He knew my father. Already suspected something was off.
Sil goes on. “Michail Hesper was obsessive. Selfish, bitter! He hungered for fame and notoriety and was willing to do anything for it. He came to my Playhouse—as an emissary, no less. Some vain effort from your human council to get ahead of the treaty years before its expiration.”
“And you…killed him?” I say, unsure how much more of this I can take.
“I made him anoffer, Riven. I’d turn him into a hero.Peacemaker,they would call him!” Sil laughs to himself. “Michail returned home with mymiraculousagreement. A compromise. A promise to keep my Players contained in the Playhouse. By law.”
His smile makes me sick to my stomach.
“Of course, after losing so many of my Players, I never planned to letanyof you out again anyway.”
Why would Sil sign into such a thing?I asked Jude.
Because it was only ever for Sil’s benefit, to ensure the Players stayed contained, controlled, under threat of their lives if they tried to disobey. What worth is a director without his Players?
“But your human council seemed overjoyed, and Michail was renowned for his work as a Peacemaker. Just as I promised.”
His life’s work. I’ve always thought of him as a hero, all of it alie.
“And in exchange,” Sil says, “Michail would plantyouin the North with his own family. A Player in the costume of a child. Convince your mother you were rescued from Revelers, the orphan of distant relatives.”
You look so much like your father,my mother would always say. I often pondered the confusion in her voice. The dip in her brow.
As far as she knew, I was an orphan. I had no right to look like her long-dead husband. It must have hurt her every day, the insinuation of an affair living in her own home.
Even though that’s not what I am.
What I am issomuch worse.
“There, you would grow up as one of them and, one day, come home.” Sil grins. “And you would bring the rest of Theatron to our doorstep with you. Willingly.”
Me. A fox in the henhouse.
“But Ilooklike him,” I argue.
Sil scoffs. “You ought to! Your costume was designed after Michail. Notice how it’s captivated your council, to see the Peacemaker’s face onstage? Notice how those from the North trust you in a way they wouldnevertrust a Player from South of the Cut.”
I’m the one to scoff now. “Trust? They were scared of me.” And had every right to be.
“Small-town gossip doesn’t concern me, Riven. Though I am sorry your costume wore down so badly after the marking—that must have been a frightful sight,” Sil says without emotion. “Your face in the papersdoes, though.”
A face all of Theatron will know. With golden eyes.
“So why kill him? Michail,” I press. Surely, his death could only hurt the Playhouse’s image, murdering a famous Peacemaker Sil practicallyinvented.
“Thatwas not supposed to happen.” Sil frowns. “In all his obsessive visits to the Playhouse, Michail did the most foolish thing a person can do.”
I brace myself. I know where this is going. Jude told me. “He fell in love with a Player. Gene.”
“Yes.” Sil’s face falls. “Mortals are not trustworthy or reliable. They fill themselves with guilt over the smallest things.” He feigns sadness. “After Michail learned the truth, he took it upon himself to break Gene’s fourth wall. Provide herproofof what she was: a character. Temporary. Mortals decide love is not love unless it is all true! But love is man’s own play, in which he often casts the wrong characters.”
Sil gestures to the fallen pages at my feet, and I follow them. Pages Gene stole.
Did she go mad after realizing what she was?
I look at my hands. Whatweare. Just speaking the words makes my mind feel like it’s about to snap in half.
“I—” The lurking suspicion that had hung in the back of my mind resurfaces. “I thought maybe she was my…”
