Death.Murder.
Lost for words, I look to Jude, waiting for an explanation. Something. Anything.
He doesn’t look back.
Titus throws his weapon to Mattia. “We’ll return shortly.” With that, Titus scoops up Parrish—hercorpse—and saunters for the wings. “You’re in good hands. And if this is your mentor”—he lifts Parrish’s limp body up, and she looks so light, sovulnerable.There and gone in an instant—“I promise to return her shortly.”
But there’s something different to his walk now. What had been a lazy, catlike stride shifts into a stagger, like he’s carrying an invisible weight draped over every inch of his being.
Meanwhile, Mattia looks right at me and moves. I tense, not even having time to react when she swings the blade at Jude’s neck.
In a breath, he catches her arm and forces the blade back on her so hard, the silver slices into her bicep.
Mattia pulls back, an easy laugh parting her maroon-painted lips as she clasps a hand to the slit in her arm, where gold has begun to bleed. “Don’t ever underestimate your opponent,” she announces to the group.
Jude flashes her a grin. “Ruin this shirt, Mattia, and you won’t get the chance to.”
“You’ll all be dismissed to rehearsal rooms to train with your mentor,” Mattia announces, gold seeping between her fingers. “We hope to see you alive at dinner tonight. Unless anyone is eager to try now.”
She means it jokingly, I think.
“Your first death is the hardest, don’t worry,” Arius says, as if it’scomforting.
“This way, Alistaire,” Jude says quietly, nodding to the wings, which lead back into halls of rehearsal rooms.
I frown. “I thought you weren’t going to help me.”
“I’m not. Ican’tif you’re going to be stubborn about it.” He lowers his voice. “But at least I can make it quick.”
Make it quick.
I can’t think straight. Panic paints little dots across my vision until it numbs, turns red as rage. There’s blood on the stage. A body carried away. And what Ithoughtmight be my saving grace—Reality Suspension.It isn’t some deathless curse breaker.
It’s a sick, disgustingstagetrick. One that I can’t even perform.
When I look around, all I see are arrogant, ego-driven Players, just like the monster who ruined my life. One of them, or maybe all of them, is responsible for killing my father. But he didn’t back down from the challenge of these monsters, even though it cost him everything.
Rage boils under my skin at the thought. I willnotbe quietly executed by a Player.
Especially not by Jude.
That anger will be the death of you,Galen’s voice repeats once more. But that anger is curling hot and quick beneath my skin, throttling the fear in my bones.Bottle it up and keep your mouth shut, all right? Use your head. Never open your mouth when you’re angry.
As auditionees prepare to disperse, I open my mouth. “I volunteer.”
Act I: Scene XX
I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth, but I’m committed now.
JUDE: “No she doesn’t—she doesnotvolunteer!”
He’s still yelling after me as I storm to the prop armory I saw them pull weapons from. My audience breaks into conspiratorial chatter, and Mattia tracks my movements as if only now noticing I’m here.
Jude’s voice pitches higher as he chases me backstage. “She’s just beingsilly! Natural Comedian, this one.”
Actually, I am not a naturalanything. I don’t know shit about fighting a Player. In fact, a couple of years back, before the worst of the slow poison took hold, I got my ass royally handed to me by a couple of Revelers after wandering too close to the southern border in the District. They entertained themselves by trying to force a lie from my mouth. Galen came to my rescue with the scolding of a lifetime on his lips.
After that, Galen refused to let me enter the District at all, even by his side—unless I could beat him in a fair fight. Unwilling to give up my freedom, I spent the next three months trying, more bruise than skin and increasingly pissed about it.
