“They’ll be fine. Put this on.” He tosses me the wool cloak and adjusts the one I threw at him earlier over his shoulders. “If you shiver any harder, you’ll drop that arrow I’m sure you workedveryhard to smuggle away from Marigold. And I can’t begin to imagine how you found that damned knife again.”
“Maybe you didn’t hide it very well.” Since clearlysomeonefound it.
Jude ignores me and tosses an apple in my direction. I keep my arrow trained on him and let the fruit fall limply to the ground. He shrugs. “Forgive me for trying to keep you alive until we get back.”
I laugh. “Weare not going back. You think I’m so sweet that I’ll just go on my merry way home and then let you return to the Playhouse?”
“Calling you ‘sweet’ is like calling a mountain lion ‘fluffy.’ Perhaps true, but also theleastof your worries if you’ve gotten close enough to tell.”
I breathe in, still shivering hard. But we have to keep moving.
“Walk,”I order.
“Where?”
Thick maple trees make up most of our surroundings, but there’s a dark path that cuts through the forest toward the city. Riddled, I’m sure, with similar encampments of Playhouse fanatics crossing through the broken wall.
“The agora. A station. We’ll board the Diolkos,” I conclude, referring to the railway that runs east to west near the North’s border. The Diolkos might get us to Syrene by morning.
“Amazing how you resist the arts of the theatre.” Jude stubbornly turns down the path, my arrow at his back. “Being delusional seems to come so naturally to you.”
He marches off with a sort of long-suffering dignity that I think only a Player could manage, shivering and throwing me the occasional tragic look to make sure I know he isn’t enjoying himself.
But as we travel deeper into the darkness, I feel eyes. Jude doesn’t look like a normal person, and even the dark won’t do much to disguise his height or glowing irises.
A thought occurs to me. “Sever your bridge to your Craft.”
Jude tries to smirk, but it looks more like a wince. “Now, Alistaire, bereasonable.”
“Do it. Now.”
Jude’s face darkens as I direct him behind one of the trees off the path. I don’t feel bad, really. It doesn’t matter what Jude does or doesn’t remember. If he’s responsible for what happened to me, he deserves worse than this.
“It’s harder for a Player,” he protests.
“Not a moment to waste, then.”
Jude sits in the dirt, rattling off a string of complaints about dirtying his pants, while I quietly prepare to reach for the Eleutheraen chain in my pack. He throws me one last annoyed look before closing his eyes and seeming to focus harder than he usually does.“Methexis,”he utters, and a change wraps steadily around his form, constricting the lines of his shoulders and softening the gleam of gold veins under his skin. The copper of his hair, which usually flickers like firelight at the ends, dulls into a dark-brownish color.
While he’s distracted, I dive for the thin chain in my pack, looping it tight over his wrists and securing both hands behind his back as Jude barks out a curse at me.
“Gods, Alistaire!” he shouts. “What else do you keep in that hellish bag? Poisonous lollipops for children? Pointed shoes for stepping on small dogs?”
I roll my eyes. Passing through the city with thick cloaks and the quiet clinking of chains hidden beneath is subtler than marching through with an arrow pointed at my golden-eyed companion.
The Eleutheraen chain tightly secured, I drop it and stare at my hands, realizing how uncomfortable it is to hold. Eleutheraen gold isn’t supposed to hurtme.
“Surprise,” Jude mutters glumly, noticing. “You’ve got Craft in your blood, Alistaire. Haven’t you looked in the mirror lately?” With his bridge severed, his voice is about a hundred times quieter, restrained. He almost sounds like a normal person and, when he blinks at me, most of the gold has drained from his irises, leaving a mild shade of hazel in its place.
We pass no fewer than sixteen more encampments before making it to the agora, crossing into the main square, which bustles with activity, though the thick of night has long since fallen.
I expect fights or protests, but for the most part, it seems like anyone who’s trickled over the border from South Theatron has stayed near the gates of the Playhouse, where commotion gathers in the distance.
Sil has probably noticed our absence at the stage door.
I push Jude through the crowds, keeping to the side streets while navigating the winding roads, stopping only once to ask for directions. Gathering that we’re not from here, the stranger simply spits at us and walks off.
The second time I catch him almost slipping his hands free from the hidden chain, I sharply reroute and dip into the first apothecary I see.
