Act I Scene VIII
Unfortunately, my intuition is a godsdamned liar.
Or the Playhouse is one big labyrinth of winding reds and golds. Frustration plagues my sense of direction as I shuffle past two ballrooms and yet another rehearsal room, finding myself at the bottom of a staircase with opal railings that feel like they’ve been dipped in sunlight.
I take the steps at a pathetic crawl, groaning and cursing as needed, my mind set even more firmly on that Script. I did not slip out of the clutches of the Lead Player only to turn around and limp home now.
If that Script has the power to control Players, surely it has the power to fix what one of them broke. The “how” of the matter might take me a minute to figure out, but one problem at a time.
The steps land me in a spacious common room surrounded on all sides by twisted candelabras that flicker softly and walls of glowing amber. After a lifetime shivering from the inside out, tolerating frosty days and icier nights, I hate to admit the warmth is welcome.
Crimson chaises circle the hearth, where flames roar beneath an ivory mantel carved with coiling serpents. I snatch a poker from beside the hearth, just in case.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling of being watched.
Vanities poke out of an adjacent wall, cluttered with old playbills and vivid swatches of makeup. Bits of gold and coin lie carelessly beside discarded silk scarves and extravagant jewels.
Gods. They hoard all of this for themselves? I’ve never seen so many valuable items at once.
I pocket a few coins and one silk scarf as I go, cringing at how loud my steps are on the marble in the cavernous silence of the room.
Three halls bleed out of the common area. The first is marked by an exaggerated frown carved overtop—Tragedy, I reckon.
The second hall carries the opposite symbol, a dramatic, frightening smile for Comedy.
The third holds a feathered mask over its center, no expression on its face. Mimicry, the Craft of all faces.
A breath of relief fills my chest. The dressing rooms. They must be. The director must have one nearby.
I stumble past Tragedy’s hall, each breath filling my lungs with a strange, perfumed incense hovering in the air.
A flutter of movement to my right startles me, and I whip defensively toward it. There’s no one—just a great expanse of mirror that begins at the floor and blossoms into the ceiling where it swirls into reflective slats of gold. And right before me is…
Me.
I gasp. The last time I remember seeing my reflection, I was a child—and Galen was dragging me away from the glass.
Embarrassment pinches my heartstrings. Growing up, I conjured my own ideas of my reflection. That I have my father’s features. Cassia’s stern brow. Maybe the alert, sharp eyes of my brother.
I was wrong.
Two sunken eyes stare back at me, lapsed deep into my skull like a cadaver, ringed with ghostly purple and marked with the hungry edge of a starved animal. Where Galen’s skin is tanned from work and travel, mine is translucent like the underbelly of a whale.
Player Jude’s comment about my cheekbones rings true. They’re hollow and gaunt, caving into my face like a canvas stretched too thin. My lips are white as wax.
I look like I’ve just escaped a coffin. No wonder people are frightened.
“Like a corpse.” I repeat the insult to myself, unable to deny it now.
My throat tightens as I lean closer, pressing a hand to my face and cursing the tears rapidly trying to escape the eyes of my reflection. They come anyway.
This is what I look like?
This is what that Player all those years ago did to me?
I clench the poker tighter, willing to smash the reflection to bits. No. It’s time to focus. I can mourn the death of my own absurd fantasies later.
Besides, now I’m pissed.
The hair on my neck stands, a sudden shift in the air. My ear itches at the sound of footsteps and, before I can think better of it, I dart behind the largest of the chaises.
The steps grow louder, closer, clipped and even. Then they halt.
First comes the clatter and shuffle of items on the vanity. I breathe as quietly as humanly possible, wondering if whoever it is has noticed a few select items missing and wishing my sticky fingers hadn’t shoved the evidence into my pocket.
My hand curls tighter around the poker, weighing if I should risk staying hidden or accept my fate and lunge at whoever has taken to strolling casual circles around the room, whistling.
The steps come to a sudden stop, and the room falls sickeningly silent.
“You can come out now,” says a distinctly familiar voice.
Shit.
Gritting my teeth at the tone, I guiltily rise from my hiding spot, still clutching the poker. A tall, imposing figure blocks the exit at the other end of the room, arms crossed.
“I give you my ring, and you steal my scarf.” Jude shakes his head, makes a tsking sound in his throat. “Rude.”
RIVEN: “You—you followed me!” Suddenly, the room feels smaller, shrinking inward as the Player’s enormous presence dwarfs it.
JUDE: “If someone walked into your house and started acting suspicious, wouldn’t you follow them?” He raises one eyebrow as punctuation.
Well. Fair enough.
He tilts his head. “Say, is that a bruise under that eye or did you get a little too ambitious with my makeup as well?”
Damn it, I think, unable to tell if he’s toying with me and has already realized what I am: a marked. With every intention of stealing from the Playhouse. I move away from the mirror, subtly wiping my eyes.
Jude’s smirk wilts. “You’re crying.” His eyes drop to the poker in my hand. I must be quite a sight. “How about we put that down, yes? Titus stabbed me with one once, and it was hell to pull it out.”
I breathe unsteadily, wide-eyed and brandishing the poker between us like a sword as he steps farther into the room. I’m not fooled. Jude carries himself with the lazy elegance of a cat, but there’s an edge in his movements that betrays something far more lethal.
JUDE: “Okay, in his defense he was drunk.” He shrugs. “And I was holding the other poker. I might have challenged him. I don’t remember. The Prop Master took away our swords, and we were feeling creative.”
I don’t dare move, watching him like I’ve got an arrow trained on his head, studying the calculated deliberation of his steps. His hands are empty of any weapons—and probably just as capable without them.
JUDE: “All right, something easier, then.” As if bored, he falls gracefully onto the embroidered armchair behind him, his tailored costume of black brocade clinging to his frame like a second skin as he throws his boots onto the table. “What is your name?”
RIVEN: “Do you know me?” It comes out like an accusation, hoarse and desperate. Paranoia plagues my mind as I glance back at the mirror, unsure if anyone could recognize my father’s features on my ghastly face, much less a vain, self-absorbed Player.
Jude bursts into laughter, a rich sound that ricochets, like the whole Playhouse laughs with him. “Love, one of us is famous, and it is not you. But fine!” He throws his hands up. “She has no name. We’ll leave a blank little space on the playbill for you.”
It’s an effort to unclench my teeth. “I told you I’m not here to audition.”
“Yes, that much is clear.” There’s a cruel, catlike cleverness that I don’t like at all hovering just behind his gaze.
“But it doesn’t change the fact that you’ve made me terribly curious.
Now, let’s try this again.” He draws out each word.
As if that will distract me from the way his eyes have begun to glow.
His voice deepens, almost melodic. “Put. That. Down.”
The air tightens, then relaxes around me. My hand yearns to release the poker; that’s all I want in the whole wide world. To release this weight from my grip—
My mark seizes beneath my collar in hot, angry pulses, protecting me from what’s happening. Craft. He’s trying to use Craft on me.
Furious, I drop the poker of my own accord and go for something more effective.
Jude barely has time to blink before I lunge. It’s good he’s sitting, because his full height would have made it impossible to slip behind him and press my blade to his throat.
To his credit, he doesn’t seem surprised—until the gold of my blade grazes his skin. Players do not fear death. They’re trained in the deathless arts, a Craft that renders them nearly immortal. Except against one weapon—the one I’m holding to his neck.
Something in the way he sharply inhales tells me his skin recognizes the Eleutheraen gold.
I’ve imagined holding this very knife to a Player’s throat many times, but my hands never shook this badly in any of those fantasies.
We’re facing the mirror, and I don’t like that I look more scared than he does.
RIVEN: “Try that again, and I’ll slit your throat.” I mean it but hope he can’t hear the tremor in my voice.
JUDE: “I’ll have you know I’ve talked myself out of worse.
” His breathing is ragged. “Hell, I’ve talked myself into worse.
” I cut off his laugh by pressing the blade in a little closer, inhaling the sharp scent of citrus and hyacinth that lingers on his skin.
“Hurt me and four Players will be ripping the flesh from your bones before you take another breath,” he says, steely.
His eyes slide from the knife to meet my gaze in our reflection.
“Not that there’s much there. Didn’t I tell you about the food downstairs? ”
RIVEN: “Stop. Talking.”
JUDE: “And besides.” His tone softens, the pitch rolling low like thunder.
I don’t hear whatever he says next. I don’t even understand the words.
I’m too focused on the sudden warmth shivering up my arms and the curious way my knife loosens in my grip.
“You aren’t looking me in the eye,” he goes on in a voice that wraps effortlessly around my mind like silk. “Someone taught you that.”
My eyes flash back to our reflection just in time to see his hand, glowing gold with Craft, reach for mine.
Three things happen at once. First, nausea, deep and dizzying, bursts through my head as his hand grazes my wrist.
Second, Jude’s eyes shoot up to mine, dark with confusion.
Third, my blade clatters to the floor as we both scatter to opposite sides of the room.
I panic, eyeing my blade on the ground between us and clutching at my throat, the Eleutheraen mark, hidden beneath my jacket, burning.
Jude swears loudly and steadies himself on a marble beam, wrapping an arm around his stomach as if it is persistently trying to expel its contents.
He gasps a breath and speaks to me through gritted teeth.
“You’re marked,” he spits, announcing it like it’s a death sentence—which it is.
SILENUS: “Jude?”
He jumps at the director’s voice, his attention snapping to the hallway.
Meanwhile, I make my move and dive for the blade. But when Jude’s shoulders tense, I raise one hand, shoving the knife into my pocket to indicate I do not wish to fight to the death just yet.
And unfortunately, the nearing steps have me rethinking whatever half-baked plan I was harboring. My mind tries to do the math: me, marked. One Eleutheraen blade. A Player who knows both of these things. The director on his way through the door.
My window of opportunity to steal that Script is rapidly closing.
A similar calculation runs clear across Jude’s face. Whatever conclusion he’s come to, I know it can’t be good. He marches forward, grips me by the sleeve, and hauls us both into a run down Mimicry’s purple hall while muttering, “Don’t make me regret this.”