Marie didn't need telling twice; she scrambled to her feet and took off without even thinking to stop and figure out where Tom might be. Fortunately, the stage manager was never hard to find; this early in the morning, he was in the dining tent having breakfast with the other stage hands, sprawled back in his seat in the way he did when he was pondering just where to start giving orders the moment everyone finished their toast and coffee.
He looked up when Marie burst into the tent, and was on his feet before she reached him.
"Alexandra needs help," Marie gasped. "I think Colette's gone mad, she's throwing teacups everywhere."
It was an incomplete summary, but Marie figured it best not to mention plots of murder over the breakfast table - Lord knew how fast THAT gossip would spread, and she knew not a few stage hands who would think it a great plan - and Tom didn't seem to need more information. "Come on then," he said, and started jogging back across the circus grounds with Marie dashing to keep up behind him.
The commotion in Alexandra's cabin hadn't settled at all, though the sound of shattering objects had been by and large replaced with Alexandra yelling at Colette to calm down and Colette just yelling. Tom opened the door and strolled inside as casually as though he were going in for tea. "Now there, sir, what's this?" he said.
Colette spun on him and opened her mouth to answer, probably at ear-breaking decibels, but before she could Tom picked her up about the waist and swung her over his shoulder. He was a rather big young man, and lifting irate ringmasters was hardly the worse he'd dealt with in his years with the cirque. Colette twisted and threatened physical harm and unemployment if he didn't let her go that very instant, but Tom seemed unbothered; he tipped his hat to Alexandra and to Marie, hovering in the doorway, and started for Colette's cabin.
"Marie, go fetch one of the other lads," he instructed. Marie ran off back to the dining tent.
By the time she had run off to the dining hall, grabbed the nearest stage hand and talked him away from his coffee, Tom had returned Colette to her cabin, and was leaning against the door, apparently blissfully undisturbed by the pounding sound from the other side.
"She'll wear herself out, but it can't hurt to have someone keepin' an eye," Tom said, nodding at the other stage hand, who raised an eyebrow for further explanation, and sighed and took up a spot by the door when none was forthcoming.
"Now then," Tom said, steering Marie away from Colette's cabin. "Let's go check on Miss Arista, and on the way you can tell me what happened."
Before Marie could explain, however, they were interrupted by a kid in a messenger's uniform, who walked past them, whistling, on his way to Colette's cabin. Marie hurried over to slide in front of him.
"Good morning!" she chirped, as pleasantly as she could manage on hardly any sleep and an early-morning crisis. "Can I help you?"
"Message from the chief of police," the boy said importantly, holding out a folded piece of paper. "For the ringmaster."
"I can take it for her," Marie said, snapping it out of his hands before he could protest. He narrowed his eyes skeptically, then shrugged and tipped his hat, heading on his way.
"Should you be doin' that...?" Tom Sry started to ask, but Marie had already ripped the envelope open. She couldn't read terribly well, but it didn't take very much at all for her to catch the gist that it was not good news. She folded it back up and dithered a moment. "Tom, go check on Alexandra," she said, and hurried off towards Asmodeus's cabin. The door was locked; it only occurred to her to start knocking after she'd checked, and she did so enthusiastically, pounding on the door.
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