Act I Scene II
I nearly sigh in relief when I finally reach Aletheia’s Chronicles, a bookstore wedged between a candlemaker and an antique store claiming to sell old props once used onstage by Players.
It’s also the only shop in the District that sells the texts I’ll need for my first semester at the Orkestrian Academy.
“No, no! Out with you, Riven,” shouts a man with thick glasses and lightly tanned skin. He moves from behind the counter as soon as the door clicks shut behind me. “Leave and take your curse with you.”
“Hi, Sebastian!” I chirp, weaving between tables stacked high with tomes.
“Gods help me,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair.
The old man was raised in the North, making him one of a small handful of marked people still living in the District.
“The Playhouse returning any moment for the first time in fifteen years, and now the work of their hands wanders into my store. And a thief, no less.”
I frown. “I brought it back,” I defend, pulling a leather volume from my bag and plopping it onto the counter between us.
“This is a bookstore. Not a library.” The owner narrows his eyes at the leather cover. “Who’s going to buy something touched by your hands?”
“Maybe they shouldn’t,” I argue, tapping the cover. “This is useless.” It contained next to godsdamned nothing about Craft, much less what to do if one finds themselves poisoned by it.
I hand over my Orkestrian Academy acceptance letter. “But never you mind it. I’m here for my school materials, and I need to be quick about it.”
Sebastian scowls, pinching the corner of the letter like he’s afraid to brush my skin. Then he adjusts his glasses and looks it over in disbelief. “They’re letting you into the academy?” His eyebrows shoot up.
I bristle. “Lucky for you, the semester starts next week. I’ll be on a train to Orkestra and far away before you know it.”
He shakes his head, almost looking sad. “I happen to have friends in the Healer Quarter, Riven.” I stiffen at this. “Rumor is you won’t even live to see next month.”
The words nearly wipe the smirk right off my face. I’ve been seen by probably every healer North of the District, to no avail. No one knows how to undo what the Player did to me. No one even knows what’s wrong with me.
I clear my throat. “Then I invite you to dance on my grave when I’m gone,” I respond, flashing him a toothy grin.
“Studying to be a healer, are you?” he mutters to himself, looking over my letter. “Can’t say I expected that from the likes of you.”
I imagine that’s why no healer has any idea how to help me.
A mortal cannot fix what an immortal broke, a healer once said. But this hasn’t deterred me from scouring every book I can get my hands on for solutions.
I figured long ago, if I want answers on how to reverse whatever is happening to me, I’ll need to find them myself.
With another shake of his head, Sebastian disappears into the back of the store with my letter.
A bell dings over the door, and I turn to spot two girls entering the store. I swallow, averting my gaze. They bustle between narrow walkways beneath wall-to-wall oak shelves, and I turn away, spotting several other patrons I hadn’t noticed huddling in a corner, comparing quills.
“Yes, the dead Peacemaker’s daughter…” one of them whispers, eyes flashing up at me, then darting back to their companion.
I tense, shoving away the sinking feeling in my chest. Apparently, even the imminent return of the Players isn’t enough to entirely drop interest in one of the victims of their work.
Gritting my teeth, I focus hard on the wood paneling of the floor, pulling in slow breaths like Galen always tells me.
“Cursed, I heard—” someone else utters. “By that Player who broke free and attacked the…”
“Taller than I thought. Did you know her brother…”
“Gods, she’s ugly. Why do her eyes look like that?”
Anger ignites like a match in my chest as I touch the tips of my fingers to the half-moon creases that ring my eyes, wondering what they do look like. And deciding it’s probably best I don’t know.
“You pay first.” Sebastian returns with an armful of books that will probably fracture my spine to carry home. I dump the money my brother sent on the counter and pile them into my bag, turning to leave.
“Do you think they’ll give her a roommate?” My eyes flicker to the whispers of another group of students, who seem to be putting as much distance as possible between themselves and me without leaving the shop. But I have a sharp ear.
“Gods help whoever that is. I heard—”
“…looks like a godsdamned corpse.”
My blood heats as I track the speaker of the insult—a boy with rusty-brown hair and glasses. An Eleutheraen mark glitters on his collarbone.
He’s marked, like me. Which means he can’t lie. No marked can.
North of the Cut, we all bear identical symbols of protection, burned into our skin with the same Eleutheraen gold that can kill Players.
A vow to truth and a shield against the lure of the Playhouse.
It protects our bodies from Players and their lies.
But likewise, anyone with an Eleutheraen mark cannot speak an untruth of their own, either.
He means what he said. That I look like a corpse.
But it isn’t the distaste flashing across his face that makes my blood roar in my ears.
It’s the flash of fear in his eyes when I stare back a beat too long. Like the magic that Player poisoned me with makes me just as dangerous as them.
As I shove the door open to leave, a familiar ice seeps over my bones, and the Player’s whispered promise plays across my mind.
Come with me, she said. Come with me or you will suffer.
Leave it to me to find the only Player true to their word.