Act I Scene XIV
JUDE: “Frankly, Alistaire, I don’t know what’s riskier at the moment. Moving the Playhouse while someone’s out shooting Eleutheraen arrows at our heads or leaving you here to brood by yourself. Unfortunately, I must take both risks. Please be good.”
He narrowly slams the dressing room door in time to avoid being hit by the vase I’ve hurled at his head.
It shatters and falls to the ground in pieces. On the other side, the lock slides shut. Of course this place would have locks on the outside of the doors.
I’m left with little more company than Gene Hunt’s portrait. She just stares and stares like she knows something I don’t.
“I’m not signing that contract!” I shout through the locked door. “Do you understand? The deal is off! I’m leaving. Tonight.” But his steps are already gone.
I turn to the empty oval room, breathing hard.
My plan was to be out of the Playhouse before midnight, Script in hand. Instead, I’m locked inside while the Players move us to gods know where.
It strikes me that lifting this curse won’t matter if I’m trapped in here for good.
How did this all go wrong so fast?
First, I go for the dresser, yanking open the chestnut drawers and throwing them to the floor.
No key of any kind. There isn’t one hiding under the mantel or sewn into the delicate silk throw pillows, either, which I didn’t necessarily need to tear apart, but I’m in a mood.
I go for the purple curtains next, flinging them from their hangings.
I’m on my way down the corridor to shred the bedroom next when I pass that long mirror off to the side.
With a huff of anger, I storm up to my own feral reflection.
“Home,” I growl at the glass, keeping my eyes on the floor. “Do you hear me? Take me home.”
Nothing happens. I heave a breath, panic whirring in my chest as a crack alerts me to the Playhouse doors opening and sends my feet hurrying to the window.
Outside, the Players gracefully file around the Playhouse, aside from Titus, who limps furiously from his injury and seems to be cursing every other step. Jude’s wall of black smoke billows at the gates, his illusion blocking the cast from anyone’s vision—or weapons.
Impossible. Buildings cannot be moved.
But as my nails dig into the windowsill and flecks of gold fall from it like stardust, I feel less certain the Playhouse is a proper building at all.
I watch helplessly from my window as all five Players seem to ready themselves to move the theatre and take me with it.
Then the floor sways beneath me, the window glass starting to rattle.
Jude’s eyes flicker up to my window, locking with mine.
He grins.
And the Playhouse slowly sinks into the ground.
“You know, I find myself asking,” begins Jude, leaning in my doorway. His hands are closed around an ornate silver box. “My, doesn’t she have a lovely profile from all the way outside? And I can see it so well because—oh yes, of course. She’s torn the curtains to shreds!”
Ignoring him, I slice the letter opener I unearthed in one of the drawers through the last of my bedsheets.
That makes twenty-seven strips between them and the curtains I wrestled from the rods, plus the towels I gathered from the closet.
I glance up at Jude. “Your room is next.” Then I go back to tying two ragged pieces together, silk fraying in my hands.
JUDE: “You are remarkably destructive for someone with the frame of an injured hummingbird.” He stalks after me but startles several steps back when I swing my letter opener at him.
RIVEN: “This little bird is on her way out.” Fluttering my fingers at him in a wave, I throw the room’s glass doors open and skitter out onto the balcony I discovered beyond them.
JUDE: “Gods, stop. They’ll see you—”
Outside is a city that is not the District. Not that I can glean much of it in the dark—only mountains in the distance and the crash of nearby waves.
And hundreds of faces smothering the glowing Playhouse gates below.
They shriek a greeting at the sight of Jude chasing me onto the balcony, but the screams quiet into confused whispers when I loop the end of a silk sheet over the marble railing and start tying what used to be towels around my torso.
I’m ready to launch myself over the ledge when a strong hand grips my makeshift halter and throws me back onto steady ground.
“You will be a pile of bones if you try that.”
I swear and catch my balance on the railing, pondering how hard it might be to push Jude over it.
JUDE: “I sincerely thought keeping you alive would be a matter of protecting you from the other Players, but clearly we have to add you to the list.” He turns to the crowds. “Leave.”
His voice travels with the warmth of the wind. A glassiness drapes over the faces below and, without another word, they disperse.
We’ve most certainly moved deep into South Theatron, then. No one is marked to resist his Compulsion. Those below belong to the cult that worships these monsters.
“Where are we?” I demand, certain I don’t want the answer.
“Koilon. The coast.”
My heart sinks. We’re hundreds of miles from the District. A marked is less likely to get executed here and more liable to be hunted for sport until they find their way to the unfortunate place of a Dionysian altar.
“But…” I shake my head. “But how?” I wave my arms at the crowd as they dazedly scatter, wondering if any of them have a clear thought in their heads. “How can a building move?”
“The Playhouse is not a building,” Jude protests, like this is common knowledge. “It’s a set piece. And the world, our stage. Set pieces can be moved wherever I wish to perform.” He shrugs. “The Playhouse is more illusion than material. The ‘moving’ of it all is mostly just for spectacle.”
I glare at him, still confused.
Jude gestures to the doors. “Why don’t we talk about this inside?”
“I’d like to see you tr— Hey!” I shout as Jude plucks my makeshift rope off the floor like a leash and prowls inside, dragging me with him.
Below, the ground shakes with the gong of an old clock striking midnight. I picture the one I spotted in the Playhouse foyer, encased in white marble.
Overhead, the lights dim. Jude throws a nervous glance at the candles as they flicker. “We don’t have much time, so I’ll make this quick. First, you’re meant to sign that.” He points to a slip of parchment on the vanity, and my eyes widen.
I know I shredded that contract into tiny pieces fifteen minutes ago.
I pause to look around. The remnants of bedsheets I destroyed no longer clutter the floor. The curtains are fastened cleanly back in place over the window. “No,” I breathe, running to the closet and throwing it open.
There, folded and stacked neatly where I’d found them, are the towels. A frustrated, strangled sound escapes my throat as I rush back into the room, only to find my makeshift rope has disappeared, too.
Jude shrugs. “The set doesn’t like being messed with.”
A strange, soft murmuring emanates from the vanity mirror behind Jude. I jump, pointing an accusing finger at the glass. “And what is that? Why is it making that noise?”
JUDE: “Prayers. Not everyone is as unwelcoming as you vile creatures beyond the Cut.”
I stare at Jude, then the glass, unsure which I trust less. I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but it’s horrifying to see in action. “You…you can actually hear those? Through mirrors?”
Haris will be thrilled.
JUDE: “I— One thing at a time, yes?” He sets that thin box on a chaise between us, popping it open to reveal an arrangement of silvery gauze and tinctures, half of them encrusted with jewels.
It doesn’t look like any healer’s kit I’ve ever seen.
“I stole this from Arius while he’s off mending Titus.
It won’t be long before he misses it. Sit down. ”
RIVEN: “Why?”
JUDE: “Because you’ve been holding your ribs like they’re trying to escape you since you got here. Clearly, something is broken. I need you alive, and at this rate, a medium-size wind might turn you to dust.”
Stubbornly, I stomp over and sit, mostly because my body is begging for rest. Jude kneels and fiddles through the case, his rings producing a series of delicate, metallic clinks as he squints at the various handwritten labels, distinctly giving me the impression he does not know what he’s doing.
Especially when he pops the lid off one bottle, sniffs it, and gags.
Hopefully Arius doesn’t keep his poisons with the rest of his supplies.
“So,” he says. “I don’t suppose you’ve considered my extremely generous offer.”
“No more than climbing the catwalk and plunging to my death.”
“That would be merciful in comparison to what they’ll do to you.” I watch his hands with distrust as he unfolds a flat cloth and tips a glittering salve that smells like spring flowers onto it. He looks at me pleadingly. “If I put this near your ribs, is it going to cost me a finger?”
“I’m not some rabid animal,” I hiss.
“Well, I’d hardly call you domesticated.”
I scowl and pull away on instinct, but the jerk of movement deploys a searing ache down my side. The pain wins.
Pinching my shoulders together, I swallow my pride and peel all three tattered layers halfway up the left side of my torso. The mirror tells me my ribs are nauseatingly visible beneath a sheen of ungodly bluish skin. I scrunch my eyes shut to avoid my reflection and brace myself.
Something warm presses against my ribs, and I startle, expecting the salve to be cold, for the hand holding it to be too forceful. Instead, it’s light, feathery, like the flicker of a candle.
I blink my eyes open, and Jude is watching my expression. Probably worried I’m going to try and claw his eyes out.