Jude watches me. “I won’t leaveyoubehind.”
I narrow my eyes. “Because we’re linked.” He must want his power back.
He shakes his head once, refusing to break his gaze. “No.”
For a moment, a bright, delicate fluttering warms my chest.
I shove it down at once, horrified.
“And some might say you now owe me a debt, given that I’ll be paying for it with my life,” Jude says. “So,please, Alistaire.” He looks pleadingly at me. “Come back to the Playhouse. Come back, and I will release you from our bargain.”
“What?” I snap in a whisper. “Why?You just said yourself, going backwillget you killed.”
“Alistaire.” Jude pulls his hand from mine, turning away from the bar to ensure no one sees. He brings two fingers to the collar of his shirt and tugs it down toward his shoulder, and my blood turns to ice.
That golden gash I’d noticed before has spread to his chest, peeling up to his throat.
He conceals it again and leans toward me. “Ihaveto get back to the Playhouse.”
Something is wrong with Jude.
At first, I think he’s just run out of witty remarks and biting comebacks. Then, I think he’s run out of words altogether. Sometimes I feel his gaze on my back as I walk, and I throw a look over my shoulder. Three times, I’ve caught him wiping his eyes, smudging the kohl beneath his lashes. Other times, he just watches me back, like he’s waiting for me to say something.
Mile after mile, I never do.
“Green!” he proclaims once and pales a little when I ask what he means. “My favorite color,” he explains sheepishly. “It’s green.”
I have no idea what’s happening to Jude, but he’s right. He needs to get back to the Playhouse.
A deer in the woods startles us both. We’re on edge still. “Do you think there are more of them?” I ask, watching the deer leap across the nearby creek and retreat into the hills. “Those hunters?”
“Were I to wager?” Jude stumbles again and catches himself on a thin tree trunk. That’s the third time in the last few minutes. “I’d guess there’s a thousand of them for every one that died. There’ll be hell to pay for it, dear—”
I wait for the lilting pronunciation of my alias that sounds more likeAh-li-star. It doesn’t come. Jude is staring at me, open-mouthed, still leaning on the tree trunk and blinking in confusion. His arm has bled through the scarf I tied around it.
“I’m sorry—your name is—” He swallows, frustration pinching his brow. “I know it; your name is…”
“Alistaire,” I offer.
“Alistaire!” he shouts and shakes his head. “Of course. Alistaire. Say, Alistaire,” he goes on, pausing to cough into the snow. “As fun as this little adventure has been, I think it’s far past time we get back.”
He pushes by me. I follow, telling myself he’s tired. We haven’t slept in two days. That cut on his arm could be infected. Something is clearly wrong with his left leg. Or maybe he’s just too self-absorbed to remember a name other than his own.
I glance back, and my excuses fall short.
A smattering of gold stains the snow.
Intermission: Scene IX
In spite of Jude’s protests, I win the argument that we need to take shelter for the evening.
I slip into an apothecary on the way. Much as he refuses to admit it, whatever injury Jude suffered in his fight with Dorian is slowing us down and making his breathing labored. I study the way he’s holding his arm for a moment before selecting a healer’s kit with a suture needle and catgut.
We stop at an inn for the night. Jude’s picked another pocket, I guess, because he has no trouble handing over someone else’s coin for our stay. He Mimics a man we passed on the street, and Iknowsomething is wrong when he doesn’t flirt with anyone at the front desk.
Luckily, our room sits at the very end of the dingy hall. Unluckily, there’s a floorboard painted with shimmering Eleutheraen gold at its threshold.
Jude rolls his eyes and steps right over it, shedding his Mimicry. “Not even real,” he says. “You wouldn’t believe how often that’s the case. Too expensive to use true Eleutheraen gold. They just like to make their patrons think they’re safe.”
