I fall silent. Her contender, Linos, is gone.Eliminated.
“All I’m saying is if you do find an out—” Mattia almost winces, like it’s difficult to force the words from her lips. “You should take it.” She turns her eyes to her cast, suspicious. “I don’t know what he’s up to, but I have my eye on you. I suggest you don’t do something stupid, or Jude and his drama will be the least of your problems.”
I’m going to take a wild guess and say abducting their Lead Player indeed falls under“something stupid.”
JUDE: “You all might have the decency to at leastlookthrilled by my presence.” Mattia startles, and all of us turn to where Jude is standing at the stairs. “Much as I hate to break up a party, I need everyone to meet me downstairs.” He points at me. “Notyou, Alistaire.”
“Why not?” I say, insulted.
“Because I can move the Playhouse or I can keep you out of trouble, but Icannotbe expected to do both at once.”
The smile melts off Titus’s smug face. And mine. “Move? We just got here,” he argues.
JUDE: “I’ve heard stirrings in the mirrors. From the North.”
Titus snorts. “You mean for me to believe you stopped staring at your own reflection long enough to listen?”
JUDE: “They’ve been tipped off.” His eyes swivel briefly in my direction. “Our tour schedule has been compromised. They know we mean to cross the wall through the District and settle in Syrene in nine days’ time. So we’re moving across the Cut tonight.”
MATTIA: “The Revelers of Diazoma won’t appreciate our time with them being cut short for the sake ofSyrene.”
JUDE: “We aren’t going to Syrene. That’s where they expect us. We’ll go east and move the Playhouse through the Paraskenia border.”
“What?” I blurt, panic spilling into my veins.
No.No.
Titus blanches. “You can’t be serious, Jude.”
JUDE: “Sil made the call.”
My plan crumbles before my eyes. I need more time. And I promised I’d deliver Jude when we crossed into the North, when the Playhouse arrived inSyrene—
Titus sticks one foot out and points at it. “Silwasn’t the one who got lanced by a godsdamned Eleutheraen arrow.”
“If we’re lucky, they’ll get your mouth this time,” Jude calls, exiting. “Downstairs.Now, Titus.”
At night, the Playhouse shines like the sun as the doors shriek open. The crowds hovering around the gates cry desperate welcomes to the Players filing out.
I watch from my dressing room’s high window, alone and sick to my stomach as Jude calls out, “Good people of Diazoma.” They fall still at the unmistakable pitch of Jude’s Syrenian accent, listening carefully. “I am afraid we must take an early bow. You can blame our friends in the North.”
The audience dissolves into wails, like each word of Jude’s announcement has sliced into their flesh. The sound is so awful, I’m tempted to cup my hands over my ears.
As the other Players spread out, Jude doesn’t move, looking to the distance like he can already see the barrier from here, its limestone strong and towering and running deep into the earth.
Strong enough, I pray. Though I don’t think anyone is listening.
“Perhaps you will meet us there when the wall is gone,” he announces, the dark timbre of his voice soaring over their cries.
The ground mists, unsteady and unsure of itself. A thick black fog rises around the Playhouse, ready to whisk it away. Ready to breach the Cut.
I close my eyes as the Playhouse descends into the mist like a sinking ship.
The Playhouse is more illusion than material, Jude said.The “moving” of it all is mostly just for spectacle.
A deceitful illusion. But surely, one too enormous to cross a divide built with Eleutheraen gold.
Galen’s admission comes back to me.
