ribbons, twirled onto the stage.