I freeze. My eyes fix on the arrow trained on my heart, tracking its razor point up to the woman aiming it. A stranger.
Her eyes are wild and wet. Gold trickles down her neck from a wound on the side of her head, nestled in tresses of rich brown that fall from her scalp in gnarled tangles. Most disturbingly, the skin of her arms and hands is ripped open, revealing flecks of gold beneath.
The woman stands under a curtain of darkness a little ways off.She’s in the wings,I think, curious and confused.But the thought is fragmented, colliding with reality.
None of this is so frightening as the fact that she lookssofamiliar.
The stranger seems to mouth something to me as she releases the arrow. I don’t catch what she says—a hard shove from my right knocks me to the ground.
Then I’m coughing, my lungs filled with smoke and the scent of blood in the air as I take in the riggings above. I’m backstage.
Embracing the ice-cold arms of reality, I register the shouts of the audience as the principal roles battle across the platform. Vaguely, I remember this is a scene; it ends in a dramatic standoff between the two leads.
I roll onto my side, searching for the woman who shot that arrow—the stranger. She’s gone.
Jude is yelling something that sounds likeStay here!as he runs back onto the stage. I blink up at the ceiling, confused and disoriented. My head hurts.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. I’m offstage, but the feeling of being watched hasn’t left me. Lifting myself, I steal a glance into the darkness of the wings and go still.
Two bright, menacing eyes watch me. A dirty, torn white dress hangs on a tensed figure. She reaches a hand out to me, hooks a finger in my direction.
I do not believe in ghosts. But the woman from the portrait in my room has climbed out. She’s cornered me here.
Gene Hunt.
The dead Player brings a finger to her lips as if to say,Hush.Then flutters back into the dark like a pearl in the ocean.
ARIUS: “Alistaire!” He flies into the wings, casting a bloodied blade into the prop armory. “Are you all right? Jude saw, too— Gods, I haven’t seen that happen in ages.”
When I look back to the hall, Gene Hunt is gone.
RIVEN: “I— What?”
ARIUS: “My friend, you nearly broke our illusion!” He scratches the back of his neck anxiously. “How did you manage it?”
MATTIA: “What the hell was that?”
Mattia tears backstage, the other Players at her shoulders. I can see every single gold vein in her neck. By the thunder of applause outside the curtain, I surmise the show is over.
Somehow, according to the clock, six hours have flown by.
“Who did that?” she demands again as Arius peers sidelong at me, concern constricting his soft features. “Who broke the illusion?”
Some quick math brings me to two conclusions: One, no one else noticed the dead Player aiming arrows at me from backstage. Two, they most certainlydidnotice me break the illusion when Arius brushed my ruined mark.
TITUS: “Interesting that you assume it couldn’t have beenyouwho made a mistake, Mattia.” He works on the straps that bind two broadswords to his back. “But by all means, accuse one of the auditionees who’ve been here less than a week of somehow doing so.”
Before Mattia can question further, Jude strides into the wings. Judging by the blood running from his temples, Titus hit him awful hard onstage. “Calm yourself, Mattia. It was my fault. I slipped.” He throws a warning look at me.Don’t say a word.
Mattia watches him, flabbergasted. I pretend not to notice Arius staring between Jude and me, open-mouthed.
MATTIA: “Why did you run offstage?”
TITUS: “Run offstage? He tackled poor Alistaire to the ground; didn’t you see?”
JUDE: “She forgot to exit on time. Very clumsy of her.”
I turn my eyes toward the skene that stands at the back of the stage. There, ingrained in its side, an arrow—the one Gene Hunt aimed at me.
