I’ve just barely stuffed the tour schedule back in the drawer and slammed it shut when the chain on the lock snaps.
The door awkwardly creaks open, Jude waiting on the other side, arms crossed. His eyes take in my destruction with a single bored glance.
JUDE: “You know, I was about to do the silliest thing and look for you inyourroom.” His eyes land pointedly on me. “And then I asked myself:Where, oh where, would Alistaire be?”
RIVEN: “I was just leaving.” My eyes stall on the quiver of arrows secured to his back and the uniform stitched carefully across his broad shoulders.
JUDE: “My, Alistaire. Don’t look so scared. This is just a costume from tonight’s show. I haven’t come to personally execute you.” There’s a cut below his eye, bleeding but healing rapidly. “We almost lost that girl, by the way. The boy’s sister.” I picture the twins. “No true knack for Reality Suspension, that one. They’re cleaning up the stage now.”
Nausea rises in my throat at the casual declaration, and I wonder what horrors the auditionee might have been subjected to onstage. Jude strolls into his room and begins loosening the golden armlets from his forearms. I unintentionally let my gaze flicker to the drawer, then to the mirror, paranoid.
JUDE: “Speaking of Reality Suspension, you’re all…here, yes?”
I narrow my eyes, ignoring the scorching pain at the base of my throat. “Mostof me made it.”
“Well, that part couldn’t be helped. I meant up here.” He taps a finger at his temple and drops his weapons in a pile on the floor. “Memories and all, you know. Reality Suspension can be…messy. And your mind was so—”
“What?” I ask, suddenly at attention. “What about my mind?”
Jude’s eyes widen, like he said something he didn’t mean to. For once, he struggles to find words. “Reality Suspension, it can offer a…glimpse of sorts, into your—”
“A glimpse?” I ask, barely tamping down my rage. “Inside myhead?”
“It’s not like looking at a finished portrait, Alistaire! Just small corners of one. Loose pieces of a larger puzzle. People’s minds are complicated places. You—youfeelit more than anything.”
Does he know about Galen? Who my father was? Does he know myname—
“What did you see?” I demand. “Orfeel,” I add, accusing. And he calledmea snoop.
But for once, Jude doesn’t quip back, doesn’t hurl my own mocking tone back at me. I glare daggers at him, but his own gaze is unreadable—no pity there, not even judgment. “I’m sorry, Alistaire,” he says, tone too controlled in contrast to my outburst. “Truly.” For what, he doesn’t say.
And I don’t ask. I’m skilled at matching anger for anger, insult for insult. I don’t know what to do with apologies, though.
My shoulders drop a little, the embers of my rage burning out.
“Anyway.” He clears his throat, recovering. “I only meant to tell you Sil issorelydisappointed over you missing tonight’s performance.”
“Just wait until he hears I won’t be at any of the other ones, either,” I dodge, diverting my attention to the bookshelf at my back. Anything to avoid looking Jude in the eye will suffice. I pluck a trinket off the shelf, examining.
A frustrated exhale. “Sil wants you tested across Crafts, under his eye. I’ve kindly volunteered to do the honors. Your little stunt with Mattia earlier today caught his attention.”
My mood darkens. “I don’t want it.”
JUDE: “Well, you have it. And worse, you have Mattia’s. Honestly, Alistaire, you should know by now never to go for an actor’s most vital organ.”
I hesitate, trying to remember where I aimed my knife. “Heart?”
Jude frowns. “Ego. But we’ll worry about that later.” He wanders to a cream-colored settee, throwing his long legs over the coffee table. His boots have blood on them. “And I’d put that down if I were you.”
I ignore him and pop open the wooden case I’ve plucked off the shelf. Inside, between folds of purple silk, lies a small vial filled with a substance the color of rosewater, its silver cap twisted into the shape of a serpent. “What is this?”
“Poison of Echidna,” he explains, taking his rings off one by one and placing them on a side table. “Rarer than Persephone’s flowers in the winter. Incapacitates you so quickly, you don’t have the breath to suspend your reality. Even Titus won’t go near it.”
My hands freeze around the box. “Why doyouhave it?”
JUDE: “It was a gift. From Syrene’s ruler to yours truly. A promise of sorts, you might say.” He chuckles under his breath. “Would’ve been outrightrudeif I hadn’t sent him something back.”
RIVEN: “What did you…” Syrene is perhaps the North’smosthostile territory to the Playhouse. Three Players were executedthere before the Cut was completed. “Uh, send?”
