“Don’t move,” murmurs Jude, who’s gone as tense as the crow statue behind him. I hold my breath, but in the quiet, my mind drifts to Gene and the message she gave her life delivering.Riven. Script.
Moments pass in rigid stillness, and eventually, Nyxene departs—probably to search other crevices of the Playhouse for her missing actors. Taking the hint, we retreat back down the ivy in shared silence, in time to witness the only remaining torch snuff out, leaving trails of smoke in its wake. Jude’s shoulders drop. “I’d say that’s our cue, Riven.”
He turns for the stairwell, but before he reaches it, I blurt out,“Wait.”
And at last, my very, very dangerous idea spills out of me.
“Do you ever think about the well?” The words are heavy. I’mdefinitelynot supposed to be saying them. “If we came from it, doesn’t that mean we were…free at some point?”
Jude goes still but doesn’t turn. His voice drops to a low, quiet warning. “The well is deadlyto us.” He moves to leave again.
“Is it?”I press, and he pauses again, his shoulders going tight. He knows me. He knows where I’m going with this. “Why? If wecamefrom it. Maybe it only—only wants backwhat was taken.Us. Our Craft.”
The gods never poisoned the well after we rose out of it. Maybe—maybe Silpolarizedit by emptying it of our Craft and our power, until it became what it is now: Eleutheraen gold. When he caged us, bound us tohisScript.
Slowly, Jude shifts to look at me. His expression might as well be made of stone, but I go on anyway.
“Wouldn’t that mean there was a time when Craft belonged to the world?” I ask. “A time before it was all stolen and hoarded here. A time before we were greedy—”
He huffs. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe Ilikebeing greedy?” His eyes dart away, like he didn’t mean to say that.
“Butthink,won’t you?” I swallow and hurry a step toward him. “If there was a time before this, there could be a time after it. Couldn’t there? Before the Playhouse.” The Script flashes through my mind. My voice strains, thin. “Before Sil and thatbook—”
“That book gives us power,” he says, his voice going taut. “If we aren’t subject to it, we’re subject tothem.” He jerks his chin at the ledge, to the cities beyond. “You thinkwe’reliars, tricksters. But humans—humans do terrifying things with power.Forpower.” He turns to look at me, and his eyes gleam, steadfast. “Before, we knelt to the world, not the other way around.”
Loath as I am to admit it, his words ruffle my prideful feathers. He’s right; I do like this power. I like being in control.
But I also think he’s wrong—wrong about the people. Wrong about staying trapped here.
In my head, through a cloud of foreign memories, I almost glimpse it: Eleutherae, a mountain that peaks over the hills, bleeding gold in a place lost to men. A well at its top. My heart aches for it, misses it.
“If there was a way to fix this, would you?” I let my eyes drift from him, out to the world beyond. To the dull and joyless life marked and Reveler alike are accustomed to. To the lifeIwas accustomed to. “Fix what we’ve done.”
He scratches the back of his neck, hesitating. “I’d say the two of us are a little late for redemption, love.”
“We’re not.” I shake my head, wishing I could brush the guilt from my shoulders. “You’renot. There’s time to undo this.”
“No, there’s not.” He heads for the stairs, and my heart drops. “Good night, Riven.”
“Wait,Jude—I know there’s a way we can stop—”
“Enough,”he snaps, gripping the railing. His eyes flare. “A castmate isdeadbecause of me. Can I undo that?”
My mouth shuts, opens again. “What happened to Gene wasn’t your—”
“I should havestoppedher, Riven.” His words speed up, like he’s been holding on to them a long time and now they’ve all come tumbling out. “She said all this same nonsense, too. And if I’d gotten her to give up the delusion of escaping this place—if I’d gotten her to comply with the damned Script—noneof it would have happened. She’d be here. With a different face, fine, but—” He shakes his head.
I want to interrupt, to reach for him, but I can’t move. I’m not even sure if he’s talking to me or to himself. We get so little say in our own words, and I wonder if he’s been needing to say these for a long time.
“Sil killed her for refusing to play her role. He poisoned that cup and warned if I didn’t help him, if I couldn’t prove where my loyalties lie—”Jude is my most loyal,Sil’s voice taunts in my head.“He’d have no choice but to write my role off, too. You think she didn’t try to suspend her reality? I let her die, Riven. And then she went on to suffer that horrible halfway existence. Because ofme.”
My gaze lands on the ground, stays there. I don’t have words that can fix this.
“Thatis why I never told you the truth of what we are, why the others can’t know. There are consequences for defying the set storyline, and I won’t lose another castmate over it.”
He stops for breath, all his tender words from moments ago slashed away by the sharp edges of guilt in his tone. “There’s no forgiveness for that. No‘undoing’it.” His eyes shift, harder now. “I will not lose you,too. So whatever you’re scheming in that devious mind of yours, drop it now.”
“No,” I argue and charge after him. “What Sil did wasn’t your fault. At leastlistento me—”
