“Go!” she said.

Her throat was tight and it was hard to swallow around the lump in it. Robbie grinned at her and turned back around. The stage manager was waving frantically for him to go, so Robbie gave him a mischievous grin and strode out onto the stage.

“‘How now, spirit! Whither wander you,’” Robbie greeted Beth as she came across the stage to meet him.

Beth’s jaw dropped and she blinked at him as if seeing a ghost. She wasn’t the only one to catch the change in the casting. A low murmur started in the audience and rumbled to a grumbling pitch as Violet’s voice came over the intercom to announce, “In tonight’s performance, the role of Puck will be played by Robbie Vine.”

The crowd noise was deafening. Lindsey looked across the stage at Beth. She seemed frozen, transfixed on Robbie as if uncertain of what to do or say.

Robbie stepped toward Beth and looped his arm through hers as if they were old friends strolling together. He lowered his head and whispered in her ear, and Lindsey saw Beth visibly relax and give him the slightest nod.

“‘Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier,’” Beth began quietly at first, but her voice took on the cadence of the bard’s words, growing stronger with each syllable.

“‘Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere—’”

A screech sounded from the front of the theater, and Lindsey looked out to see Dylan’s mother striding down the aisle. A man followed—Joanie’s husband, Lindsey assumed—and grabbed her hand trying to stop her, but she smacked him hard, forcing him to let her go. In three large strides, she launched herself onto the stage.

Robbie turned and gave Beth a hearty shove back into the wings, where Sully caught her. Then Robbie turned and caught Joanie by the forearms, stopping her from clawing out his eyes.

“I killed you!” she screeched. She was fighting Robbie’s hold with everything she had. “You are supposed to be dead.”

“Well, faeries are immortal, you know,” Robbie said. His humor sent her into a frenzy, and she began to kick while trying to yank her arms out of his grip.

“He’s my son!” Joanie screamed. “Mine. You can’t have him!”

Robbie opened his mouth to say something but Emma and her officers leapt onto the stage. In seconds, they pulled Joanie off of Robbie. She was bucking and kicking, spitting and cursing. Finally, they had no choice but to pin her to the stage floor while they cuffed her.

Lindsey listened in shock as Emma hauled Joanie out of the theater, reciting her Miranda rights as they went. Judging by the silence, the audience was just as stunned.