JUDE: “Here.” He plucks a book from the shelf and gestures to a dark mahogany table, but I stay where I am, watching distrustfully. “Whatever that question on your lips is, you might as well ask it.”
RIVEN: “Why did you pretend you didn’t see her? Gene.”
He saw her, too. Iheardhim tell Sil he saw her.
Jude blinks at me, unmoving. I stand my ground but let my gaze drift to the golden ring pierced through his nose instead. Looking Jude in the eye sometimes feels like staring directly into the sun.
JUDE: “Gene’s dead. Died in my arms. I remember it well.” He shrugs. “I don’t know what we saw. Now, please. Can we sit?”
I don’t believe him. But his apathetic expression tells me I’m not getting any more information. Stubbornly, I ignore the seat beside him and instead drop into the red velvet chair on the other side of the table, where a fireplace sputters embers at me.
JUDE: “I’m assuming you haven’t held a story before.”
RIVEN: “Does your atrocious script from yesterday count?”
JUDE: “The one you refused to read? No, it doesn’t.” I roll my eyes. “And that’s why we’re down here. I can’t have you raising Sil’s suspicion any further than you already have. We’ll start with this.”
He leans across the table and presses the book into my hands. It’s leather-bound and warm with golden lettering.The Last Spring.He taps the cover. “Do you know this story?”
I swallow, glaring at him. “I don’t know any stories.” Most of the myths we have access to are regarding the Playhouse and generally presumed factual. History. “We don’t live onlieswhere I come from.” I try to thrust a sharp edge into my tone, but it comes out softer than I mean it to. That’s what we’re taught. Stories are all lies. Harmful and ugly and manipulative.
But in spite of the angry sting dancing up my throat, I don’t put it down. My thumb rolls over the cover. Theyarelies, aren’t they? Stories are just one deception after another.
JUDE: “None?”
RIVEN: “When the first Players appeared from the well and took all its Craft, the storybooks were wiped clean, too. YouPlayersswallowed the words and only passed them on to other Players.”
A question mark unintentionally tacks itself onto the end of my sentence as I take in the shelves around me. Suddenly, I can’t help but wonder. If stories belonged to us before the Players stole them away, doesn’t that mean there was a time when mortals like me held them, read them?
Were they bad then, too?
“Well, this story is based on history, so maybe it’ll be easier for you.” Jude reaches across the table and flips the cover open in my hands. “Go on,” he encourages. “Read.”
The book feels warm. Alive.Good.
After nearly a week in the Playhouse,Ifeel good. Better than I have since I can remember.
I focus on the first line, hearing it in my head, but it feels heavy on my tongue. “Once—once there was…” I stop, frustrated, and start over. By the third time, I slam the book shut and let my chair’s legs screech against the floor as I move to leave.
“That was good, Alistaire! That wasgood,” Jude calls after me, turning in his seat. The air in my lungs feels heavier, but something stirs inside. Something thatwantsto read, just a little more.
I pivot on my heel. Jude hasn’t moved, sitting patiently. Curiosity nudges at my mind.
“Why?” I ask.
Now he extends a hand heavy with golden rings. I stare but don’t take it. There’s a deep white scar etched into the top of his palm, running all the way to his wrist. I wonder when he managed to find the wrong side of an Eleutheraen blade. Players’ skin won’t scar by any other means.
“Because I have the most interesting theory.” He redirects his hand to the seat beside him, eyes glimmering. “And I’m not often wrong.”
I throw one more look at the exit. Iknowbetter. Being down here is dangerous. Storyis dangerous.Judeis dangerous. Whatever envy I might have harbored over his behavior at the stage door last night was a fluke. Even if Iweresome beautiful, mindless Reveler, I would know better than to fall for Jude’s charms. In fact, I’m lucky I’m not. Clearly, she caught Jude’s attention, and I wouldn’t want that.
Furiously reassuring myself of this and feeling very justified over it, I march back, this time for the chair beside Jude.
He flips the book open again, placing one half in my hands, and I start at the crackle of energy that jumps from its pages. Like the book has violently awoken, recognizing the touch of a Player. That funny feeling squirms in my chest again when he braces one palm on the back of my chair and leans in to read with me.
JUDE & RIVEN: “Once, there was a god named Hades, brother to Zeus and ruler of the Underworld—” I cough, my voice lagging behind Jude’s. He was right, though—I know parts of this. “Hades would often venture up to the earth to watch Persephone, daughter of Demeter, tending her flowers in a field. Persephone sang a song so irresistible, Hades fell madly in love.”
Jude taps the lines below. “And of course, you know how the song goes.”
