Every angle of his face ices over, and the shift is so seamless, I don’t dare move any closer. “If there was a way out, I’d have found it,” he says. “I won’t gamble our lives searching for loopholes. What happened to Gene will happen to you the moment he suspects—” Jude cuts himself off like it’s bad luck to say the words out loud. “It was me who led us through those gilded doors at the beginning of all of this, Riven. I will be the last to walk out of them. And I will play whatever role I have to if it means holding on to you. Let the gods judge me a villain for it. I will see you in the arena, you will win, and that is the end of this story.”
I rush forward. “Jude,wait—”
“I surrendered everything to make this world our stage.” He steps out of reach and vanishes into the darkness of the stairwell. “And heart, I’d sooner burn it down before giving it back.”
Presumably, Jude goes to sleep in his dressing room.
I do not.
In the darkest, quietest moments of night, I slip out into the cold, watching for Nyxene over my shoulder. But frankly, I’m more afraid of Jude catching me.
I make one visit, two. Then a third, and a fourth, and a ninth.
By my last, Nyxene and her shadows have spotted me and are furiously snatching at my heels, aware that I’m out of bed and severely off script.
But not aware that I’ve spoken to every single one of my other castmates under cover of darkness.
As dawn begins to break, I’ve set the stage for the finale.
Act III: Scene XXVI
My name is Alistaire Hunt.
As the morbid excitement of the audience rampages through the vents and carries into my dressing room, all I can think of is that first lie. That first mistake. It’s enough to drown out Parrish’s humming as she buzzes around my head like a bee, weaving threads of gold into my hair. At the moment, she looks so meek, it’s hard to picture her ever winning her own blood battle to claim her place in our cast.
PARRISH: “It’s all right; it isn’t the first time someone’s wondered.” I must have been staring. She taps at my jaw to get me to turn and starts painting my lips. “They always underestimate the small ones. I was put in the arena with Marcus at the time. He was new enough to be the perfect degree of prideful—the sort that made him laugh at my efforts.”
RIVEN: “What did you do?”
PARRISH: “Most Players with a knack for Compulsion imbue new emotions in their audience, but my talents lie in the exaggeration of what’s already there. Marcus was overconfident, and I amplified that to a sort of blissful unawareness. Pretty easy after that. Oh, don’t look so shocked! Jude wouldn’t do that. Not his style.”
I shift uncomfortably at the reminder. I’ll be locked in with Jude until one of us is dead.
And based on last night, he seems perfectly fine with that being him.
PARRISH: “But that said…” She bites her lip, goes back to braiding. “Watch your surroundings. Don’t trust them, I mean. In the arena. And Jude, he always goes for throats—”
SIL: “Drama queen, always has been.” Parrish and I look over our shoulders to find Sil at the door, a flat, square box in his hands. “Turns everything into a bloody performance whether he’s supposed to or not.”
The unwelcome memory of Dorian’s ear in the snow flashes across my vision, while Parrish moves to excuse herself rather quickly.
She catches my eye before she goes, though, gives me a subtle nod. Then presses her hands to the door; I catch the smallest rip in her elbow, the gold exposed beneath as she vanishes.
SIL: “Butyou,Riven.” He rests the box on my vanity as the door clicks shut. “You are patient. Clever. Leave him to his ego and theatrics, and Jude will destroy himself.”
With aclick, the box snaps open, revealing a tangle of golden leaves fashioned into a thin, glittering wreath. Sil removes it with care.
“Remember,” he says, positioning the wreath over the crown of braids atop my head. “Everything you see in the arena isn’t happening.” The sharpened edges dig into my scalp, but I don’t let him see me flinch. “Stick to your bridge. Donotlet Jude have control over the illusion.”
My pulse races as Sil brushes the intricate plait Parrish styled over my shoulder, and I think my hair must have grown a foot in the time I’ve been here. The face in the mirror looks so unlike the one I came in here with.
Strangely, I think I miss the old one.
SIL: “Don’t make the mistake of thinking he’ll take the first shot he gets. He isn’t there just to kill you.” His hands settle on my shoulders, locking eyes with me in the mirror. “He’s there to make a show of it. Break a leg, Riven,” he tells me. Just as he’s told me before every Great Dionysia before.
Sil moves for the door, and my mouth opens. “You’ve gone to great lengths, Sil—keeping all of us together. Safe. Here.”
He stills at the unscripted line, hand at the doorknob. “Such is the burden of a director.” His words are clipped at the edges.
