Act III Scene XXV #2
Moments pass in rigid stillness, and eventually, Nyxene departs—probably to search other crevices of the Playhouse for her missing actors.
Taking the hint, we retreat back down the ivy in shared silence, in time to witness the only remaining torch snuff out, leaving trails of smoke in its wake.
Jude’s shoulders drop. “I’d say that’s our cue, Riven. ”
He turns for the stairwell, but before he reaches it, I blurt out, “Wait.”
And at last, my very, very dangerous idea spills out of me.
“Do you ever think about the well?” The words are heavy. I’m definitely not supposed to be saying them. “If we came from it, doesn’t that mean we were…free at some point?”
Jude goes still but doesn’t turn. His voice drops to a low, quiet warning. “The well is deadly to us.” He moves to leave again.
“Is it?” I press, and he pauses again, his shoulders going tight. He knows me. He knows where I’m going with this. “Why? If we came from it. Maybe it only—only wants back what was taken. Us. Our Craft.”
The gods never poisoned the well after we rose out of it. Maybe—maybe Sil polarized it by emptying it of our Craft and our power, until it became what it is now: Eleutheraen gold. When he caged us, bound us to his Script.
Slowly, Jude shifts to look at me. His expression might as well be made of stone, but I go on anyway.
“Wouldn’t that mean there was a time when Craft belonged to the world?” I ask. “A time before it was all stolen and hoarded here. A time before we were greedy—”
He huffs. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I like being greedy?” His eyes dart away, like he didn’t mean to say that.
“But think, won’t you?” I swallow and hurry a step toward him. “If there was a time before this, there could be a time after it. Couldn’t there? Before the Playhouse.” The Script flashes through my mind. My voice strains, thin. “Before Sil and that book—”
“That book gives us power,” he says, his voice going taut.
“If we aren’t subject to it, we’re subject to them.
” He jerks his chin at the ledge, to the cities beyond.
“You think we’re liars, tricksters. But humans—humans do terrifying things with power.
For power.” He turns to look at me, and his eyes gleam, steadfast. “Before, we knelt to the world, not the other way around.”
Loath as I am to admit it, his words ruffle my prideful feathers. He’s right; I do like this power. I like being in control.
But I also think he’s wrong—wrong about the people. Wrong about staying trapped here.
In my head, through a cloud of foreign memories, I almost glimpse it: Eleutherae, a mountain that peaks over the hills, bleeding gold in a place lost to men. A well at its top. My heart aches for it, misses it.
“If there was a way to fix this, would you?” I let my eyes drift from him, out to the world beyond. To the dull and joyless life marked and Reveler alike are accustomed to. To the life I was accustomed to. “Fix what we’ve done.”
He scratches the back of his neck, hesitating. “I’d say the two of us are a little late for redemption, love.”
“We’re not.” I shake my head, wishing I could brush the guilt from my shoulders. “You’re not. There’s time to undo this.”
“No, there’s not.” He heads for the stairs, and my heart drops. “Good night, Riven.”
“Wait, Jude—I know there’s a way we can stop—”
“Enough,” he snaps, gripping the railing. His eyes flare. “A castmate is dead because of me. Can I undo that?”
My mouth shuts, opens again. “What happened to Gene wasn’t your—”
“I should have stopped her, Riven.” His words speed up, like he’s been holding on to them a long time and now they’ve all come tumbling out.
“She said all this same nonsense, too. And if I’d gotten her to give up the delusion of escaping this place—if I’d gotten her to comply with the damned Script—none of it would have happened.
She’d be here. With a different face, fine, but—” He shakes his head.
I want to interrupt, to reach for him, but I can’t move. I’m not even sure if he’s talking to me or to himself. We get so little say in our own words, and I wonder if he’s been needing to say these for a long time.
“Sil killed her for refusing to play her role. He poisoned that cup and warned if I didn’t help him, if I couldn’t prove where my loyalties lie—” Jude is my most loyal, Sil’s voice taunts in my head.
“He’d have no choice but to write my role off, too.
You think she didn’t try to suspend her reality?
I let her die, Riven. And then she went on to suffer that horrible halfway existence. Because of me.”
My gaze lands on the ground, stays there. I don’t have words that can fix this.
“That is why I never told you the truth of what we are, why the others can’t know. There are consequences for defying the set storyline, and I won’t lose another castmate over it.”
He stops for breath, all his tender words from moments ago slashed away by the sharp edges of guilt in his tone. “There’s no forgiveness for that. No ‘undoing’ it.” His eyes shift, harder now. “I will not lose you, too. So whatever you’re scheming in that devious mind of yours, drop it now.”
“No,” I argue and charge after him. “What Sil did wasn’t your fault. At least listen to me—”
Every angle of his face ices over, and the shift is so seamless, I don’t dare move any closer.
“If there was a way out, I’d have found it,” he says.
“I won’t gamble our lives searching for loopholes.
What happened to Gene will happen to you the moment he suspects—” Jude cuts himself off like it’s bad luck to say the words out loud.
“It was me who led us through those gilded doors at the beginning of all of this, Riven. I will be the last to walk out of them. And I will play whatever role I have to if it means holding on to you. Let the gods judge me a villain for it. I will see you in the arena, you will win, and that is the end of this story.”
I rush forward. “Jude, wait—”
“I surrendered everything to make this world our stage.” He steps out of reach and vanishes into the darkness of the stairwell. “And heart, I’d sooner burn it down before giving it back.”
Presumably, Jude goes to sleep in his dressing room.
I do not.
In the darkest, quietest moments of night, I slip out into the cold, watching for Nyxene over my shoulder. But frankly, I’m more afraid of Jude catching me.
I make one visit, two. Then a third, and a fourth, and a ninth.
By my last, Nyxene and her shadows have spotted me and are furiously snatching at my heels, aware that I’m out of bed and severely off script.
But not aware that I’ve spoken to every single one of my other castmates under cover of darkness.
As dawn begins to break, I’ve set the stage for the finale.