Act II Scene IX
“Something’s different about you.” Cassia’s eyes scrutinize me from the other side of the glass as I sway in front of the mirror, hanging on to the edge of it for balance.
I’ve managed to communicate with her through my mirror every few days, the process a bit easier each time I try it. Which is unsettling in and of itself.
“Well, for starters, I haven’t slept in…” I count on my fingers. “Six-ish days?” I try to joke, but my aunt doesn’t smile back. I can’t sleep. When I do drift off, I’m harassed by dreams full of golden eyes and red curtains. Sometimes worse.
“And your voice…” Her brow falls; the distinct crackle of my voice has been sawed down, its rough edges vanishing almost entirely. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” I lie. It’s wildly easy now. “Have you heard from the council?” I ask.
“Your message was delivered. Galen refused to tell them where the information came from, though.” Cassia clears her throat. “Syrene’s ruler has agreed to assist in the trade. If they succeed in crossing the Cut.”
And somehow, someway, I will have to turn Jude over myself.
I will, though. I have to. I have to stop the Great Dionysia—stop the slaughter the Players are planning.
“I’ll bring him,” I repeat. “The council will have all the leverage they need to strike a new deal with Silenus and force the Playhouse back out before the Great Dionysia. I just need something to restrain him.” Like that chain around Marigold’s foot.
“Riven,” she begins. “I went to the Dionysian Records after we spoke. There isn’t much information on him. Whoever he was when he was mortal is…murky.” She takes a breath, looking uneasy. “But one source suggests he hails from Thymele.”
The name immediately rings a bell. I stare silently back at Cass, a picture beginning to paint itself. “Oh.”
Thymele doesn’t exist anymore, a small territory at the border swallowed by Syrene’s army years ago, so that the wall could be sealed.
Several Players were killed during its fall, publicly executed during the ambush.
And now what was once Thymele is just part of Syrene.
“Jude would have been a child at the time,” Cassia says, looking down at the tome in her hands, as if to confirm. “How he managed to escape is anyone’s guess.”
“So he has a vendetta against the North,” I conclude, blunt.
“Wouldn’t you?” She meets my eyes. “War is an ugly thing. Our side of the Cut is far from innocent.”
We stare at each other for a moment. A confusing twinge of sympathy clashes with my anger. I shove it away.
Jude might not just be on an ego trip, and it only confirms my worst suspicions. He’s too proud, too calculated to simply want out of the Great Dionysia. He’s lying. He’s planning something.
He’s after vengeance. And he’s going to make the Great Dionysia his stage for it.
And somehow, this involves me. There’s something here I’m not seeing.
“Have you heard from Galen?” I press. “You didn’t tell him about—”
“No, of course not.” Cassia’s voice hushes, and we don’t say the rest out loud. That my mark is ruined. Useless. Cassia expected as much but was nevertheless devastated when I admitted it to her several days ago. “Your brother has gone for help,” she admits.
“What do you mean?” I whisper sharply into the mirror. I don’t want Galen any closer to this impending disaster of a trade than he has to be.
“He reached out to an old contact your father had. To help track down Dorian.”
Gods. “The Playhouse Bounty Hunter?” It’s impossible to imagine my brother, an adviser to the council, turning to reckless vigilantes for help.
Dorian and his hunters refuse marks—both to easily traverse South Theatron in pursuit of the Players and to outsmart one if caught or captured.
“Of course he did. Of course he doesn’t trust I can do this on my own—”
“Riven,” Cassia cuts me off. “He just wants you home, alive. We all do.”
I’m not sure there will be a home to return to if Jude gets his way.
“I have the arrowhead,” I say, even more determined now to prove Galen wrong. Prove all of them wrong. “I just need something to restrain Jude. He’s strong, but there’s a chain bound around the Prop Master’s ankle. If I can just figure out how to fool her into letting me—”
“Riven,” she breathes. “If you’re going to be downright foolish about this…” My aunt shakes her head, debating whether or not to give me this next bit of information. “Jude will be most vulnerable in costume. He won’t be as alert while in character. It’s the best time to catch a Player off guard.”
In costume.
Costume. I need a costume.
“Cass,” I say, a smile forming on my lips. “Do you know I’ve just had the best idea?”
“I told you I saw her up in the fly tower.” Jude sounds angry. “She cut the chandelier’s hangings.”
“You’re certain you saw her backstage last night?” Sil’s voice responds.
I breathe quietly, assuring myself I am no eavesdropper. Jude’s voice just has a way of carrying.
Particularly when my ear is pressed against his dressing room door.
“Nearly plunged an arrow right through—” Jude’s voice rises, and Sil hushes him. “Do you see this? I don’t have much longer.”
“Stop talking about it,” snaps Sil. “You’ll only make it worse.”
“Speed up the casting call. At this rate, I won’t be able to move the Playhouse past the Cut. Much less compete in the Great Dionysia.”
“I’ve been plenty lenient with you, Jude. I’ll not have you going off again and—”
The button of Galen’s old jacket scrapes against the door when I press too close, and I panic, bolting back to my room with all the subtlety of a frightened horse. Jude’s door swings open, and innocent pleasantries trade loudly between Sil and Jude.
I make it a whole four steps before my own dressing room door swings open behind me.
JUDE: “Funny thing just now.” I feign surprise at seeing him.
RIVEN: “Is the funny thing that you still don’t know how to knock?”
JUDE: “I was having a conversation with Sil, and I could have sworn I heard your sneaky little feet scampering away just outside my room.”
I stick a foot out and point at it. “Actually, they’re a very normal size.”
Jude ignores me and heads for the floor-length mirror. “Come, I want to show you something. It’ll give us a leg up for the competition.” Pressing a palm to the glass, he summons…
A very dark stairway, from the looks of it. Awesome. I never grow tired of these.
I plant my feet. “Is your little blond friend from last night coming along, too?”
My eyes immediately dart to the window, and I consider throwing myself out of it. Why did I say that out loud? I don’t even know if that girl was let into the Playhouse after all his flirting at the stage door. Not that I’d be shocked if she were. And not that I’d care.
Jude’s brows shoot up, but his surprise is subsequently replaced by a slow, widening grin. “My, Alistaire.” He crosses his arms, the mirror forgotten as he leans against the wall. “Are you jealous?”
A mortifying second of panic passes before I remember I can lie. “Nope.”
Am I? I hope not. Somehow, at some point, Jude has begun to tangle into my thoughts like a gnarled branch.
And I think he can tell.
His mouth twists in a knowing smirk that I consider tossing a footstool at until he nods and says, “Guess I’ll have to try harder, then.” And steps one foot through the mirror. “Oh, and if you could avoid letting Sil know about showing you this, I’d appreciate it.”
Then Jude’s gone. I unclench my teeth, curiosity burning a hole through my resolve.
I follow him through the glass.
“Welcome to the Playhouse Archives,” announces Jude, descending what feels like the one thousandth step. I throw another nervous look over my shoulder. We passed Marigold’s door and the creepy humming beyond it about ten minutes ago.
I cling to the railing and sip shallow breaths, ice snaking through my limbs from the hike down. Still, as I shift my weight from foot to foot and stretch my ankles, I feel a hint of pride at my newfound resilience.
Whether or not I care to admit it, I’m stronger now than I was when I first set foot in the Playhouse.
The white marble railing guiding my hand shifts the deeper we descend, from polished, to ancient, to bonelike, fissures threading its side and gold filling in the gaps. A cool breeze carries the scent of aged parchment and the soft rustle of pages.
Beneath our feet, the stone levels out.
A cavernous labyrinth sprawls before us. Marble depictions of Players border a path to a series of polished staircases that serves the gap between floors. Every tier stacked with walnut shelves and presenting thousands of…
Books.
The rustling, and what might be whispering, comes to a halt—like the ghosts wandering the library have noticed visitors.
“Is someone down here?” I call out, and Jude shakes his head.
“It’s them,” he says. When I return a puzzled look, he goes on. “The books. They only want your attention. They get excited when someone visits.” He gestures to the shelves. “Every story ever told is in these rooms.”
A rush of excitement rises in my chest, my eyes darting from shelf to shelf.
The books begin their chorus of rustling again as I hurry forward eagerly to examine their spines.
I love studying—I have since I was a child.
It’s where I feel at home, deep in knowledge and history.
Things that are already written and done, because they’re free of uncertainty.
It almost looks like how Galen described the Orkestrian Library. But better. Bigger and filled with thousands and thousands of tomes bound in gold, silver, and bronze.
Except the Orkestrian Library is filled with historical texts. Sciences and languages and mathematics. And these books are full of…
RIVEN: “Every story?” Anger simmers in my tone. “So it’s true, then. The Players stole them from Theatron.”
Some recreations used to be locked away for historical record, but Cassia says those are liable to vanish, too, full with ink one day and empty the next. Writing stories is forbidden anyway. Punishable, like singing.