“I’mnot him!” I scream, thrashing out of Gene’s reach to point my arrowhead at her.
The door shudders. Her eyes go as wide as the clockface behind her. She brings a finger to her lips, as if to say,Hush.
I start yelling instead. “I’m not Jude! I’m not him. Believe me, I understand the indisputable urge to shut him up for good, I do. ButI’m not the one you’re looking for.”
The door shakes in its frame again, only this time, fingers of darkness stretch through the cracks like smoke, bleeding across the walls. And with it, an echoing, staccato clicking that makes the collection of skulls on Marigold’s shelf chatter their teeth.
Nyxene. Jude’s warnings of the gruesome Stage Manager creep out of my memory, sinking into the air, heavy and foreboding.
Ice edges into my veins, then into every part of me, like I’ve been pushed into a cold bath. Darkness unfurls over the room.
The shadows are Nyxene’s first and only warning,Jude once told me.Shadows he said to stay away from byany means necessary.
Nyxene is coming. My heart lurches. I’m not supposed to be down here.
And I’ve killed the Prop Master.
Gene rushes at me, knife held high. Clearly, she has it out for Jude, but on the bright side, Mimicking his form gives me a height advantage. I catch her wrist with one hand and hold my arrowhead to her throat with my other. It catches on a little half-moon necklace at her neck, snapping the silver and sending the pendant clattering to the floor.
I gasp, my grip on her wrist slipping as Gene pushes the blade down toward my eye with unholy strength.
I’m cold. So cold I can’t feel my toes, my fingers, or the hand just barely keeping my own knife from plunging into my skull. In the corner of my vision, Nyxene’s shadows grow like vines around the room in the shapes of reaching hands—hundreds of them. The door shakes on its hinges once more, Nyxene demanding entry.
The arrowhead in my other hand drops to the floor as I clutch my heart, gasping against the ice seeking a way in. One of Nyxene’s shadows stretches far enough to brush Gene, a wraithlike finger of midnight grazing her shoulder.
It’s the first time I hear Gene make a sound—a cry as the dagger tumbles from her grasp. I twist free, dropping to my knees to wrap my fist around the fallen dagger. I can hardly feel my legs as I straighten and point the tip up at her. “What do youwantfrom me?”
Gene shakes her head frantically, begging my silence. As if I’m doing her any favors.
But the damage is done. The door bursts open, and darkness floods in. Shadows everywhere stretch wider and higher and colder. And with it, a high-pitched shrieking distorted by low, rasping whispers that send my skin crawling.
I fly back into a corner, trying to breathe, but the cold air burns my lungs.
Nyxene: a silent, lethal monster. The Playhouse’s guardian that cleanses magic from the stage after shows, that guides patrons out once the curtain falls. That keeps actors in line. Heard, felt, and never seen.
But I see her now, and the sight makes my knees shake. A frigid, solid darkness that reeks of peril and melds into the shape of a monstrous Stage Manager. Somewhere, deep in the midnight mist, I glimpse fierce silver eyes. About twelve of them.
Gene pinches her brow, as if gathering concentration. Her lips part, struggling to form words. Frustration dampens her expression, her hands curling into fists.
Then her eyes snap open, and a single, strangled word escapes her lips.
“Riven.”
I shove my back into the corner again, almost dropping my knife. “How do you know my name?” I demand, but it’s useless. Gene lets out a furious cry that shakes the lanterns hanging above. She looks pleadingly at me and whispers one more word:“Script.”
All at once, Nyxene flies at the Player, dozens of shadows racing up Gene’s legs and cutting clean through the glow of her skin like butter.
A guttural warning pounds in my ears as the shadows encase the dead Player in mist, otherworldly screams ripping what was Gene into shreds of darkness and gold.
It’s vicious, visceral.
And then it’s nothing.
As silence rings out like a bell, my mind seizes on her last words, strangled but clear.
Riven.
Script.
