Act II Scene III
The screams begin thirty minutes before curfew, ricocheting through the halls like shattering glass.
Don’t leave your room, Jude said. As if I’d listen.
I’m not sure why I thought the candelabra over the hearth was my best weapon of choice, but there wasn’t much time to think on it. Tearing the door open, I burst out of my dressing room, brandishing the heavy fixture.
And I’m not the only one. Outside, my fellow auditionees—Phileas, Tig, and Linos—peer nervously from their doors that pocket the hall, dressed in expensive silk nightclothes for bed.
Except one of us is missing: Thyone. Phileas’s twin sister.
Barefoot but still fully clothed due to the other plans I had tonight, I ease into the hall.
Jude flings his door open, hair tousled, jewelry gone, shirt half buttoned, like he’d been readying for bed when the commotion began.
I don’t have time to register much else before he catches my elbow.
“Alistaire, wait.” His eyes aren’t on me; they’re searching the hall.
“You don’t want to see what’s about to—”
Thyone’s door soars open, crashes against the wall. Through it, Player Arius hauls the auditionee’s thrashing body out by the elbows. Behind him, Silenus.
The director pauses, taking in the mixture of curious and terrified faces.
SIL: “Good night, everyone,” he says pleasantly over Thyone’s cries and carries after Arius, who is now pulling the girl toward the common room.
Why is Arius dragging her like that? She’s his contender—
“Wait, wait—” the girl shouts. Her screams shatter into wailing.
At the cry, I break from Jude and bolt down the hall, wishing I had my Eleutheraen knife.
But by the time I peer behind me, the other auditionees have vanished to hide in their rooms—except Phileas.
He looks after his sister with a sort of anguished indecision, his knuckles gripping the doorframe so hard, they’ve gone white.
Then his gaze flickers to mine, reaching a decision. He shakes his head and shuts the door.
What the hell? What is happening—
The other Players haven’t bothered to leave their rooms at all. Except for Jude, who catches up to me. “Alistaire, don’t watch—”
But I’ve already reached the end of the hall, where Sil is standing casually by the fireplace, cleaning his glasses.
Meanwhile, Arius is holding Thyone’s arms down to prevent her from escaping.
The Player’s expression tells a different story, though, the panes of his face constricted and grieved, like he can’t bear what he’s doing.
Sil barely takes notice of my presence, or Jude’s, as he pulls that strange book from his pocket.
The Script. He flips it open, runs his pen down the page, like he’s looking for something to cross out.
“I do apologize for the inconvenience,” he says to Thyone, whose indiscernible cries echo from the amber walls to the marble floors.
“My Playhouse only has room for one new actor, and cuts are necessary. You understand.”
Cuts? Gods, no—wait—
She bolts, almost breaking free from Arius—
And lunging at Sil, the tips of her fingers barely brushing the Script as he sharply jerks it from her reach.
Her cry vanishes mid-shout like a light flickering off the moment her hand makes contact with the book. She falls to her knees and blinks several times, her eyes blank, confused.
Sil shakes his head, mere disappointment crossing his face. Jude’s warning plays through my mind. If you value your life, you’ll leave that cursed book alone.
Before I can register what’s happened, Arius’s strong hands close around Thyone’s head, his fingers digging into her white-blond hair.
Her eyes, still gleaming with gold, find mine, her mouth open in a plea, but nothing comes out. She doesn’t quite look scared—she looks…confused.
She’s a Reveler, I try to remind myself. A Playhouse worshipper from the South. She signed up for this on purpose. Right?
At the moment, though, she just looks like a person.
I run forward, my heart dropping through the floor as I bolt at Arius—
He snaps her neck. One swift, violent motion.
Then it’s over. I stand, cold and still and shaken as Arius scoops the girl’s body into his arms and follows Sil to the stairs, like nothing at all has happened.
Sil smiles politely in passing, tucking that book back into his pocket. “Good evening, Alistaire. Jude.”
I turn to Jude as they leave, my body numb. My vision swims, drifting over the walls as if they’ll have answers. “That…that was Reality Suspension, right?” My breaths are coming too quick. My head feels light. “He was testing her—her skills in—”
Jude is already shaking his head. “It’s how eliminations are carried out in the Playhouse.
Like I told you.” His voice, usually so steady, sounds like a thread stretched too tight.
“It’s a casting call. Whoever the director thinks is right for the cast…
” He trails off. “We choose our contenders, but Sil chooses who stays.”
I can’t breathe. It’s common knowledge that auditionees don’t leave the Playhouse. But—but I never imagined seeing it in action, that it would be so—
And Jude wasn’t lying about the Script, then. I don’t know what happened to Thyone when her hand brushed that book, but I know I don’t want it to happen to me.
But why? I stare at a scuff mark on the marble, where the heel of Thyone’s shoe had dragged. Why not just let her go? Send her away from the Playhouse? Why this?
I look up, as if I’m going to find comfort in the eyes of a Player. They probably revel in this horror.
At the moment, though, Jude doesn’t look like he’s reveling in anything. His jaw tightens, that blithely aloof expression of his almost cracking at the edges, and I realize I asked my questions out loud. “Don’t look for meaning in everything, Alistaire.” He turns to leave. “You might find it.”
A moment later, he’s vanished down the hall.
Fine. He can go to bed. I have work to do.
And it starts tonight.