The words are as cutting as they are a salve, but there’s something unspoken just beneath them that makes my heart plummet. “Jude, why are you saying—”
“For the same reason we’venevermade it out.” He holds my gaze, decision made. “I’ve tried. I’ve read this story a hundred times.”
“We’ve—” I uselessly grasp for my memories, but they’re blurred at the edges. “We’ve tried to leave before?”
“He’ll call us back so long as he holds the Script. One of us was always going to have to stay behind.” Jude breathes, looks longingly at our cast as they begin their walk to the well, and those eyes that were full of fury a moment ago soften, cloud with fear like he’s sitting front row at a play of his own nightmares, like he knew he was always cast to be left behind. “You were right to call me a coward all that time ago, Riven. But, gods, I love trying to prove you wrong.”
It was me who led us through those gilded doors at the beginning of all of this, he told me. I will be the last to walk out of them.
“I’ll hold him off as long as I can.” His voice is steady as he drops his hands, but the shallow breaths rising in his chest betray him, the color draining from his face as he looks to the waiting doors of the Playhouse, beckoning him, and two words ring like a bell through my head.
Not yet.
But before the thought reaches my lips, he runs back up the stairs, stopping only to look over his shoulder, something unreadable in his expression. “Be free, Riven.”
Then he’s gone, vanishing inside the Playhouse.
And all of a sudden, it’s silent.
I stare at those gleaming doors, which hang open like the jaws of a beast, and I almost think my shadow has followed his back in.
I won’t leaveyoubehind, Jude once told me.
“Damn it all, Jude,” I mutter under my breath, stubbornly changing course as those two words crawl along my spine.Not yet.My legs ache as I run up the steps of the Playhouse and fly through the entrance just as a loud, brassy song vibrates through the ground.
The chime of the grand Playhouse clock declares midnight.
Behind me, the gates seal.
Act III: Scene XXXIV
I don’t dare call for Jude as I hurry through the Playhouse antechamber. The last thing I need is for Nyxene to hear me shouting. We’re both so far off script, there’s no telling what the Stage Manager will do if she finds us.
But Jude won’t be able to hold Sil off by himself—not so long as Sil holds that Script.
A shudder racks my body as I pass by that gilded arch of ghastly faces I noticed the first night I stepped into the Playhouse. They don’t look like they did that night.
They’re melting, their bright smiles drooping into tragic expressions. Everywhere I look, rust flowers across the walls, mold eating away at the gilded edges.
The Playhouse groans beneath my feet like a sinking ship, welcoming its captains who have returned to sink with it. Each step forward sends tiny fractures skittering across the open, empty floor. There’s one relief. Thank the gods, the audience has fled.
My pulse races as I hurry through the melting arch.
Parting the torn curtain, I enter the lobby, discovering a rotting display of golden chandeliers and split railings leading up cracked stairs.
And Jude, striding halfway across the room, comes to a sharp halt at the sound of my step. His shoulders shake with laughter, and I think he curses before turning to cast a glare my way. “Of course,” he says. “Why would you stay put? My fault for expecting you to do something you have absolutely never done.” He’s trying to sound lighthearted, but the strain in his tone gives him away.
“Every finale.” I repeat his own words from last night back to him as I run across the lobby. “You saideveryfinale.”
The ground rumbles again as the nearest column ruptures violently up the center and into the ceiling. The Playhouse is not a building. It’s an illusion, one crumbling quickly with all of its Players off script and abandoning their roles.
Something between mutual understanding and a grim sense of acceptance settles in the air between us. “We’d best not be late for the last one, then,” Jude says, offering his hand.
Overhead, one of the chandeliers droops lower, hanging precariously crooked.
This theatre is about to collapse on both of us.
Jude sighs. “I’m going to assume you have one of your charming little plans cooked up.”
