The moment Jude recognizes our surroundings, fire ignites behind his eyes, so overrun with Craft that I can barely see the whites of them.
As the Playhouse settles, he turns on me, his face full of dread. Not just as he takes in Eleutherae but as he notices the rest of our cast. His eyes dart from them back to me. “What have you done?”
I lower my hands, step forward, and, in spite of all my resolve, ofknowinghe meant it last night when he refused my idea, I reach for him. “You can come with us. Please.”
“It isn’t that simple,”he pleads between uneven breaths. “You don’t know what will happen if we leave.”
“Maybe.” I look beyond him, at the Playhouse doors at his back. “But we know what will happen if we stay.”
“Riven,” he tries again, his tone softer now, playing a familiar melody on my heartstrings, like the right words will mend everything. I wish they would. “I am not your enemy. Surely you remember that.”
I press my lips together, unsure either of us knows what we are to each other in this moment.
“What I remember,” I say, “is growing up in a world without music. Without story, without color. Without anything that I am made of. And it isn’t fair—to me or to anyone.” My breath catches. “Maybe if I’d never left the Playhouse. Maybe if I never learned what we took—”
“You won’t fix the world this way.” He moves forward, and I move back. The child I saw in the mirror flickers through my mind. “Wecan’t. And even if we could, this world wouldn’t deserve it.”
I wish the anger would come back, but none is there in his face, just a winking ember of hope. Something in me wavers, grabs hold of his words and starts to examine each one—because I think he’s right. I can’t fix the world. I don’t know how. I don’t even know how to fix all the damage we’ve already caused.
“I don’t need to save the world,” I whisper, and as his expression breaks, I force the next words from my throat. “But I won’t be used to destroy it, either.”
That ember of hope goes out, and something dark ignites in his eyes instead, alive with unholy rage as his hands shift with light, maybe to try and order our cast inside, maybe to move the Playhouse away from here—I’m not sure, and I brace for a fight.
But as the mist clears, Jude goes still, his eyes moving beyond me to our home. Eleutherae.
It’s not the paradise I conjured in the arena. It’s burned and vile. The flowers are flat and withered, choked by dry weeds. The sky drifts overhead in ugly shades of dark gray, mist too thick to see the stars. No matter how many years pass, Eleutherae can’t heal. Not when all of its Craft has been drained, stolen.
His jaw tightens as he turns to take in the Playhouse behind him, the hairline fractures webbing up its sides.
And I see it as he lowers his brow, tilts his head—that inkling of doubt. He drops his shoulders, looks to his cast. “All of you?” he calls out, his voice hoarse.
Silence answers.
I’m not sure what exactly does it. If it’s the twisted words throttling the air between us. The crumbling theatre, empty of our cast members’ laughter. Or maybe it’s the audience of one still inside, controlling our worlds with the tip of a pen.
There are worse things than being trapped, Jude told me once.It’s safer.
“Nothing bought with fear is worth having,” I say quietly.
Jude steps back like I’ve slapped him, disbelief drawing his expression taut, as if he’s replaying everything that led to this moment and can’t puzzle out where he went wrong.
Until his eyes fall on me, then drift to the closed gates beyond, and finally, finally it dawns on him. He lowers his chin, like he’s about to nod, to speak something,anything—
His expression breaks, pinching with pain. Jude lurches, grasps at his chest like he can’t breathe. At the same time, my spine goes stiff as steel.
He doesn’t have to say what’s wrong. I feel it, too. A pull in my blood to go back into the Playhouse, a visceral warning that we’ve all run our storylines rogue.
Sil. Sil and the Script.
“He’s coming,” is all Jude gasps out, and before I can respond, he races past me, storming for the gates.
The world seems to groan beneath our feet as he throws them open to Eleutherae, where there’s no audience to greet us. “Go,” he says, turning to us. No one moves. “All of you!” he roars.“Go.”
The stillness breaks at the command. I draw a breath of relief as my cast startles and turns for the exit without arguing, filing quickly through the gates, where they’ll begin their short trek to the well on top of the mountain.
Mattia throws a questioning look over her shoulder at me as she departs, and I nod.Go. Right behind you.
I turn to Jude, expecting him to follow, but he’s already tearing back toward the steps. His stride falters, then stops short when he reaches me, meets my eyes like he’s looking at them for the last time. “I will not apologize for loving you, dear heart,” he says. “But I hope you’ll forgive me for having done it so dreadfully.”
