All that matters is how smartyouare.And gods, Riven, you are smart.
I don’t want to die. In fact, Ireallywant to live.
Jude shouts something from above, and it draws Mattia’s eyes. She peers up to the catwalk just long enough for me to lunge onto my feet and slice my blade across the muscles of her stomach.
The Player doubles over and swears, gold bleeding through the leather where I’ve cut her. But her eyes are ablaze, burning through me. With no warning, she pivots, pushing and swinging and cornering me to the edge of the platform, finally unleashing her true skill.
Skill I am in noway, shape, or form prepared to combat.
Jude shouts something again. Galen’s voice is yelling at me to strike. But I don’t know how to strike, how to fight. I skitter backward like a cornered dog.
In a frantic, last-ditch effort, I aim my dagger for Mattia’s neck and throw it as hard as I can. She moves, and it clatters pathetically to the floor, leaving me open and defenseless.
This isn’t how I die.The words slam into me like a tidal wave as Mattia raises her weapon.
Jude screams again, and I hear it this time:“Éxodos!”
The world flashes black, then white.
Then there is no color, no sound, no nothing, like reality has drained itself from my world. Like time has stopped.
I raise my eyes to the catwalk and have only enough time to see a wisp of white disappearing on the other side of it, the ghostly figure vanishing.
Jude stares down at us from the bridge, his expression frantic.
Right before the chandelier overhead falls toward the stage, Mattia and me in its path.
Act I: Scene XXI
ten years ago
“She’s having a strange reaction to the gold,” says a woman’s voice. “It’s eating away at the flesh.”
I wake, thinking I must have gone my entire life with this awful throbbing sensation at my throat. It hurts too much to think of anything else. Whispers of memory nudge at my mind—my classroom, Professor Ariti. I was supposed to answer a question when the room went dark.
Now I’m on some sort of cot. Shadows talk by the door, hardening into the shapes of people. The second voice belongs to my brother. “I’ll take her home. Please don’t tell our mother.”
“How are you feeling, Riven?” says a third voice. I shift my gaze to a pair of bright hazel eyes at the end of my cot. He appears a few years older than Galen’s twelve, and he’s neatly packing what might be healer supplies into a bag, the clasp of it catching on a wad of cotton wrapped around his hand.
“Bad,” I answer without thinking, my new mark diluting any untruths that might have softened the word. “Who are you?”
“Sometimes marks don’t take cleanly. I’m the person who gets called in when they don’t.” He offers me a wink. “Take care, Riven.” With that, he pats my hand and stands to leave.
My attention stirs back to my brother and the school nurse in the doorway.
“Has she?” the nurse says, voice unsteady. “Was she exposed to that—”
“Whatever you’re insinuating…” Galen’s answer is too hushed to catch the rest. But my mind fills it in.A Player.
The nurse shakes her head. “Ifanysort of Craft may have entered her blood—”
I think back—the Player’s golden blood all over my hands, sinking into my skin…
“Nothing to worry about here,” interrupts the hazel-eyed healer. “Just a bad reaction. Let her rest and send word if it gets worse.” With that, he leaves before the nurse can object.
My fingers twist at the bandage secured tightly around my neck. The pressure is uncomfortable, so I pull at it—
“Riven?” Galen calls, pushing past the nurse. “Riv, don’t touch it!”
