This isn’t how I’m supposed to die.That thought sliced through me the night I was attacked at the casting call. Because that wasn’t the end of my story.
Now that I think about it, I know exactly how and when my role ends. I read it ages ago.
A shudder skitters up my spine.
Another torch blows out.
“I watched from the window the night of the casting call, waiting for you to come home. And you did, just like you promised,” he says. At the memory, I imagine myself standing outside the Playhouse, entranced by that voice that seemed to clasp around my heart like a fishhook and pull my feet forward. I think I could have listened to it forever. I think Ihavelistened to it forever.
“But you didn’t look anything like you were supposed to.” He stares down at the gates like he sees something I can’t, his voice breaking. “You were skin and bones. Your face was gray. And gods, the way youlookedat me, like you were terrified and disgusted at once when all I wanted to do was pick you up and never put you back down.”
And I subsequently made it my personal mission to be a thorn in his side.Gods, he didn’t deserve half of what I put him through.
“I thought—” I gather the words, but they soundridiculousnow. “I thought Craft had poisoned me. Everyonedid,” I say, watching another torch start to dim. “Food never made me full. Blankets never made me warm. And gods, Ihatedit when anyone touched me…” I trail off, cringing. “Everyone’s hands were always sharp and cold and—”
“Food doesn’t sustain us; performing does,” he interrupts, clearing his throat. “Craft is the only thing that can warm your blood, and you were all but cut off from your bridge by that mark. And touch—” He shudders, too. “You’re a Player, the antithesis to reality. Humans, though—they’re full with it. They can’t escape their reality. It’s why they flock to us for distraction. Their touchshouldrepel you.”
I look at him. “I was never cursed.”
“You werestarving,” he says with a humorless laugh. “And subsequently poisoned by that mark, which just sped up the progression and probably damaged the bond between your role and—” He doesn’t say it. Between my role and the monster that plays it.
Sil’smost resilient Player. I frown at the thought.
“And then you paraded into the Playhouse, deathly unwell from so many years away, and all you wanted to do wasleaveagain. You didn’t know half your lines. Then, for you to insist on keepingthat mark!” He throws his head back, looking exhausted, and I remember all his desperate attempts—not to train me for a competition but to bring me back to myself.
While I fought him every step of the way.
“And when you finallydidlet me burn it off, you just hated me more.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “I thought we were making progress until you showed up to my dressing room with that arrow aimed at me. Which you werenotsupposed to do, by the way.”
I grin back. There’s something oddly comforting about it, a small relief. That even if so much of it was supposed to be scripted, we weren’t. Jude leans back onto the ledge, the dimming torchlight casting his hair in summery shades of auburn, crosses his arms, and finally seems to relax a little.
“Why didn’t you just tell me by that point?” I ask, leaning onto the ledge beside him until our sleeves brush.
He laughs weakly. “I almostdid. About a hundred times, I wanted to tell you. But a fourth wall can’t be unbroken. Once we know, we know.” He adjusts his rings, like he’s looking for a distraction from the thought. “You taking me out of the Playhouse was never supposed to happen. It pushed me so far off script, my memory started slipping out of place. My costume. Everything.”
Dread slices through my chest as I realize what I did. He hadn’t even been able to recall my name. “I’m sorry,” I say, not sure that I am. My favorite parts of Jude have never been planned moments in a crafted storyline. They’ve been whispered words in the dark, stolen looks backstage between scenes, sly attempts to outsmart each other in the margins of a script we were given no choice in.
I’m tired of the two of us being bound to one man’s grand narrative. I imagine the entire world is.
But as I notice a new nick splitting between my thumb and index finger, a rip in my costume and a consequence of this conversation—I’m not sure we have much choice.
Jude’s eyes follow mine to the damage, softening. “It’s horrible knowing, Riven. It’s lonely, not to mention dangerous.” He reaches for my hand where it rests on the ledge, examining delicate skin where my costume has begun to fray like he’s afraid of making it worse. “I didn’t wantthisto happen to you, too.” With a sort of carefulness entirely at odds with the character heshouldbe playing right now, he presses my palm to his chest, and I can’t help but note the familiar rhythm of his heart, a pulse that sounds more like music when I think about it. He pushes up my sleeve, the warmth of his fingers lingering where the flesh has already begun to peel away. His face falls. “And it is anyway.”
Fear gathers in a lump in my throat, but I swallow it down. He’s right. It has. Even if the worst of the damage can be hidden behind a high neckline, the deterioration has started to spread in small, thin scrapes. I doubt Sil will always be able to fix this with makeup.
At some point, Riven—everything I am—will fade to make way for someone new.
Some old part of me wants to stomp and scream that it isn’t fair. But I think I’ve done enough screaming into the void about unfairness to last me into the next lifetime. Maybe sometimes things are just unfair.
That doesn’t mean I’m done fighting.
I draw back, and words cut loose from my mouth that I’m definitely not supposed to say, but I mean all the same. “I don’t want you to go,” I utter, and mean it, all my anger crumbling.
Jude plucks a piece of ivy from the column beside us, absently rubs it between his index finger and thumb. “I’m not going anywhere. You’ll see me again, with a new face. A new name. A new role. And I’m sure you’ll drive me to my wits’ end then, too.”
A new piece of ivy grows in place of the broken one almost immediately, like the old leaf was never there.
“I won’t knowit’s you,” I counter, and I hate the way my heart lurches when I speak. His fourth wall will be rebuilt. And after Riven, mine will be, too. Still in this cycle, still in this cage. “Andyouwon’t know.”
