“Clearly, it’s serious,” he concludes. “You’d be too farfrom home, not to mention exerting yourself. You may only worsen faster—” He takes a breath. “I’m just not sure it’s a good idea anymore, Riv.”
Anymore.The word echoes in my head, like a seal on my fate.Anymoresounds final.
Anymoresounds like the Player from ten years ago has won.
I shove the thought down as soon as it surfaces. If I makeonedecision for myself, it will be that a Player doesn’t get to finish me off.
“I am nothelpless,” I bite out, but the words taste sour.Yet,my mind adds. “I’ll take care of myself—”
“Riven, you are notcapableof taking care of yourself.” Galen immediately winces, like he wishes he could pluck the words out of the air and put them back in his mouth.
Blood rushes to my head, eyes falling to my brother’s mark once more. He believes that.
The possibility that he’s right only enrages me further.
He pulls in a breath, then utters, “Stay here. I spoke with Mom—” I huff a laugh. Our mother has been counting down the days to my departure as eagerly as I have. “Please—at least until you get better.”
Until.As if I’m not dying a little faster each day.
Like a godsdamned corpse.The insult rings in my ears.
“This isn’t fair, Galen,” I seethe.
“The world isn’t fair,” he answers. “No one chooses the hand they’re dealt. Leave fate to the gods and their whims. It bows to no man.” I cringe at the reference to a phrase we all learned in school.Fate guides the feet of the willing and drags the heels of the defiant.
“I don’t believe in fate,” I say. “Certainly not a fate written by gods who abandoned us. Was Ifatedto be poisoned by a Player?” I ask, daring him to agree. “WasDadfated to be ripped apart by one?”
His face hardens, both of us equally shocked at my words. We don’t bring up our father’s death.
“It doesn’t matter. This conversation is over,” Galen says, standing.
“No!”My raspy voice shoots out of my throat like an arrow, startling both of us. It ricochets off the walls. There’s an abrupt creak upstairs, like my mother has shot to her feet.
Too much,I scold myself. My fingernails bite into either side of my chair. Galen’s silver gaze hones in on me. “What?” I snap, failing to reel my voice in again.
“That temper, Riv,” he says softly, shaking his head. “If you don’t get control of it, that anger will be the death of you.”
When I say nothing, Galen moves for the hall but pauses at the door. “I’m sorry, Riven—I really am. And I mean it.” I don’t meet his eyes. Galen pushes the door open. “If we figure out how to…reversewhatever this is, I’ll take you to Orkestra and enroll you myself.”
With that, he’s gone.
I give him a full three-minute head start before I tug on my boots and follow him.
Act I: Scene V
I haveneverbeen in the District alone at night.
It feels different, vulnerable. Like I’m running through the street naked, shaking the frost from my bones.
I’m deep in the District before realizing I can hear the echo of my own feet pounding against the stone. On either side of me, I notice dark windows and boarded-up storefronts, illuminated by blinking limelights that hang over the street. In all my visits across the Cut, the District has bustled with activity, the market bursting at the seams with busy shoppers and peddlers selling their wares.
Tonight, it’s deserted.
No one is here to stare or call me cursed. No one to skitter away like I’m a rabid rodent.
It’s godsdamnliberating.
It occurs to me I don’t actually knowwhere Galen went. But whatever speech I had for him is long forgotten as I march up to one of the abandoned booths.
