Act II Scene VII
“That’s my fucking line,” shouts Titus, storming out of the wings half-dressed and pointing a long finger at Parrish. In his other hand, he waves a script.
PARRISH: “Well, you weren’t here to say it.” She smiles snidely while Arius releases the illusion around us with a tired sigh, the set melting back into the stage. “Honestly, I’m shocked you know which lines are yours anyhow. You can read?”
TITUS: “I was trying to find a new costume.” He glowers. “Mine looks like it just went through several performances of Gods’ War. I’ll bet you Cicero ravaged it with a blade on purpose. He never liked me.”
Damn it. I thought that costume belonged to Jude.
It’s been three days since the Craft binding, all of which have been crammed with rehearsals and brutal stage combat lessons with Jude that have left me too exhausted and sore to think straight—which is new, strange. My muscles are sore.
Not numb, and not cold. I can feel them again.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. I’ll be out of here as soon as the Playhouse lands in Syrene, and so will Jude. I just need to figure out how to wrestle that Eleutheraen chain away from Marigold.
So long as I can stop the Great Dionysia. Stop the bloodbath they’re plotting.
PARRISH: “I think I’ll sing my lines instead, Sil.”
SIL: “You will not.” He cleans his glasses. “Alistaire, from your entrance? We’ll go from the top.”
Indeed, my little bridge demonstration awarded me not one but four speaking scenes. But since I refuse to read their cursed scripts, learning my lines devolved into several repeat-after-me sessions with Jude that rendered us both frustrated and storming out of rehearsal.
“Did you do something to your face, Alistaire?” Titus mutters, passing close behind me. “It looks different. Nicer, though, so there’s that.”
I suggest that he do something about his face, too, and he barks a laugh on his way out.
SIL: “Let’s run it from the beginning. Where is Jude?”
“Primping in the Greenroom, probably,” Mattia mutters and goes back to picking at her nails with a prop dagger. “This is a stumble-through at best, Sil.”
The Greenroom. Another part of the Playhouse I’ve read about and have yet to discover.
SIL: “The worse the dress rehearsal, the better the show!” He flashes a forced, encouraging smile. “Someone fetch Jude, please.”
The sharp scent of hyacinth warns me first. “Whatever you’re plotting, I hope it doesn’t involve that axe you keep staring at.” Jude appears at my side with a look of patient suffering and calls out, “Here, Sil.”
He’s changed into a finely tailored black jacket, trousers, and a shirt he’s unnecessarily left half unbuttoned to show off gold markings he no doubt made some poor stagehand paint on.
“I count that four costume changes in one rehearsal,” I mutter at him as the lights go down.
“Oh? Do you have a favorite?” he asks, adjusting the cuffs of his jacket.
“Do any of them come with a gag?”
“Didn’t know you were into that.”
“Hold for lights!” calls Sil, running a hand through his white hair and leaving a few raised at odd angles. If he’s stressed over this, I wonder how he’ll react to his Lead Player going mysteriously missing in a week’s time.
Above us, a stagehand adjusts the glaring limelight. I squint, trying to catch a glimpse of who aims it. I know they’re there—I’ve spotted half a dozen stagehands setting the banquet tables, moving props, adjusting the curtain. But I can never seem to get a square look at their faces.
SIL: “And go.”
I brace myself, brushing my fingers across the fabric that hides my mark. It burns each time I set foot onstage. Worse since the Craft binding.
“How’s that healing, by the way?” Jude asks while we wait for our cue.
“Healing” is a stretch. Last I peeked under the bandage, an alarming gold film had begun forming over the wound, festering in the shape of the iron Jude used to burn through it.
“I’m not going out there tonight,” I say, ignoring the question. “Rehearsals are as far as I go.” It’s bad enough my mark is gone. I’m no better than a common liar now. But I will not be worse than one. “Performance is unnatural. One strung-out and outrageously public lie. It’s wrong—”
JUDE: “Life is a performance.” Our cue is called, and he moves for the platform, whispering over his shoulder, “You might as well be applauded for it.”
Between hasty rehearsal breaks, I scavenge the dining hall for anything I can get my hands on.
Somehow, I’m still starving when Parrish comes to retrieve me.
She promises to have a stagehand deliver more food to the dressing rooms, or else cook me her very favorite snack if she can “catch the ingredients.” I gently decline the offer.
“Get dressed,” Jude calls as I enter the wings, throwing a linen garment bag zipped over an elaborate costume in my direction.
He’s dressed much the same: loose white shirt, tailored black pants, black boots.
Stitches of gold leaf thread his neckline, and scarlet stones hang from his ears.
“The rest are already backstage. You’re going to be late as it is. ”
“I’ll get you back for this,” I grumble, dread churning in my stomach at the sound of audience chatter just beyond the curtain. I reassure myself no one from the South will recognize my face—its similarity to my father’s—from so far away onstage.
JUDE: “Yes, I’m sure you will. The walls of my dressing room tremble with fear at the sound of your step.”
I slip behind the screen used for quick changes and make a point of raising my middle finger over it before donning the costume: an ensemble of white, accented by notes of gold and crimson.
“I’m sure any of the three auditionees you haven’t slaughtered would be proud to take my place.” I pull the blouse over my head and fiddle with the thick belt that goes with it. Then I jam my feet into the knee-high leather boots that have about a thousand laces.
“They’ll each have their shot onstage. Just as what’s-her-name did the other night.”
“The dead one?” I offer helpfully, then stomp around the divider, trying and failing to button the tiny wrist cuffs on my sleeves.
Jude looks me up and down, pausing at the boots and the cords I opted to wrap across my knees.
“Did you even try to lace them? You’ll trip over your feet onstage.
” His own (properly laced) boots clack sharply across the floor.
With a shake of his head, Jude sweeps one foot back and swiftly kneels.
I yelp and nearly fall over when he tugs my leg up and sets my boot on his knee, undoing what I thought was a very nice bow.
I ignore the way my pulse trips as he steadies my calf with one hand to undo my clumsy lacework with the other. I’m nervous about going onstage, that’s all. And half shocked he isn’t complaining about dirtying his costume with the heel of my boot.
JUDE: “I should leave these untied. Maybe it would slow your scheming.”
RIVEN: “Are you trying to get kicked in the face? I have a great angle here.”
Jude smirks up at me and mouths, “Dare you,” while pulling the boot laces taut.
My heart stumbles over itself again as Sil calls out, “Ten minutes!” from somewhere in the hall.
“You’ll be fine out there,” Jude says, mistaking my nervousness for stage fright.
“Three deep breaths, right?” He peers over his shoulder before continuing, lowering his voice.
“Rehearsals are different—those are done cold, without much Craft. It’s too demanding on us to cast those sorts of illusions without an audience during run-throughs.
” I cringe. I forget this is what they feed off of. “The auditorium may seem larger, too.”
“What, it’s grown since rehearsal?” I ask with an incredulous laugh.
“The Playhouse draws its strength from its audience. A theatre grows weak without them,” he says, avoiding the question. “It’s going to feel more…intense out there.”
“If I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you were worried.” I try to sound careless, but I don’t believe me, either. He snaps the buckle in place at my knee and sets my foot back on solid ground.
“You should be. This is a hell of a role for Sil to throw you into.” Jude reaches for the other boot and looks up at me. “My character will take the brunt of what happens out there, but it isn’t going to be pleasant. Hold close to your bridge, yes? Just in case.”
“Fine.” I cross my arms. “Wouldn’t want to make you burst into tears again.”
I never did learn what made him so upset the other day. For someone determined I learn all this Craft, he seemed awfully emotional over my making progress with it.
He stills, pausing his work. Breathes once, then quips, “Not all of us are terrified of emotions, Alistaire.” He buckles the other boot and sets it down before standing and heading for his place in the wings, calling over his shoulder, “And cover up those purple circles under your eyes before going out. You’ll frighten the children. ”
I ignore him as he stalks off but still grapple with a pod of creamy, pale liquid on one of the vanities, making awkward attempts to smear it under my eyes without the help of a mirror.
“No, no! Not like that,” Parrish’s young voice calls, accompanied by the jingle of anklets as she passes through with perfectly lined eyes and carefully painted lips. “Don’t smear it; you’ll get streaks all over your face! You dab the color on. Like this, see?”
Parrish taps below her eye and gestures for me to imitate, hiding her chuckle when I poke myself in the eye instead and reconsider suffering a look in the mirror. “Didn’t anyone teach you how to do this?”
“I—I, uh,” I stammer as she picks up a pinkish powder and begins swiping it over my cheekbones.
With so few mirrors North of the Cut, cosmetics require a second set of eyes to apply.
The idea of asking my mother for help, of asking her to look directly at me, was out of the question.
Besides that, there isn’t much pigment in such things outside the Playhouse anyway. “No, not really.”