RIVEN: “I—”I can’t,I want to say.Get out of this. Get out of—“I’m hurt!” I wheeze a breath.Send me home. “I’m—uh—in no condition to—”
SILENUS: “Pity!” He doesn’t sound all that pitying. “Well. I’ll leave you to it, then. Should you change your mind, I’m sure one of my Players can stitch you up inside.”
And I’m sure I’d rather dive headfirst into my own grave, I think.
With that, Silenus glides back into the Playhouse, vanishing through the doors, though they don’t close behind him. They stay wide open, waiting.
Gathering my common sense, I turn to leave, but my first step draws several curses from my lips. My feet wobble beneath me, unsteady.
It occurs to me I’m more than alittlehurt.
I grip the golden gates to steady myself, and they burn beneath my palms. I won’t make it home like this. I won’t make it two blocks. The only thing that stings worse than my ribs is my pride.
One of my Players can stitch you up.
I look back to the doors, open and overflowing with golden light.Hesitation holds me in place. I need more than just my ribs stitched up. My breaths come quicker, my eyes fixed on the Playhouse.
A mortal cannot fix what an immortal broke.
Don’t, Riven, Galen’s voice whispers in my head. But for a moment, all I see is the Orkestrian Academy. All Ifeelis freedom that I’ll never taste if I can’t find a way to reverse this poisoning.
I stare at the Playhouse, streaming with sunshine in the dead of night.
In my mind, I picture that Script. My fingers release the gate.
If I do this, I’ll need to be quick. Stealthy.
The first stair twinges. The second one outright hurts. The third makes my lungs feel like they might explode.
“Fuck it,” I say out loud. This poison is going to kill me anyway. Galen knows it. Cassia knows it. I know it. We just don’t say it.
And I willnotdie without having tried everything.
For the first time in a long time, I utter a prayer to any of the gods who are still listening. My heart pounds relentlessly, but as I reach the top step, I almost think my feet start to feel lighter, like my bones know a remedy awaits somewhere inside this godsforsaken house of lies.
The soles of my feet land in rhythm with the music as I force myself across the marble landing, right up to the Playhouse doors. My mark pulses, hidden beneath my jacket, feverish now, like my heart is in my throat. The Eleutheraen gold in my blood knows better.Iknow better.
I’m not sure if it’s in my head, but I hear it again—that voice, carried by the wind, calming and strangely reassuring.
“Sorry, Galen,” I whisper.
I hold my breath and step into the Playhouse.
Act I: Scene VI
What lies beyond the Playhouse doors is a palace fit for the gods.
The moment I step through them and into a luxurious antechamber, I feel watched. Like a curtain has been swept aside, an audience waiting just within. Maybe because of the faces—a vast arch of them, soaked in gold and leering at me in agonized frowns and delirious grins that twist around the frame. Comedy and Tragedy. The decorations meld into each other, like actors trapped in the walls, seeking a way out.
They seem to stare at the clock that looms on the opposite wall over the door, an enormous, cracked structure of marble, veins of gold painted over the damage. The floor is just the same: sprawling and gilded to disguise the fractures. Like the Playhouse itself has selected a costume for the evening, doing its best to conceal all the horrors that have played across its floors.
But when I peer up, I gasp.
It takes several blinks before my eyes start to adjust to the shocks of color sprawled across the ceiling—of brilliant blue and deep scarlet, of pops of emerald and touches of vibrant purple. It’s so overwhelming that my eyes sting, and I duck my chin before making out what the painting depicts.
I’ve never seen so much color—true,undiluted hues of it—in my life.
My heart thuds in my chest as I go for the golden curtain ahead, hanging beneath the arch of faces and leading out of this antechamber. My fingers brush the heavy velvet, and it parts like water at my touch.
