RIVEN: “What?”
Silenus’s kind gaze turns scrutinizing as Jude clears his throat. “She’s a…natural.” For an actor, he doesn’t sound very convincing.
The director tries and fails to hide his surprise. He looks at me again, closer this time, as if waiting to see if I’ll wither away or drop dead right in front of him. And suddenly, it doesn’t matter that I shouldn’t care for the opinions of a monster like Silenus. The shock on his face stings.
“Jude,” Silenus begins, quieter this time. “I thought perhaps you’d like to speak with a few of the auditionees I selected—”
JUDE: “Why waste my time? My mind is made up.”
About what?
SILENUS: “I—I guess it’s no trouble, then.” His eyes finally tear away from me and land on Jude. “I only came to let you know Mattia is about to dismiss the crowds.”
“Let her!” Jude says a little too quickly, coming to stand beside me. “I’ve chosen my contender for this year’s Great Dionysia.”
Act I: Scene X
ten years ago
“Twelve!” cries a girl whose name I can never remember. “Twelve Players.”
“Correct,” says Professor Ariti, strikingXIIon the board. “We believe twelve Players rose from the well on Mount Eleutherae upon Dionysus’s vanishment. How many remain today?”
“Five!” another classmate volunteers. “None of the originals, though.”
On the sheet beside my textbook, solagraphs of Players glare back at me in black and white. I stare at them, puzzled.
None of them match the Player I saw yesterday.
“Indeed.” Professor Ariti turns back to the board. “At one point in time, each of the Players you see onstage today werepeople, just like you.” The teacher drones on, her voice like a distant horn over the fresh, roaring pain between my collarbones, where my new mark sits. “Mere mortals who killed a Player and became one in turn.”
I wish that the hour were up, that we were switching to mathematics. My pen goes through the paper, scrapes the wood of my desk, and the ink smears.
Or maybe the ink isn’t smeared at all, I realize, as the edges of my desk begin to blur. I blink rapidly until it clears.
“However,” she goes on, “Craft is not free. Craftcosts.Which is why, should you ever find yourself in such a situation, pay your compliments and pray they leave.Nevermake a deal with a Player, no matter their offer.”
Everyone’s eyes find me, question marks dotting their pupils. They all seem to have heard about the Player who spoke to me yesterday. Everybody wants to know what happened. What she said. If I made a bargain with her.
I don’t think compliments would have made the Player leave. She wanted me to go with her.
Several people in black-and-silver uniforms showed up to our home to ask me questions afterward, and none of them seemed satisfied with my answers.
The teacher clears her throat. “Think of Craft as a trade,” she adds. “For memories, for heart, and for soul. For morals and for values. Forhumanity.The Players have each murdered, lied, and traded every mortal aspect of their being for what they are now.”
My vision stirs. The nurse said I’d be good as new within a few hours after Galen and I left with our new marks, but that was a whole day ago and I’m beginning to suspect she was wrong.
I don’t think mine healed right, but I’m too scared to check.
I blink at my hands, which have felt cold and strange since yesterday, ever since the Player’s blood—
“Who can tell me about the Cast Trade?”
Not me, not me, not me.
“Riven?”
I mutter one of the swear words I learned from Aunt Cassia and blink upward, realizing my forehead has made contact with the desk. “The trade, Riven,” Professor Ariti prompts as the class snickers. “Why did the Players sign into a treaty with mortals?”
