Maybe Gene did, too.
“The audience doesn’tmatter,” he states. “They are on a ticking clock. One day, the clock will stop. Then I couldn’t tell you anything else about them, because no one remembers. But they will rememberyou. They will come here to seeyou.They come here to escape. For meaning and for excitement. For youto explain to them what is right and what is wrong. And do you know who is more eager to escape reality than even the audience?”
I return a glare.
“Actors,Riven!Thatis what you are.”
“And what areyou?” I demand, unable to hold the question back any longer.
Sil stares at me with that awful smile again, far too comfortable where he stands as I boil over with fury. I expect him to claim he’s a god. A monster. An evil, ancient spirit with limitless power.
His answer is none of these things, and somehow worse.
“I am just a man, Riven.”
When I say nothing, Sil goes on. “Not one fromhere, I’ll admit.” He chuckles.
A man. A man who pulled us out of the well, drained it of its Craft, caged us,leashedus.
My eyes fall on the book in his hands, feeling the thrum of its power in my blood.
Withthat.
Something awakens in me at the sight of the Script—more than just the lines written for us but a power that runs deep in the Playhouse, binds us to it. To amortalwho stole the power of a god. Part of me longs to grab it from his hands.
The rest of me fears the consequences of touching that book. Remembers the stark emptiness that blotted out the light in Thyone’s eyes when she did.
“It’s a shame, don’t you think, Riven? I offer humans all the entertainment they could ask for. Write them stories and songs and have my Players perform them.”
“You stole them. And us.”
“I improved your world,” he returns, a bitterness to his tone as he laughs sharply. “And so many of them would choose to live without stories at all rather than warm their hearts with the ones I so generously provide.”
Somewhere above us, the great lobby clock sings out a warning call, summoning me for my entrance. The Great Dionysia. The festival is about to begin.
The patience thins in Sil’s voice when I make no move to follow my blocking back upstairs.
“What I’m offering you, Riven, is apermanentescape. As a Player, you never have to deal with the pangs of reality again. You can be anyone. You will bathe in the glow of a spotlight every night. You will be loved by the thousands!”
When I don’t speak, Sil’s smile strains. “Let’s be honest. You aren’t here to avenge anyone. You aren’t here to destroy my Playhouse. You’re here to prove to yourself you hate it. But you can’t. You can’t prove to yourself you’re any better than an actor because you are so much worse.”
“I am better. I amnotjust an actor—”
The clock chimes again, insistent.
“You aren’t even an actor, Riven!” His voice claws with anger, but I know the desperation in Sil’s face. Not the condescending look of a director corralling an amateur performer, but the disbelieving grievances of a puppeteer arguing with his own puppet.
“You are acharacter.One that has goneseverelyoff script. You were created for the Playhouse, and you will die in the Playhouse—because you arenothingwithout it. You are not real.When the Player is done with you, she will shed you and you will be nothing again.”
He takes an unsteady breath, lowering his voice to a warning whisper. “Characters that aretoo awareare of no use to me.”
“Then why tell me all this? Why make me even more aware?” I yell back at him.
He tilts his head. “Have you heard of deus ex machina, Riven? It’s the part of the story when the gods, higher powers, what have you, must drop in to fix things. Necessary only when something in the story has gone so horriblywrongthat there is no other way to mend it. And you’ve been going constantly off script since you got home.”
He walks a circle around me, and his eyes fall to my ruined mark, which gapes open with golden Craft. “Because of that.Thatwill always run in your blood. But I know you, Riven. Which is why you played your role in every way that mattered. Because deep inside, this life is what you want. You are far from finished here.”
I cup a hand over my mark, wishing it were still there. It was probably the strongest weapon I ever had against my own script. Against the thing inside me.
