Oh gods, whatnow? “For what?”
Jude tilts one corner of his mouth up and says, “For me to train you! You’re onstage this week.”
Act II: Scene VI
A spotlight claps on overhead as we cross the stage. The auditorium is empty, our steps echoing into the abyss of scarlet seats as I follow Jude to the center platform.
“Watch your step,” he says. “There’s a trapdoor there at the center of the stage. I’ve fallen through it twice by accident.”
RIVEN: “I’m not performing in one of your wretched shows.”
He turns to face me.
JUDE: “I can’t put you onstage at all until you do a Craft binding.”
RIVEN: “Whatever that means, I’m not interested.”
JUDE: “You’re tethered to reality. That mark may be gone, but there’s still enough Eleutheraen gold in your blood to give you away onstage.” He shakes his head, and a cuff of silver peeks out at the top of his ear, between tousled locks of dark hair that fall into his eyes.
Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have been able to knife one of those hairs for Marigold no matter how subtle I was. I bet he counts them before he goes to sleep.
JUDE: “Craft binding is a loan of power. A link between your life and mine. I’m going to teach you how to create a bridge to that Craft—between you and what you will become.”
Become?
He takes a few long steps back, until there’s a wide berth between us. He gestures at the emptiness. “This is the gap. Imagine it as a bottomless abyss, and that you, as you always do,desperatelywant to reach me—more than anything in the world.”
RIVEN: “I think I’d rather fall into the bottomless abyss.”
JUDE: “Thisgap is what you face when going into character. But we can’t reach across such a gap, now can we? You need abridgebetween actor and character. The tiebetween reality and story. It makes everything else possible—Mimicry, Compulsion. Without a bridge to summon those things across to you, what are your options? Your Craft would have to jump back and forth over the gap. And you’re already exhausted as it is.”
I frown. “I’m not playing a characterright now.”
Jude grins. “Alistaire, we are all of us playing characters. Even when the character is ourselves.” He gestures between us again. “Butwithouta bridge to close this gap between reality and storyor the energy to jump across it…” He looks down at me and arches an eyebrow as if to say,Go on. Guess.
I don’t.
JUDE: “Youfall.”
The words echo off the stage, striking a nervous, hollow feeling in my stomach. Maybe breakfast wasn’t a good idea.
RIVEN: “And if I simply don’t create a bridge across this imaginary gap?”
JUDE: “Notimaginary, Alistaire. If the Playhouse identifies something that doesn’t fit in a scene onstage—reality,for instance—it eliminates it. Craft—” I balk at the word.Player magic. “Craft is the thing that cloaks you, a lifeline that connectsus onstage. So if your Craft cannotreach you and somethingunplannedhappens—” He carelessly slides a finger across his neck to indicatelights out.
I roll my eyes. “I seem to have survived your Reality Suspension just fine without it.”
“And you can consider yourself lucky I managed it,” he says, frowning. “That’s the difference between carrying someone across a bridge and jumping over a cliff with their weight on your back. That wiped me out for the rest of the day. So, for my sake, let’s try, yes?”
Well. If he’s going to make me feelguiltyabout it.
JUDE: “Repeat after me.” The air grows warmer, the ground thrumming beneath us.“Methexis.”
There’s a rising warmth beneath my feet, the marble heating as if the stage has just woken up. It brightens around me, shimmering gold and white. With little fight left in my tired bones, I shut my eyes, bite my tongue. The word tastes strange, though I can’t place why.“Methexis,”I repeat.
The center of the stage feels like it’s sinking beneath me, and I tense.
JUDE: “Good. Now open your eyes.”
