“I’m anactor,Alistaire.” He laughs. “I spendmostof my days pretending to be someone I’m not. None of us really belong anywhere.” Then he smiles, and for once, it isn’t a smirk or a telling grin. It’s just a smile. “But life is worth finding the right puzzle.”
I press the tips of my fingers to where my mark used to be, unsure I fit in any of them now anyway. I don’t have any idea where I belong. “I think maybe you’re right.” The words escape my mouth unexpectedly, but I’ve thought them through. I’ve thought them through alot. “The North—it isn’t all good.” And in spite of what I’ve been taught every day of my life, I add, “And maybeyouaren’t all bad.”
He meets my gaze, and I spy something more than the typical pride and mischief behind his eyes. It almost looks like relief. “Alistaire,” he begins. “There’s something I need to tell—”
He pauses, chokes like he’s swallowed gravel.
Then he clutches his throat, like he can’t breathe, and I sit up, concerned.
“Jude?” For once, Ihopehe’s just being dramatic.
“I need to—” He gasps for air between coughs, each more vicious than the last. I press a hand to his chest, where gold has begun to bleed through the white of his shirt. His heart is staggering between beats, labored and uneven.
All the color has drained from his face by the time his phantom fit ends, but it leaves his voice a thin rasp.
“It’s almost over,” is all he says, fading like he can’t keep his eyes open anymore. The light around him dims like a candle flickering in the wind. “We’re almost done.”
Intermission: Scene XI
Whatever is happening at the Playhouse, it looks bad.
Worse than how Jude looks, which is also very bad. He managed to sleep a couple of hours before formally announcing to me between strained breaths that “the show must go on” and insisting he was recovered enough to keep moving again.
I didn’t believe him for a minute, but I agreed. We need to get him back to the Playhouse. But now that it’s finally in sight, I’m second-guessing.
“Are you sureabout this?” I call after Jude as we walk. Our disguises feel too thin. It took Jude most of the trip back to teach me Mimicry without the help of a mirror. Mostly because he kept losing his train of thought, jumbling his words, or breaking into more coughing fits. Each seems to leave him worse than the last.
My disguise is a shallow one, the freckled face and upturned nose of a girl we saw selling papers and shouting their hysterical headlines about Jude’s escape hours ago.
“We’ll have to get into the Playhouse through the tunnels. This way,” Jude calls behind him.
“Tunnels?” I ask.
“Used for transporting large set pieces and props. And occasionally, yours truly.”
We must be half a mile from the Playhouse still, but furious crowds are piling out around it like ants as we move over a desolate road, watching from afar. I hear shouting, and I see torchlight as the sun dips below the horizon. A Player has escaped. Broken the law. The North has beenwaitingfor a reason such as this to get the upper hand.
Jude toes the ground, counting something out. Finally, he snaps his head up when he reaches eleven. “There, I think.”
He points to a shed in the distance. I can’t imagine why. It’s run-down, with rotting wood paneling and probably a termite problem. But before I can argue, Jude takes off and throws open its doors. I follow and skid to a stop, nearly falling into what appears to be an enormous stairwell filling the entire shed, leading down. The steps aren’t damp and rotting like I expect. They’re encrusted in jewels. A brilliant silver railing invites us into complete darkness.
“This way, Alistaire,” he calls, descending the first few steps. “And shut that door behind you, if you don’t mind.”
The stairs trail deep into the dark and drop us at a tunnel with nothing to light our path, save for the glow of our skin. When we reach an impasse, Jude turns right without hesitating.
“What’s down here?” I ask, nervous.
“A labyrinth. Any intruders, armies, what have you, would never reach the Playhouse without a Player to guide them through it.”
“It’s a maze?”
A growl in the distance freezes us both in our tracks.
“A maze with surprises,” he adds. “Stay close.”
I trudge after him, muttering that I’m tired of “Playhouse surprises.” But the constant feeling that I’m being watched, that a second set of feet is trailing my own, is enough to make me think Marigold and her freaky skull collections weren’t so bad.
Jude moves through the labyrinth like it’s an old playground he knows well. Three lefts, a right, straight for what feels like a mile, and then another right. I stubbornly latch on to the hand he offers, not keen on losing him a third time.
