RIVEN: “Let’s hope it never comes to that—” My words are interrupted by a riotous auction commencing down the street over props used during our three-day performance.
TITUS: “Yeah, well. I imagine it’s inevitable when they find out what our boy Jude is trying to argue in there.”
I hesitate, tripping over my own feet.
RIVEN: “What?”
TITUS: “After your little incident last night, Jude’s trying to claim Eleutheraen gold shouldn’t be allowed within a city’s reach of the Playhouse. A danger to us, you know.”
RIVEN: “But—” I stumble over my words. “But they’re arguing for the Playhouse to have full freedom to travel all of Theatron.” Titus nods. I clear my throat and lower my voice. “That…that would ban the use of Eleutheraen goldentirely.”
TITUS: “Use. Ownership. Trade. You name it. They’re claiming the last fifteen years have been filled with propaganda and that Michail—well, your father—fell to his death on accident.” Just as it was framed in the play. “Clearly, you’re here with us, so you’re not too broken up about it.”
An incredulous laugh bursts from my throat. “But most of the North is marked with Eleutheraen gold—”
TITUS: “They’re proposing a grace period for everyone to have their marks unsealed. All Sil sees is a lotof potential Playhouse goers. Besides! I hear you’ve already started a trend in some cities.”
I shake my head. “The council will never agree to that.”
“Won’t they?” Titus grins. “They might have some stubborn heads on the council with marks of their own. But rumor on the street is…” He leans in, brushes his lips to my ear in a whisper. “One of our Players can use Craft on the marked.” Titus gives me a conspiratorial grin. “It might have been dark outside when it happened, Riven. But I watched you kill that woman. There was a mark on her neck.”
He means Eleni. I lower my eyes, looking away.
“Gods, you must have hated her! Making her do it herself like that. Nasty way to go.” He spins me around. “You’re right, though—the council will never agree. They need all seven committed, and…well, that was quite the show you put on in Paraskenia.”
I wreaked havoc with that plague of darkness. Made itveryclear Players cannot be trusted.
TITUS: “Don’t look so grim! War is fun. Gods, what’s she doing up there— Parrish!” He jerks his chin at the ivy-covered wall of brick, where Parrish has scaled halfway up, dress hiked to her knees. “Getdown.”
She pauses to pout over her shoulder. “There’s a piece of ivy there at the top that I want for my collection.”
TITUS: “You don’t have an ivy collection.”
PARRISH: “I didn’t say it wasn’t the first piece.”
He shakes his head, gives up, falls back in step with me.
TITUS: “So! What is it you wanted to tell me? I’m all yours, Riven.”
I brace my mind, trying to assure myself thisisthe right thing to do. That this is not a terribleidea. He spins me again, but this time, when he pulls me back to him, I lean in and whisper at his ear. His rich laughter vanishes.
I don’t say much. Just a word. A name.
But it’s one he hasn’t heard in a long, long time.
Titus’s hand freezes on my lower back. He looks into my eyes, smile fading, recognition breaking across his gaze.
ARIUS: “Riven! Have you finally run him out of words?” Our castmate breaks from the crowds, a blissfully ignorant grin on his mouth as he claps Titus on the shoulder. “You’re more impressive than I thought.”
But Titus is still frozen, staring at me, struck silent.
It spreads like a disease every time it happens, Sil said.
Good, I decide.Let it.
Across the street, Mattia’s eyes bounce between Titus and me, calculating. She shakes her head at me, solemn.
Before Titus can speak, I pull away and disappear into the crowd, stealing inspiration from the first face I notice and Mimicking it over my own. Then I slip into the night, unrecognizable, elbowing through Revelers until I break away from the party and make for the stone steps leading up to the second ring of the District.
