“You heard him,” my aunt prompts, a little softer. But her face has paled white.
They don’t trust that I’m me.My eyes dart around. I’m standing in the dressing room of a Player, one who specializesin Mimicry.
I look down at my clothes, covered in blood. My own, but they don’t know that.
Whyshouldthey trust me?
I swallow. “I’m your sister.” His expression is unchanged. “I—Ihateit when people touch me.” Galen’s face softens just slightly. My mind scrambles for something convincing. “For my twelfth birthday, you wrote and mailed letters from my entire class wishing me well.” He’d have gotten away with it, too, if I hadn’t recognized the slantedTs of his handwriting and asked him directly. Unable to lie to me, he’d confessed on the spot.
That does it. His expression breaks, his lips parting in disbelief. Aunt Cassia lets out what sounds like a small cry on the other side. “The Reveler wasn’t lying,” she says, more to herself than me.
I definitely owe Haris that ring.
“We thought you went missing in the riots.” Cassia’s voice shakes when she talks. “The District went to hell after last night when the Playhouse vanished early—and Galen, we—”
“Do they know?” Galen’s tone slashes through Cassia’s, sharp and angry.
I don’t need to ask what he means: my mark. Do the Players know I’m marked.
Resisting the urge to press a hand to the collar of my jacket, to show them what’s happened, I clear my throat. My oath is broken; I’m no better than a common liar now. They’ll never trust me again.
“Just—” I pull in a breath. “Just one. One of them knows.”
“Which one?” Galen presses. “Tell me who took you. Which Player?”
I flinch. None of them aregoodanswers, but I have a feeling some names are worse than others in this case.
“Riven—” he begins again.
“Their Lead Player,” I admit quietly. “I’ve been put in their casting call.”
Finally, the reaction I expect. A mask of unabated disbelief. I track Galen’s vision from the dried blood flecked on my cheek to the cast that reaches my hand. Like he can somehow see through the jacket concealing scars that should have been fatal. By the laws of nature, I should be dead.
“What’s he done?” he says. “If he tortured—”
“No,no,” I interrupt, the dark possibility humming in the silence between us. I remember the year Galen went throughthatpart of his training after graduating, taught to endure Player interrogation methods in the devastating case of capture. It’s required of anyone of his rank—of anyone who bears information the North wouldnotwant the Players getting their hands on. Especially when he can’t lie about what he knows.
Galen refused to speak of it when he returned home.
“This is from something…e-else,” I stutter, omitting theI got hit with a chandelierof it all. “He—he promised he could reverse what happened to me if—”
“He’s lying,” Galen says flatly before I can explain. “They lie, Riven. They aren’t like us.”
I hide a wince.I’mnot like us, either, now.
But he’s right. I made a bargain with a liar. Jude probably has no intention of holding up his end of the deal—if he evencan.
“Your Eleutheraen blade,” Cassia urges. “You have it?”
I shake my head, swallowing my frustration. “It’s gone.”
Galen swears under his breath. “I’ll get you out, Riven. Iwill,” he says. “But first, I need you to listen to—”
“No, I needyouto listen,” I interrupt, speaking quickly. I’m not sure how much time I have until Jude returns and notices his tour schedule is missing. “I think the Players are going to cross the Cut or try to, at least—”
“He told you that?” Cassia questions sharply, her face blanching white.
“I’m holding their tour schedule.” I skim the list in my hands. “They intend to cross the Cut in two weeks’ time,” I say, reading off the order of cities before stopping myself short and picturing the arrow that sliced through Titus’s ankle. “I don’t understand. Why risk it? Most of the North is marked. There’s no audience for them there.”
