SIL: “Welcome, welcome! Dear patrons, we are honored to present to you a tale of old, in celebration of our most beloved treaty’s impending end. Let us not forget how it was formed! Tonight, we perform for you Act One ofThe Cast Trade—”
I tune out the uproarious applause as Silenus introduces the show: a brutal reenactment of the trade between the Playhouse and mortals that started the treaty five hundred years ago, when Silenus traded peace for the life of his captured Player. No doubt this performance is designed to evoke pity for the Players.
But all I can think about is how warm the stage is when I step onto it, how guilty that makes me feel. And that strange inkling of Craft, squirming around my pupils, warming the place behind my eyes.
“Methexis,”I breathe, feeling my bridge lock into place beneath me, but my mind stays focused on the big picture: on capturing Jude. On delivering him to the council and stopping the Playhouse’s terrifying plans for the North. Of getting back to Cassia and my brother. I almost have all the pieces. I just need to hold out a little longer.
Then the curtain rises, and the world fades away.
The boom of applause shifts into the slap of rain and thunder. Smoke fills my sinuses, though I thought I smelled perfume a moment ago. I blink down curiously as the white marble beneath my feet cracks, mud and dirt bleeding through until I can no longer see the floor.
It occurs to me I cannot remember my name. Come to think of it, I don’t have one.
Above, the voice of a god falls from the sky, offers explanation to a vicious conflict unfolding between black-and-silver uniforms wielding rudimentary weapons, and the rest—golden-eyed Players clad in white and scarlet.
I move through the world, the beat of a drum pulsing in my blood. Every word that falls from my lips doesn’t feel like a line but like a part of me. Each movement deliberate, intentional.
I gasp as I exit stage left, my entrance finished. My mind grapples for reality. On the platform, Mattia and Arius have broken into a violent argument that I’m only half certain was scripted.
Tig, Linos, and Phileas crow lines from the chorus, then disband and pass me as they flee into the wings.
“How are you doing?” Jude asks over my shoulder, and I jump. He’s drenched from the rain onstage, hair falling over his face in dark tresses. The shoulder of his costume is torn.
“I’m fine,” I say, not sure that I am. This isn’t how rehearsals felt. “Are you stalling?”
“Absolutely, I hate this scene,” he whispers. “And between you and me—” He shakes some of the water dripping from his sleeves. “I’ve never cared for Tragedies.” Then he moves for his next entrance.
The scene onstage shifts as Jude stumbles onto the platform, throwing furious looks over his shoulder as Titus’s character pursues him, wielding a golden blade. I know it’s paint—notrealEleutheraen gold—but evenmyheart clenches at the sight as Jude ducks, dodges, and forces the blade back on Titus so hard, he nearly slits his throat as they toss carefully rehearsed lines back and forth.
Eventually, Titus’s character gets the high ground and succeeds in hitting him on the back of the head. Something twists in my chest as Jude’s dragged away while the crowd shrieks and wails.
This is just a performance. And even if it weren’t, I wouldnotcare.
But I decide I’m with Jude on one thing. I prefer the Comedies over this, by far.
A crack of thunder summons me for my next cue. The world vanishes. Whatever magic blooms on the stage sucks me in as time moves in strange spurts of battle and heated conversation. My name slips my mind again.
Then someone knocks me out, too, and everything blackens. The stage lights come up—
No.Lightning. Flashes of it illuminate the canvas tent around me. Mud cakes my boots. There’s a man on a bench beside me, blond, brown-eyed, oddly familiar. He repeats questions I won’t answer.Where are my other castmates?he asks.What are our weaknesses?
I say something he doesn’t like, and he answers with a blade aimed at my throat.
A shock of pain rolls from my neck to my heart.My mark.
My bridge to Craft severs, seems to drop right through the floor, out of reach.
As if awoken from a dream, my consciousness jolts me out of fiction, reality pressing hard on my skin.
I’m onstage. This isn’t real. The warmth of the stage fades, ice dissolving the bond between the performance and me. I recognize the Player beside me, holding a prop knife. He hasn’t hurt me with it. It’s just Arius.Arius—
My heart freezes painfully in my chest. I can’t breathe.
The fourth wall shatters. Whatever strange shield prevents actors from noticing—realizing—an audience is there is gone. The eyes of the audience are everywhere, blinking, beginning to clear, to realize this is a performance.
Downstage, Titus and Mattia fire lines of dialogue at each other. Between them, Jude is watching me in abject horror. A word falls from his mouth, and warmth presses on my skin once more, clouds my mind. The stage vanishes. I’m in the tent again. I can’t remember why I’d thought of the name Jude. It doesn’t sound familiar.
Exit!It’s time for me to leave. Impossibly drawn to a strange passage leading out of the tent, I run. I’m almost out, almost offstage when—
