“That’s enough.” I clear my throat and retrieve the two bottles I purchased earlier.
Jude tenses, eyes on the Eleutheraen gold. “Alistaire. Be reasonable.”
“For what it’s worth, I wish this wasn’t necessary.” I can’t risk him being at full strength during this trade, especially if Galen is there. Gods know what Jude might do, who he might hurt.
“Stop!” he almost shouts when I’m ready to pour the Eleutheraen gold into the second bottle—the diluted solution. “One drop atmost,or—” Jude shudders. “I know you don’t trust me, and you have every right not to. But I am a Player, and more than that could do…bad things. And frankly, you don’t have the weight on you to drag me around.”
I grit my teeth and use the dropper to squeeze the smallest drop of Eleutheraen gold into the solution before instructing Jude to lean his head back. He stares stubbornly at me instead. His olive skin has paled to the same shade as the melting snow flying by outside.
“Why?” he says. “If all you want is to get home, why go to all this trouble?”
“I amfarpast only wanting to get home,” I hiss. “Do you know how they formed the first treaty, Jude? How they caged you Players to begin with and kept the likes of your cast out of the North?”
Jude grows very, very still, a lethal sort of calm settling over his features. “I’m familiar.”
“They captured a Player,” I push on anyway. Granted,thatcapture entailed an army. I seem to be doing just fine going at it solo, though.
“They tookthreePlayers,” he corrects, showing all his teeth when he does.
Fine. Maybe I couldn’t manage three. Whatever. “The North held them for ransom,” I go on. “Then traded them in exchange for the five-hundred-year treaty.”
“Held for ransom!” Jude laughs pleadingly. “Gods. Theytorturedthem, Alistaire! Took three and traded the only one they hadn’t killed yet.”
I go still. I didn’t know that. “They…tortured them?”
Jude’s face darkens. “I’m sure mortalsloveto omit that last fact from the history books. And they didn’t ask for a single bit of information from the Players they tortured, by the way,” he says. “They asked their questions of the Player they forced to watch.”
My hands go cold.
“Which is damned stupid.” He falls back in his seat, bored. “Leave one of us alone long enough, and we’ll be begging to tell you our secrets just for attention. So!” Jude tilts his head, humor vanishing. “You plan to trade my life for…what exactly?”
I set my shoulders back, gathering my resolve. “I am willing to bet that Sil will do nearlyanythingto get one of his Players back.”
“He will.” Jude bares his teeth at me. “We all would.”
“And I think that includes signingwhatevercontract is presented to him. Maybe an oath to never tour the North or even enter the District again. Permanently this time.” I smile smugly. “In exchange, to keep the life of his Lead Player.”
Jude’s eyes brighten with a dark glimmer. “All the world’s a stage. You think I’ll give up half of it?”
Not easily, I don’t. Admiration. Love. Devotion.It’s what Players feed on, a drug they can’t get enough of. They’ll kill for it. Theyhavekilled for it.
And the larger their audience, the stronger their power.
Gods know how strong they’ll become if they take the rest of Theatron, too.
“Drink up.” I lean over the table with the bottle as Jude laughs. The cool exterior he’s worn most of today is melting off, giving way to something darker.
“I have been in this position before, you know.” Jude stares at me, and there’s something like hurt in his eyes that I try not to notice. “Youshould. I shared that with you.”
Guilt clouds my mind. I’ve been doing my best not to think about that—those terrible people who forced him to drink Eleutheraen gold when he was only a child. Not even a Player at the time.
There it is again, that same wrenching sensation from earlier—the wave of nausea that hit me square in the gut at the sound of Marigold’s body hitting the floor.Is this what I’m capable of?
I draw my eyes from the bottle to Jude, wondering at what point he stopped looking like an immortal monster and started looking like—
Well, like Jude.
“I didn’t tell you the full story, though. Do you know what I did to them?” Those people who took his family. He tilts his head at me. “Iwaited,” he whispers. “Sent them messages for years, telling themexactlywhen I was coming for them. So they’d know.”
