That, or my vision has begun to double from this vantage point. I mutter something to the tune of, “Put me the hell down.”
“Riven, if you can resist fighting me onone thing,” Jude says, sparing a glance down at me as he slows and starts to climb. Up? Stairs? Is that where we’re going? “Let it be what was just nearly your very own public assassination.”
I loll my head back and catch a glimpse of the Playhouse doors as Jude carries me across the landing. Behind him, a sea of anxious faces hovers at the gates. My vision blurs again. My mind feels fuzzy, but I’m decently confident Jude plucked me from The First Act Theatre’s stage and took off sometime after my legs forgot where the ground was.
My thigh feels like it was impaled with an icicle, a glacial stillness lingering at the wound.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.” I focus on the glittering coin resting at Jude’s neck on a thin chain, my fingers brushing his skin as I reach for it and roll the metal between my fingers. The gold is warm from being pressed to his collar.
“No. It wasn’t,” he agrees. “And your greedy little hands can keep that coin.” He slows just a bit. There are whispers over his shoulders, onlookers with far too much interest in our conversation. He lowers his voice. “Of course I remember you, Riven. I remember everything.”
He’s still there.Relief pours into the part of me that cracked wide open earlier. Not quite mending the break, but it’s a salve.
As he sidles through the Playhouse doors, leaving the crowds behind, I fiddle with the neckline of my dress, checking the wound where my mark was. The delicate flesh feels like it’s split open, spreading. Not good.
My Player is closer to the surface, recognizing me for what I am. A costume, worn and thinning. A character to take control of before I go any more off script than I already have. That monster beneath looked out at the audience and wished them all death until I somehow managed to strangle her back into the confines of my mind.
“You pretended—earlier. With Sil.” My accusation comes out a bit slurred, my mind sluggish from the Eleutheraen gold.
“I had to. You must be out of your mind to go off script in front of Sil like that. After Gene?” He shakes his head, chest rising and falling. “He won’t put up with a character gaining that much control. He’ll kill you. Not just you,allof you.”
Second Death. If Sil can’t control me, he’ll kill me—Player and all.
“We did too much to get you here,” he goes on. “I’ve spent years trying to keep you alive for this.”
“That’s funny, because I spent those years just trying to stay alive,” I return, spiteful. “Some backstory would have been helpful.”
“It probably would have gotten you killed.” His voice drops to a whisper, like he’s worried someone will hear. “Please, leave your fourth wall alone. And whatever you do, don’t tell the others. Go back to thinking of me as a selfish Player who trapped you. Think of me as what I’m supposed to be, not what I am.”
“You don’t make it to the end of this story, you know.” I let the coin drop from my fingers, staring at the exaggerated frown of the Tragedy mask engraved into the gold, resting against his heart.
“I know,” he answers and throws a look over his shoulder, probably watching for Sil. A shadow skitters up the wall of the Playhouse. We’re speaking off script, and Nyxene listens for such things. “But you’ll see me again. As someone new.”
“You won’t remember.”
“I won’t.” He moves up a scarlet staircase, the one that leads to our dressing rooms. My heartstrings wring at the matter-of-fact tone. Like it’s already said and done.
“Isn’t it strange?” I press. “Having all this power just to be leashed under someone else’s strings?”
Jude presses his lips together. “It’s the Script, Riven. The world is controlled by the strength of a pen. So are we.”
Freedom for power.
We enter the common room. That rage festers deep in my soul again—the idea that a mere man could get his hands on such power. The thought is so sharp, it cuts through the fog of my mind. For a moment, I’m quiet. An idea takes shape behind my eyes. “What happens if the Script is—uh—edited?”
Jude’s steps falter as he stares at me the way you might stare at a child who’s just announced a horde of monsters lives under their bed. He looks so alarmed, I’m scared he’ll drop me. And he does, setting me onto a scarlet chaise so suddenly, I yelp.
His eyes narrow. “We’re actors. Not playwrights.”
I wince at the bitter cold pain obscuring my vision from the movement before recovering and arguing, “But the Script is the reason—”
“Donot,” he warns, “touch that book.”
I push myself up. “Why not?”
“Because if it has the power to make us, then it can unmake us just the same. Gene ripped those pages out and went stark mad. We’re bound by it.” He spares a pleading glance down at me. “Please, Riven. For your safety. For mine. For our cast. Leave it be.”
“Butthink,if there was a way to—”
