“It’s curious—how you ended up with the Script the way you did.”
I can see from here the muscle ticking in Sil’s jaw. “Some Playhouse mysteries may never be solved,” he says, showing his teeth an awful lot.
For a moment, Sil doesn’t look like my director. He looks like what he is: a selfish man with the hands of a thief and alchemist. Wielding the stolen power of a god, to use and to exploit for his own purposes.
I wonder if Sil was as powerless as me once. Desperate, hungry, angry. Maybe a day existed before greed overtook his bones and throttled his every desire. But if there was, it doesn’t matter now.
Nothing is enough for a selfish and simple man. Nothing short of ruling the world.
“Your audience is counting on you,” Sil says, tone short. “See that you don’t keep them waiting.”
The door snaps shut behind him with a little more force than necessary.
I retrieve the weapons Parrish laid out for me: two daggers, which I secure beneath the flexible layers of my dress, slit high on either side of my hips for easy movement. A long, polished bow. A quiver full of arrows. I pull the thirteenth one out, examining its point. Then, drawing a breath, slip the small golden vial that Galen gave me from beneath my neckline, where it hangs on a chain.
My eyes burn, but my hands are sure as they unscrew the vial and dip the point of the arrow into Eleutheraen gold, assuring myself I won’t have to use it. That it will never come down to this.
Jude’s words from last night counter the thought.I will play whatever role I have to if it means holding on to you. Let the gods judge me a villain for it.
But I will not play a role anymore.
I will not be Sil’s pawn, tool, or weapon.
I will not be the villain of his story.
And as gold dries on the arrowhead, which I stow carefully back into my quiver, I can only hope Jude won’t be the villain in mine. The vial vanishes beneath the neckline of my dress.
I’m about to head for the arena when a gentle hum snags my attention.
The voice beckons me back to the mirror, a soft melody emanating from the other side. I’ve known it since it sang to me through the mirror years ago, comforting me when I was frightened.
He hums the very same tune now, though in a lower, richer tone.
Slowly, I place my palm to the mirror. The glass ripples at my touch.
Then it warms, and I imagine a second palm meeting the other side of the glass. I can almost see the white scar slashed across it. From the depths of my memory, I recall the words to the tune he hums. A forgotten rhyme from an old play.
Until next time,
Until then,
So long until
We’re back again.
Act III: Scene XXVII
“Riv-en, Riv-en!”
The chant swells from the opening of the stairwell, louder with each step as I descend into the darkness. It stirs something in me, a sense of dread, clashing with the thrill of a performance. By the time I reach the landing and step into the tunnel at the bottom of the Playhouse, the audience feels like a riotous storm that shakes the walls and matches the pounding of my own heart.
The Playhouse draws its strength from its audience. A theatre grows weak without them,Jude told me once. And I can feel it now in the thrum of magic rising from the ground. My eyes track the gilded edges of the tunnel around me as they gleam brighter. The gold spreading. Warming.
Every move forward feels like scratching an itch. Everything my role was created for boiling down to now. My steps echo in time with the crowd chanting the name of someone who doesn’t exist—someone entering a trap full of sparkling chandeliers and red velvet seats.
Light darts through the breaks in the curtain up ahead, calling me forward.
SIL: “Ladies and gentlemen.” His voice bellows, overpowering the cheers. “It is my honor to welcome you tonight to this, the finale of our Great Dionysia!”
