(Quartz sits in front of a red curtain. Opposite him is a tall, lean woman in a gown of midnight and gold. Gleaming lace work of metal reaches out from her sleeves to cover the back of her hands, attached to bands of gold upon each finger. A close-fitting hood of ebon, laced with shimmering metal rings encloses her head, concealing her hair and ears. The high-cheekboned, pale face might have belonged to an empress from a far eastern land or a high-fashion model out of Erte.)
Quartz: You are Iama the Terrible, right? Shards and splinters, that scribbler has a way with names.
Iama: I am but a figment of a woman’s imagination and a girl’s nighmares, but I am the reward waiting at the end of industry. All I touch turns to gold. I lured a princess away from her lush green lands into my golden palace until a treacherous teddy bear whispered my secrets to a little girl. I remain nothing more than a character in a book within a book, a villain in a children’s series of stories Cassat and Morisot created and illustrated. The image of Iama the Terrible was so vivid, my namesake mocked me, yet Grace has learned to fear me. She fears that one day Maia will become me.
Quartz: Right. Just why are you so terrible?
Iama: Just one kiss from me and your flesh will turn to precious metal. Just one touch and you’ll remain as another ornament within my palace walls. My kiss is a reward I offer those who give themselves completely to industry. They become part of my precious collection, the special ones, the ones I’ll treasure forever.
Quartz: Right. You actually turn people into gold or does this talk of a reward for the industrious have some sort of symbolic meaning?
Iama: Why spoil the mystery, little dwarf, when I could let you wonder?
Quartz: Right.
Iama: (mockingly) Right. In the stories where I first sprang into existence, my touch turned people into gold, beautiful, shining, gold. As far as Wind Me Up, One More Time and the town of Verity is concerned, I’m just a character within a story, or am I? Perhaps the threat I present has a more subtle form.
Quartz: Pretty words. Sounds like you’re avoiding the question.
Iama: I’m a villain, little dwarf. (She smiles, but her teeth aren’t especially sharp. They’re white and beautiful.) A far more self-assured villain than your poor, guilt-stricken Oriana.
Quartz: She’s not my Oriana.
Iama: If I had Nathalie trapped and cursed within a crystal coffin, I’d never let her go. I’d keep her forever.
Quartz: The crystal coffin was actually my doing. Mine and my brothers, never mind! You said Grace has learned to fear you, to fear Maia will one day become you. Is there any truth to that? Any connection between Maia and yourself?
Iama: Foolish child, to mock my name, to make a jest of it. We’ll see how much she laughs as her heart turns into gold.
Quartz: Are you talking about Maia? Or Grace?
Iama: Why should I settle for one of them when I can lure both of them into the gears, mourning for their sweet, wayward Nathalie?
Quartz: Ah, well…
Iama: Maia’s name was given to her by Cassat, her mother, one of my creators. ’Tis an anagram for my own, linking the two of us together, even if she thinks she can banish the spell it casts over her by laughing at it. She falls deeper under this spell as she allows herself to be consumed by work, by ambition. She may jest about being Iama the Terrible, but she hasn’t truly touched upon all that’s terrible until her jests die upon her lips.
Quartz: All right, that does sound terrible. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean.
Iama: Villain I may be, yet I do not offer up spoilers lightly.
Quartz: Right. You know you, the you that’s sitting in this chair isn’t even in the current draft of Wind Me Up, One More Time other than as the source of Maia’s nickname.
Iama: The power to whisper, wail, and torment the scribbler’s imagination doesn’t belong to you alone. I play upon her thoughts and dreams, tormenting her until my part in her tale expands.
Quartz: All of a sudden, I almost feel sorry for the scribbler…
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