Act I Scene V
I have never been in the District alone at night.
It feels different, vulnerable. Like I’m running through the street naked, shaking the frost from my bones.
I’m deep in the District before realizing I can hear the echo of my own feet pounding against the stone.
On either side of me, I notice dark windows and boarded-up storefronts, illuminated by blinking limelights that hang over the street.
In all my visits across the Cut, the District has bustled with activity, the market bursting at the seams with busy shoppers and peddlers selling their wares.
Tonight, it’s deserted.
No one is here to stare or call me cursed. No one to skitter away like I’m a rabid rodent.
It’s godsdamn liberating.
It occurs to me I don’t actually know where Galen went. But whatever speech I had for him is long forgotten as I march up to one of the abandoned booths.
Those, please—yes, the ones on the shelf there, I mouth, imagining myself buying a sack of potatoes, a loaf of bread. All by myself. Like a normal, uncursed person. How much? Oh, sure. I’d nod and then reach into my pocket for—
Something skitters in the dark behind me.
I whirl around. A rat? Must be—
Nothing.
My stomach twisting, I step over discarded bits of paper and wood.
The words “No more Players” and “Our world is not your stage” are inked across several—ghosts of protests from earlier today.
Anyone from North Theatron has clearly surrendered their objections to the casting call to hide safely behind the Cut and out of the District tonight.
Like I should, too. This is silly, being out here alone. Dangerous.
But gods, it feels good.
A swell in the air swarms my mind, dampens my focus. I scrunch up my brow, struggling to put a label to the noise. It thrums deep in the ground, crawls up my legs, and digs its hooks into my chest. My feet stagger forward to the bizarre sound—long, drawn-out rhythms that weave together like…
Music?
A prickle spears up my spine.
I’ve read about music. It heralds the presence of Players. Music is what Players used to summon the Dancing Plague—an inexplicable phenomenon that made thousands of people dance in the streets like puppets. They danced, they danced, and they danced. Then they promptly stopped dancing.
Not because they were tired, but because they were dead.
The Playhouse, I think, enraged. That’s what’s responsible for this. For me. All of it.
My feet move faster toward the sound, anger fueling my resolve. The growing ache in my feet only eggs me on until I’m at the end of the block and turning the corner into the very heart of the District.
The Playhouse is a sight to behold up close. A behemoth of gold and marble bursting with light. Shadows in the shapes of expensive gowns and delicate wreaths flutter just behind paned glass. Chatter and laughter claw at my ears.
The casting call, I think with a chill. Thousands of Revelers will have crowded into the Playhouse tonight, risking life and limb in hopes of becoming the next Player. Gambling their lives for power, fame, beauty, and immortality.
I stare down at the cold, translucent skin clinging to my hands. For a moment, it doesn’t sound entirely outrageous.
But there it is again, that strange rhythm—music.
It spills through the cracks of the Playhouse doors, down steps that shine like wedges of starlight.
But there’s something else, too. Woven deep into the melody of plucked strings and the steady hit of a drum, I hear a voice—full as the moon and sparkling just as bright.
The voice reaches around my wrists and tugs me gently forward.
This is music? The descriptions I’ve read have been vile. Like a sinister snake that slips through your ears and eats away at your mind. This, though—it doesn’t match the taunting cries of the Underworld I imagined.
It sounds like the clinking of stars. The flicker of a warm candle. The whisper of a loved one.
I like it.
I startle at my own thought, unsure where it came from. No. No, I don’t.
The massive Playhouse gates gape open at me like a smile. The voice, otherworldly and enchanting, beckons me forward, bringing me to the threshold.
Stop here, I tell my feet.
A soft breeze brushes my cheek. The pearly Playhouse steps gleam like an open pool of moonlight.
“What did you do to me?” I ask the Playhouse out loud. It doesn’t answer, the voice gone.
That’s not good enough. I ball my fists.
“My life would be different. If it weren’t for you,” I add, louder, “I would be a normal person. With friends. I would probably talk to fewer buildings.” I’m being far too loud.
“People would call me by my name. And they wouldn’t treat me like I’m a rabid animal.
And my own mother wouldn’t be frightened of me.
So, tell me!” I’m shouting now, waving my hands. “Tell me what you did! Tell me—”
“What have we here?”
The voice startles me so badly, I jump and—too late—clutch Galen’s coat at the collar to cover my mark.
A figure, cloaked in black, emerges from the darkness. A blessing. Of all the things my shouting outside of the Playhouse could have summoned, I’ll take a stranger in the dark over a Player any day. My boldness forgotten, I scurry back like a mouse. “Who are you?”
He steps in the light, his face hidden behind a Comedy mask—popular among Playhouse fanatics. A horrific smile is carved into the bronze.
My heart starts to hammer.
“Did I see a stain there on your neck?” I don’t know the voice, but I know he’s much bigger than me.
My hand creeps to my inner coat pocket where my father’s Eleutheraen dagger stays tucked away, just as a second figure appears behind the first. This one behind a Tragedy mask.
I take in the overstated frown, my breaths coming quicker.
“What is a marked doing outside the Playhouse tonight?” Tragedy Mask asks.
I draw inward and keep my mouth shut. Who are they? Overzealous fans from the South, taking it upon themselves to patrol the casting call?
“Well, go on, then,” a third voice chimes in—feminine this time. I spin around, finding another Comedy mask, silver and scraped at the edges. That exaggerated smile sends a chill up my spine. “Tell us.”
My eyes fall to the blade in her hand.
Fuck. I’ve read about this. Revelers who target and slash through Eleutheraen marks to honor the Players. A story broke months back about Playhouse fanatics sacrificing some marked soul on a Dionysian altar.
What was I thinking? Venturing out here at night on my own—
“Did you not hear me, girl?” she repeats.
My mouth opens, closes. I’m lost! I think frantically, but the words won’t form on my tongue. I can’t lie. “I—I’m…” My eyes flicker up to the Playhouse.
This isn’t how I’m supposed to die.
I recoil from the thought, unsure why my mind jumped to it so quickly.
“What, here to audition?” The first Comedy mask roars with laughter.
“Well, girl. Has no one told you? A marked can’t audition.
” He’s right. Eleutheraen marks are an insult to Players and their egos.
The man takes a step forward, but I can’t back up anymore—not with the woman behind me.
“Nasty consequences for that, actually.”
With no option left, I bolt, throwing myself forward. But my sly attempt to dive between them and into the nearest alley is intercepted when one grips my arm, nearly ripping the bone from its socket.
The pressure feels like a door slammed on my shoulder, crushing it. I yelp and thrash like a wet cat as they drag my body forward through the Playhouse gates.
“Come, we can do a little play,” one of them jeers. “You can be the lead.”
They’re taking me to the Players.
My knife. My knife is in my pocket. If I could just reach—
I flail, curling down and clamping my teeth over one of their hands as hard as I can.
A violent force collides with my side, the air punching out of my lungs as one of them shrieks, “The little animal bit me!” and drops me like a sack of potatoes.
Something is wrong, I realize, unable to breathe. I don’t even know who’s hit me. All I know is my lungs feel like they’re full of shattered glass. My ribs. They crushed my godsdamned ribs—
Then I hear it again. That voice—a song that flutters in the wind like a bird—slows the commotion to a standstill. To my shock, my attackers stop advancing on me, dropping their hands to their sides. I stare up in confusion as their bodies freeze.
The voice sings on, spellbinding and overwhelming. My eyes dart around, searching for its owner as I crawl away at the speedy pace of a sick turtle. The stone feels like sleet beneath my fingers.
When I peer up, I see three flashes of silver emerge. Blades.
They’re going to kill me. I claw frantically at the ground, dragging myself across the stone. My lungs feel like they’re caving into my chest as I scream for help, but no sound makes it out of my throat.
Strangely, the sting of their blades never comes.
In fact, when I dare a look, they’re all staring blankly at one another instead.
Then, like a dance, all three lift their faces high to the sky in perfect unison. The voice sings on. Trancelike, my attackers raise their blades.
Each to their own throat.
It happens so quickly, I don’t even know to scream—not until they all drop to the ground with scarlet smiles carved into their necks. Dark pools of blood creep across the stone toward me, illuminated by golden light, which is spilling through the Playhouse doors.
Doors that are now open. Between them, a long, dark figure. His shadow stretches over the landing as he steps through the entrance.
“Ah, a latecomer. Welcome!”
Not much is known about the Players, only that the first ones came from a well on top of Mount Eleutherae, a peak that overlooks North Theatron like a beacon. But even less is known about the man who pulled them out of it.
Silenus Darstellar. Director of the Playhouse.