It’s empty. Nothing inside. This is a simple trapdoor.
Our contracts.They were here, weren’t they? “I thought— Marigold, she tried to tell me our contracts were kepthere…here in the stage—” I run out of words, look up at Jude, whose wide eyes reflect my own. It was a bad plan. It was a weak and foolish and miserable long shot, and we knew it. “I’m sorry—”
The door at the back of the auditorium closes with a thud, and my eyes flash up.
SIL: “I’m not sure there are many words left between us, Riven.” He delivers the line too cheerfully, and my whole body goes tense as his steady pace carries him down the aisle, like a single ticket holder strolling in a few minutes late for the final act. “Is that how it is? I give you the world and you burn it down.”
I jerk my head up, my neck stiff from ignoring my blocking. My pulse starts to race. “Maybe the world isn’t yours to give.”
He laughs quietly to himself. “Your contract isn’t hidden in the stage, Riven. You think I’d trust my Marigold with such knowledge?”
I press my lips together, defiant, picturing that chain shackling her to the Playhouse. No. No, probably not. But resentment burns in my veins, wanting,needinga way out to be here. To be in reach.
“I understand you’ve convinced your cast to go to the well.” He sighs deeply, like our escape is a mere inconvenience to his day.
“‘Convinced’is a strong word for a group of Players desperate to return home,” I bite back. My gaze falls to the empty trapdoor, willing our contracts to magically appear. “The one we were stolen from.”
SIL: “You came willingly.”
My eyes flash up. “And now we are leaving willingly.”
SIL: “Not all of you.” He nods toward stage right. “I nearly worried she wouldn’t follow you back in.”
The words make my spine lock. But the silence behind me is worse.
Slowly, I turn. And my heart drops into my stomach.
Because the creature staring back at me is not Jude. But it’s just as familiar. An empty, cruel grin works across his face.
JUDE: “Yes, I know. Follows me around like a lost puppy.” He shakes his head at me, pitying. “I told you, Riven. Did you think leaving would be that easy?”
Act III: Scene XXXVII
The realization doesn’t slam into me with blunt force. It doesn’t punch me across the gut or crack through my mind like a peal of thunder.
It’s a dreadful, silent knowing that curls deep in my bones and begins to burn.
I rise to my feet and stare at Jude, taking one step back, two. His eyes are hollow, but there’s an amused cruelty glinting behind them. It dawns on me all at once.
Jude is gone. He’sbeengone. His character was meant to die in the arena.
And, looking at him now, I realize he did. He has no scenes left, no more blocking. Just the monster beneath and a cutting gleam in his eye.
The air rushes from my lungs, freezes me in place.
“Give him back,” I say under my breath, a patient warning as my hands curl into fists and I glare at the monster. Rage coils hot under my skin.“Give him back now—”
Jude cocks his head like a bird, and a blank shadow falls over his gaze, a smile like cut glass carving across his mouth. “Lonely way to die, Riven. Even for you.”
My blood roars in my ears at the cold statement, words Jude would neversay. My pulse thuds so loud, I don’t hear Sil climb the steps of the stage, don’t notice him at all until I turn to bolt for the other wing, where the director blocks the exit. My breaths come quicker, my eyes landing on the book in his hands.
A laugh nearly rips through my throat at the sheer irony, recalling my own steps that led me to the Playhouse not so long ago, eager for freedom, forpower.
I look at my hands, stripped of most of their skin. Not free.Powerless.
“You don’t need to search for your contract,” Sil says. “I took the liberty of breaking its seal myself. Your freedoms are done and so are you, Riven.” His stare never leaves me. “I offer you every story in the world, and you choose the one where you die on my stage.”
Something bucks in me at the thought.No.
