Act II Scene IV
A second night in the Playhouse is two nights too many.
Luckily, I won’t be trapped much longer. Provided I survive this. Well, and provided I can find it—or her, I suppose.
The Prop Master of the Playhouse: Marigold.
The first shadow comes five minutes to midnight, fast and delicate, just like the one Jude chased away yesterday. Nyxene: a ghostly Stage Manager checking that her actors have properly gone to their beds.
A finger of shadow reaches under my dressing room door, as if to scold me for being awake.
I hold my breath, watching, my feet at the threshold of my sleeping quarters.
There are things that move in the Playhouse after dark that mean you harm, Jude warned. But I imagine they can’t mean me any more harm than he does, so.
My eyes track the last of the dying candlelight on the mantel beyond my bedroom, waiting, waiting…
Somewhere below, the great Playhouse clock resounds its midnight call, thrumming beneath the floorboards. Curfew.
The hot coals in the fireplace are dimming, dimming…
Gone. Dark.
Satisfied that I’m in my bedroom, the Stage Manager, at last, retreats—presumably to check on everyone else. Which should keep her busy for a few minutes.
I bolt through the short hall, across my dressing room, and for the door, slipping through and shooting down the corridor in the dark.
Then, pressing a guiding hand to one wall of the common room, I run.
My memory has always been sharp. Entire chapters I glimpsed in history books sometimes stay lodged in my brain for ages.
But tonight, there’s a specific section I mentally mull over in my mind. The Playhouse: A Captivating History of Craft and Horrors, Vol 2. Chapter Sixteen. All items belonging to the Playhouse either come from, or are to be examined by, the Prop Master.
That Eleutheraen arrowhead that was shot at the Players—Jude told Mattia to give it to the Prop Master. Probably to be dismantled.
And I need it to get out of here. I’m leaving, and I’m taking Jude with me.
By the time I reach the first floor, the cold is eating me alive. The Playhouse, normally bursting with warmth during the day, is colder than the bottom of the ocean at night. My breaths form little ghosts at my chapped lips.
The Prop Master resides in the deepest crevice of the Playhouse. Most sources suggest the monster dwells at the bottom of the Labyrinth Steps.
I glimpse the stage as I pass through the wings, an eerie yellow light hanging over it. A ghost light. I’ve heard they leave them on to keep away the spirits, an old legend. My mind briefly flutters to Gene Hunt before pressing on.
Shivering, I set my jaw and inch into the murkiness of the twisting backstage maze until discovering the south tower. After what feels like an eternity searching, the tightness in my chest eases as I finally reach a door that reads prop room, barely legible by moonlight.
It opens to a stairwell and a set of narrow steps that spirals down. Moonlight skirts through slats overhead, illuminating the Labyrinth Steps.
Well. Down I go.
The stairway seems to wind on endlessly. I’m not sure how much time passes, but at some point I pass a landing with an ornate sign indicating a corridor that leads to the arena, which sits under the stage. I ignore it and continue down.
Desperate to distract myself, or maybe to prepare myself, I sift through the pages of my mind until coming across the words of The Prop Master’s Tale.
They called Marigold the most beautiful woman in Theatron, I read mentally. But fearful that she would grow old and her beauty would fade, vain Marigold climbed Mount Eleutherae before the first Players emerged.
I descend lower into the dark, my ankles sore from the cold. But the farther I go, the more unbearably icy it gets.
The beauty Players possess still belonged to the well back then. When Marigold stared into the well of Dionysus’s blood, it reflected the most magnificent version of herself, twisted with Craft.
Stumbling over an uneven step, I curse. It’s even frostier now, and my shoulders ache. My body begs me to turn around.
I ease my mind back to the story before the cold wins, picturing the words. But the deeper I go, the more certain I am that the quiet humming emanating below is not in my head. I breathe heavily, force myself to keep going.
Greedy, Marigold stayed there for months, unable to look away from her own beauty, until one day, she fell into the well.
I gulp a breath of cold air. Marigold felt less threatening when she was a page in my textbook and not dwelling at the bottom of these steps.
She emerged monstrous, gold clinging to her skin, her eyes, her hair. She has not aged a day since.
I pause as I hear the lilting notes of an eerie lullaby echo through the stairwell.
A chill skitters down my spine, and it’s an effort to keep myself going. One, two, three more steps, and my ankle hits the final one. I walk across the small landing to the outline of a door, a quiet rustling on the other side.
I hold my breath and lower my grip to the golden handle, continuing the story.
When the first Players emerged from the well, Marigold’s obsession shifted to them instead. She searched down the mountain for the Players, dragging away unlucky passersby to check their eyes for gold—and tearing them out if they were not.
Praying the hinges won’t creak, I inch open the door, and the scents of cinder, beeswax, and paint rush out.
Inside, the warmth of blessed light kisses my skin. I might be inside an underground cage with a monster, but at least I can feel my toes again.
The brilliance of the well left Marigold’s vision poor and damaged, but seeing her devotion to the Players, Silenus took her into the Playhouse.
My surroundings quickly overshadow my relief.
I’m being watched. Not by a person, or even a monster, but by the walls—painted with thousands of detailed golden eyes.
Some, a pale yellowy shade. Others, burning with deep hues of orange.
A few are almond-shaped, others hooded. Still others are round as coins with spiderlike lashes.
One pair, oddly enough, emerald green.
The flickering oil lamps cast the illusion that they’re blinking at me.
It’s so warm in here, I find myself unbuttoning my jacket.
Since then, Marigold has crafted every prop onstage, asking nothing in return, only that she can reside in the same quarters as the Players.
The next thing I notice is an easel and the striking oil painting of Jude staring back at me. It sits below a set of glass wind chimes, which seems odd in a place with no wind.
I avert my gaze to a golden statue in the corner, then to a silver lyre leaning against a delicately painted tree. Lastly, to a shelf of skulls—which I hope are props—flanking a music box that plays merrily along.
My shoulders sag. I’m not sure why I expected the Eleutheraen arrow to be neatly stored in a glass case at the center of the room or something. This place is a mess.
A furnace blazes in one corner, where several long broadswords hang over a workbench of blacksmithing tools. Thick webs enmesh the ceiling. I make a face at the rather large spider spinning down to my right.
Then the golden statue moves. It’s not a statue.
I duck behind the canvas of Jude.
“Player?” the Prop Master asks sharply. No, not sharply.
Desperately.
She may have spotted me, but then I spot something, too, when I peek around the easel.
There, hanging at her hip, is the dismantled arrowhead.
I am not leaving without it.
The arrowhead swings as she rushes forward.
Gathering my courage, I ease out from behind the canvas but stay in its shadow.
Marigold is smaller than I thought she would be, shorter than me, with skin the same gold as her lips.
Tight coils of thick hair are dried stiff around her shoulder, shimmering with Craft.
A carefully tailored dress patched with dozens of different patterns, materials, and colors clings to her waist.
Her eyes fix on mine. Or at least, I think they do. A haze of gold hangs over her pupils, too, but there’s a warm brown color peeking out at the edges of her irises.
There’s no denying—she’s striking, almost devastatingly so.
“Player,” she breathes.
Thank the gods. Her vision really is poor.
“Yes,” I whisper and wince. That’s my second lie tonight. “I’ve come to collect my arrowhead. Thank you for holding it for me.”
Her hands grip the arrowhead at her hip. “A gift. From Mattia,” she hisses, revealing a golden tongue and teeth. “Dangerous for you Players. For me to keep you safe.”
Well, she does have a point.
“Sil has sent for it,” I lie. That makes three. “I’d hate to tell him you’ve disobeyed a Player. Are you so ungrateful for your position here?”
Her eyes widen, and she snatches the arrowhead from her hip, thrusting it toward me. “Take it!”
Don’t mind if I do, I think, stepping forward and reaching my hand out to clasp the object.
We both seem to notice my mistake at the same time. Me, when I glimpse the mirror leaning on the wall behind her and notice the jacket I stupidly unbuttoned. And Marigold, when those cold eyes land on the blistering remains of my scorched mark peeking out from under the bandage at my throat.
Her hands tighten around the arrowhead just as I grasp it. “Marked,” she whispers with disgust.
Well. I guess her vision isn’t that bad.
My eyes flicker to the painting of Jude as the naivete of the legend hits me.
She paints. She makes the props. She can see just fine.
Marigold tugs the arrowhead back with alarming strength. But I’m stubborn, and so I go with it, flying forward and finding myself closer to a mythical monster than I ever wanted to be.
“Oh, this? Just stage makeup!” I squeak. Four lies.
Marigold stares at me the way one would expect an ancient monster you’re trying to gaslight would stare.
Definitely not blind. Her eyes examine me, narrowing as she opens her mouth.
I’ve been so focused on her teeth being gold that I hadn’t noticed they’re also sharpened into little points.
This is easier to observe when they’re two inches from my face.
Something bites into my side, and I shriek as she extracts what I can only describe as tiny daggers for fingernails. “Mortal,” she sneers.
The crisis council in my head panics and starts tearing open old files for any helpful information. Weaknesses. Bargaining tools. Something.
Her dagger hand aims for my heart now, and all I can think is the little Reality Suspension trick Jude did earlier would be handy right about now.
Jude. My eyes swivel past her, where the striking painting of him rests on the easel.
“Jude sent me!” I shout in a panic. Something softens in her eyes at the name, so I run with my fifth lie. “With a message. I can prove it.”
“Jude,” she repeats, her grip on me loosening just a little, and I free a hand.
Another passage from the text comes back to me, and I grab hold of it: As Prop Master, Marigold is known to hoard beautiful things.
I dip my hand into my jacket pocket, extracting the golden Finders Keepers ring Jude gave me when we first met. “Here,” I rasp, holding it between us as light bounces off its surface. Sorry, Haris.
I mentally make a note to swipe more jewelry from Jude at my earliest convenience. It can’t be too hard to snatch one of those rings he leaves on his vanity.
Marigold covers a gasp with her hand but doesn’t reach to grab the ring.
I push my hand out farther. “He told me to give you this…as a token of his love.”
Six lies now. It feels easier.
Her eyes flicker down to the ring again as she lowers her hand, a gleeful smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “Jude,” she repeats, giddy this time. Or as giddy as a monster can be, I guess.
“He wishes to wed,” I add for extra sparkle. “He’ll send for you soon.”
I’m not sure she hears me. But she drops the arrowhead, which I catch as she tugs the ring from my fingers and examines it carefully between her sharp fingernails.
Meanwhile, I take my cue to leave. I’m backing toward the door when my eyes catch on something heavy and golden strapped at her ankle, secured to the wall.
A chain. A golden chain. The Eleutheraen gold still in my blood sings to its neighbor. No wonder she never leaves this cave. She can’t.
As I make a hasty exit for the stairs, I decide I’ll be paying Marigold another visit.
“Don’t tell anyone about this, and I might even bring you the finger that ring came from,” I call over my shoulder as I shut the door behind me, this time not lying.
Because if that chain can hold Marigold, I’ll bet it can hold Jude.