Act I Scene X
ten years ago
“Twelve!” cries a girl whose name I can never remember. “Twelve Players.”
“Correct,” says Professor Ariti, striking XII on the board. “We believe twelve Players rose from the well on Mount Eleutherae upon Dionysus’s vanishment. How many remain today?”
“Five!” another classmate volunteers. “None of the originals, though.”
On the sheet beside my textbook, solagraphs of Players glare back at me in black and white. I stare at them, puzzled.
None of them match the Player I saw yesterday.
“Indeed.” Professor Ariti turns back to the board.
“At one point in time, each of the Players you see onstage today were people, just like you.” The teacher drones on, her voice like a distant horn over the fresh, roaring pain between my collarbones, where my new mark sits.
“Mere mortals who killed a Player and became one in turn.”
I wish that the hour were up, that we were switching to mathematics. My pen goes through the paper, scrapes the wood of my desk, and the ink smears.
Or maybe the ink isn’t smeared at all, I realize, as the edges of my desk begin to blur. I blink rapidly until it clears.
“However,” she goes on, “Craft is not free. Craft costs. Which is why, should you ever find yourself in such a situation, pay your compliments and pray they leave. Never make a deal with a Player, no matter their offer.”
Everyone’s eyes find me, question marks dotting their pupils. They all seem to have heard about the Player who spoke to me yesterday. Everybody wants to know what happened. What she said. If I made a bargain with her.
I don’t think compliments would have made the Player leave. She wanted me to go with her.
Several people in black-and-silver uniforms showed up to our home to ask me questions afterward, and none of them seemed satisfied with my answers.
The teacher clears her throat. “Think of Craft as a trade,” she adds. “For memories, for heart, and for soul. For morals and for values. For humanity. The Players have each murdered, lied, and traded every mortal aspect of their being for what they are now.”
My vision stirs. The nurse said I’d be good as new within a few hours after Galen and I left with our new marks, but that was a whole day ago and I’m beginning to suspect she was wrong.
I don’t think mine healed right, but I’m too scared to check.
I blink at my hands, which have felt cold and strange since yesterday, ever since the Player’s blood—
“Who can tell me about the Cast Trade?”
Not me, not me, not me.
“Riven?”
I mutter one of the swear words I learned from Aunt Cassia and blink upward, realizing my forehead has made contact with the desk. “The trade, Riven,” Professor Ariti prompts as the class snickers. “Why did the Players sign into a treaty with mortals?”
My mouth moves to form the words, recalling the details from my memory cards. Trade seems like a stretch.
“Because a Player was captured,” I answer weakly. “Silenus traded peace for the life of his Player. The captured Player was returned alive, and in exchange, Silenus signed an agreement to tour only South Theatron for five hundred years.”
My head reels. I mean to add that in a decade’s time, that treaty will be up. That this is why they train us for encountering Players, because our world will plunge into chaos when they’re freed, if the wall can’t hold them.
I mean to say all of this, but the room has suspiciously begun to tilt.
Someone screams, but I can’t tell who it is as the classroom fades to groggy shades of gray and black. And in the distance, a pair of golden eyes, watching.