“The others on the trolley are duplicates,” she says. “Sometimes guests want to wear the same masks as one another, but when Theo—Sorin—interprets their choices, they always reveal very different secrets about the person wearing them.”
As Patrick peruses the selection, she notes that he’s packed away his fiancée’s luggage. She also knows security was not able to locate her, and that her passport was left with Souda port police.
But Patrick doesn’t appear at all worried. He just seems cleansed—chipper, even.
“Tell me a bit more about these.” He gestures to the gold masks.
“The gold ones generally represent the radiant, outward-facing personas, or archetypes.” She gestures to the tray. “Apollo. Dionysus, the Hero, the Muse, the Comedian. While these, the silver faces, depict the shadow, or inward-facing archetypes. Faces that don’t exude their own light, but reflect the light of others—as the moon reflects the sun’s light.” She points. “These ones—Hades, Persephone, the Oracle, Tragedy, the Trickster—are what I like to call the wild card masks. Either in bronze, or dual-toned. Medusa. And Hecate, Circe, the Chorus, Hermes.”
Patrick rubs his freshly shaved chin, deciding on how he wants to present.
He picks the Echo mask. Beautiful smooth features on the outside, but hollowed and cavernous inside—a persona that echoes the expectations of others, never his authentic self.
She doesn’t ask why a choice is made, and she never fully explains the masks.
That’s Theo’s role. In the unmasking.
He puts it on his face, testing the fit and weight of it. He glances in the mirror and laughs. The sound coming from behind the Echo facade is hollow.
“Will you be there?” he asks.
“I will.”
“In a mask, too?”
“Of course.” Her words come out strained. Nerves about the show are hollowing her from the inside.
She leaves Patrick and proceeds to Dr. Gideon Marsh’s suite.
Roshaan knocks on the door.
She’s welcomed in. She sets out the masks again. Sarah comes through the adjoining door, which is open.
“Can I also pick one?” Carter asks.
“The soiree is for adults, Carter,” Sarah says. “I’m sorry, hon. I really am—we will do the Disney cruise next time. I promise.”
He glances at his grandfather, a small scowl forming. “Why can’t I come?”
Roshaan wants to say of course he can attend, but she can’t. Not tonight. Tonight is going to be different. Billed as Sorin’s most truth-piercing, dangerous performance—it most certainly will be. But not in the way people think. Tonight, she suspects, could be deadly. Literally. She doesn’t know this for a fact, but every little sense in her body is foreshadowing this, whispering it, warning of it.
Nausea coils low in her belly.
“I tell you what,” Dr. Marsh says to Carter. “Pick a mask anyway—if that’s okay, Roshaan?”
She gives a tight nod. “Of course.”
Carter studies them excitedly.
“What one is this?” he asks.
“That’s the Hero,” she says.
“And this one?” He points to a stark, expressionless silver face. Smooth and lean with deeply hollowed-out eyes. No smile. No anger. Impassive.
“The mask of Thanatos. The silent death.”
“Why does Thanatos not have any expressions?”
