“Where is Galen?” I demand.
“Your brother was sent away. He should have known we do not help the likes of the Playhouse. I should have thanked him for the information, though. It made it easier to track you.”
A bitter taste fills my mouth. “I amnottheir next Player.”
Dorian sighs, a sad look on his face as he reaches into his breast pocket and retrieves a vial. “I’m afraid it’s a chance we can’t take, Riven.”
The bottle looks familiar—that twisted silver cap that forms the shape of a serpent. I’ve seen one just like it in Jude’s dressing room.
Poison of Echidna. It’s lethal. Instant.
“I am going to ask you one more time.” He tilts his head, smiles kindly. “Where is Jude Stepharros?”
“I don’t know!” I answer truthfully.
“Are you willing to help us track him?” the woman—Eleni—counters. And I realize the real reason they’ve kept me alive. She saw the Craft in my eyes, knows I could possibly track him by it, probably find him if I tried.
I open my mouth, close it.Could I?I was willing to hand Jude over to Syrene. But that was supposed to be atrade.
Looking at Dorian, at his hunters, at the Eleutheraen weapons strapped to their belts…I don’t think there would be any trade if they got their hands on Jude.
“No.” The word shocks me more than it does them. “I won’t.”
Dorian twists his lips. “That’s disappointing.”
“Wait,”I protest, bucking and pulling at my ties. “Wait, but I—I know things. About the Players, about their director—”
Dorian roughly pushes my sleeve farther up, pulls a torch from the wall. Beneath the flame, my veins shine gold.
My stomach feels like it’s full of lead.
“It runs in your blood now,” he concludes, resolute and emotionless.
“It can bepurged,”I insist. “My allegiance is with theNorth,not with the—”
“Yet you won’t help us find him, a Playeryou’veset loose on the world?” he asks. “You expect any of us to believe you’re capable of telling the truth?”
I can’t stand the look of his blue-gray eyes, the swift conviction behind them.
Sothisis how it ends. Not by the selfishness of a Player who trapped me but at the hands of my own kind.
Dorian pops the lid off the bottle, and the sound sends my vision tunneling. My blood burns hot—reallyhot as he grips my chin and brings the bottle to my lips.
This isn’t how I’m supposed to die.
Panic shouts in my mind, and I buck, throwing my weight to the side as hard as I can.
My chair swings and then comes crashing down on my left as I pull hard on my binds. Someone yells to Dorian as my ties snap.
I roll onto the ground and make a beeline for the door.
Someone snatches my hands and forces them behind me, whipping me around so fast, the air is shoved out of my lungs. It gives me a chance to take in the rest of my surroundings—the stone walls behind me, the gleaming gold weapons strung up in display beside a narrow hallway leading out.
Dorian’s entourage lines the back of the room. I don’t count them—eight? Ten? I barely catch more than a flickering glimpse of their faces, hard and rugged like Dorian’s, by the light of the torches.
More boots come barreling in from that narrow hall.
It takes way more of them to hold me than it should. I want to convince myself it’s the adrenaline, but I know it’s something else. There’s Craft in my blood. Iamstronger than I should be. Stronger than amortalshould be.
