“You’ll take me to it, won’t you? You’ll come with me,” Haris presses, eyes narrowing. “You and me, we’re different—but you understand, don’t you? Friends understand.”
“The Playhouse isn’t even here yet,” I remind him, and spot the shine of a thin chain gleaming at the bottom of my bag.Ah! Found it.
Pinching the chain, I extract the pendant and approach him.
“Please, Riven!” Haris wails, stretching his hands out to me. The sleeves of his robes fall back, revealing the loose skin of his forearms, sagging off the bone like bread dough. Puffy, pink-white scars spell outJUDE STEPHARROS.I swallow back the bile that rises in my throat. We’re both victims of the Players, just in different ways.
“It’s finally cominghome,”he pleads.
“Here,” I say, and bend to offer the pendant dangling from my fist. “This is going to help keep you safe—wear it if you go near the Playhouse. Especially if you see one of them, okay? I got it from the Merchant Ring. It’s pressed with Eleutheraen gold and should—”
At the word, his face twists with rage, and I barely have time to react before he lunges and grabs hold of my wrist so quickly that I cry out in surprise, the pendant clattering to the ground.
“Take me to it!”he keens. “Bring me to the Players—” His nails dig into my skin, and I gasp.
My wrist breaks mercifully from his grip, and I stagger backward, falling on the stone.
My skin crawls like spiders are skittering over my body. I think I might throw up.
I hate being touched.Hateit. I always have.
Catching my breath, I get to my feet again and study my palms. The pale, waxy color is already bruising a deep purple.Damn it.Bruises, sprains, everythingtakes longer and longer to heal these days—if not just failing to heal altogether. Like the poison has made my body forget how.
Wiping my hands over my coat like I can shake off the touch, I turn to leave. I still have another stop to make before I get home, and even I know better than to hang around the District after dark.
But as I gather myself, I throw one more concerned look over my shoulder at Haris, who coughs and settles his filmy gaze on me. Then grins wide as he raises that hand mirror. Like he knows something I don’t.
“It’s coming home, Riven.”
Act I: Scene II
I nearly sigh in relief when I finally reach Aletheia’s Chronicles, a bookstore wedged between a candlemaker and an antique store claiming to sell old props once used onstage by Players. It’s also the only shop in the District that sells the texts I’ll need for my first semester at the Orkestrian Academy.
“No,no! Out with you, Riven,” shouts a man with thick glasses and lightly tanned skin. He moves from behind the counter as soon as the door clicks shut behind me. “Leave and take your curse with you.”
“Hi, Sebastian!” I chirp, weaving between tables stacked high with tomes.
“Gods help me,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair. The old man was raised in the North, making him one of a small handful of marked people still living in the District. “The Playhouse returning any moment for the first time in fifteen years, and now the work of their hands wanders into my store. And a thief, no less.”
I frown. “I brought itback,” I defend, pulling a leather volume from my bag and plopping it onto the counter between us.
“This is a bookstore. Not a library.” The owner narrows his eyes at the leather cover. “Who’s going to buy something touched by your hands?”
“Maybe they shouldn’t,” I argue, tapping the cover. “Thisis useless.” It contained next to godsdamnednothingabout Craft, much less what to do if one finds themselves poisoned by it.
I hand over my Orkestrian Academy acceptance letter. “But never you mind it. I’m here for my school materials, and I need to be quick about it.”
Sebastian scowls, pinching the corner of the letter like he’s afraid to brush my skin. Then he adjusts his glasses and looks it over in disbelief. “They’re lettingyouinto the academy?” His eyebrows shoot up.
I bristle. “Lucky for you, the semester starts next week. I’ll be on a train to Orkestra and far away before you know it.”
He shakes his head, almost looking sad. “I happen to have friends in the Healer Quarter, Riven.” I stiffen at this. “Rumor is you won’t even live to see next month.”
The words nearly wipe the smirk right off my face. I’ve been seen by probably every healer North of the District, to no avail. No one knows how to undo what the Player did to me. No one even knows what’swrongwith me.
I clear my throat. “Then I invite you to dance on my grave when I’m gone,” I respond, flashing him a toothy grin.
“Studying to be a healer, are you?” he mutters to himself, looking over my letter. “Can’t say I expected that from the likes of you.”
