Blackfin Sky (31 page)

‘
Freak freak freak freak freak freak freak freak freak…’

Sky stared at her mother. Lily’s head tilted slightly so that she was staring right back at her daughter, her lip curled in an ugly snarl as she chanted the word over and over again. Then Lily smiled sweetly.

‘All I want is one little thing, precious girl. Just a little thing, and then you and your mother can go back to playing house with the strongman. Wouldn’t you like that, precious one?’

A chill ran up Sky’s spine and she felt her lip tremble. The words had come from her mother’s mouth, but that wasn’t her voice. The patronising look in her eyes wasn’t Lily Rousseau. It was Gage.

‘What do you want?’

‘Ah, ah, ah!’ Lily said the words in a mocking tone, but it was Gage who wagged his finger at her. ‘You should have taught her better manners, Lilith. I would never have allowed such insubordination.’

Sky clenched her jaw, willing the creep to get to the point and ask for whatever it was he had turned her life upside down to get.

‘I gave you time, precious girl. I could have brought about this marvellous awakening of your gift much sooner, left you bouncing between dimensions as a wailing toddler.’

‘He’s lying,’
Jared said from next to her. Looking at Gage, Sky expected him to react somehow, to be startled, perhaps, but he gave no sign that he was even aware of Jared’s presence.

‘I’m only here inside your head, Sky.’
Jared moved as though he was about to hold her hand, but his fingers passed right through hers like moths through a moonbeam.
‘Don’t say anything, or he’ll know what I’m doing.’

Sky darted a glance at Jared but said nothing, hoping he’d take that as a gesture of compliance.

‘And now the pathways are yours to explore! How wondrous is that?’

Manic glee glinted in Lily’s eyes, and Sky had to look away.

‘He only waited until you were sixteen because Severin told him it was impossible for a child to become a Pathfinder,’
Jared said.
‘That’s the only reason he waited.’

The mime was playing games with her. Sky’s temper flared. ‘Tell me what you want, Gage. Please, I’ll do whatever you want me to do, just let my mum go!’

‘I had hoped to keep this friendly, but you’ve inherited your mother’s impatience. It’s a very simple thing, really.’ Gage paused to remove his hand from Lily’s shoulder, and her eyes cleared for a moment. As soon as they connected with Sky’s, her mouth opened in a horrified gasp.

‘Run, Sky!’

But before she had even finished uttering Sky’s name, Gage’s skeletal fingers flexed over her shoulder, and Lily’s face became a blank. Then she looked at Sky with those not-Lily eyes and smiled.

‘It is an amber ornament, a little bigger than my fist.’

‘You mean the skull?’

Sky had been so terrified that Gage wanted something to do with
her
anchor – Sean – that she had blurted her question without thinking. Gage smiled.

‘Yes, child. I want it.’

‘What will you do with it?’ A creeping dread seized Sky. Would he rebuild his circus with the Blackfin population? Would her parents become his puppets again, trapped in a travelling circus with all his other victims?

‘Bring it to me,’ he said, using Lily’s voice. ‘And your mother may still have some shred of her sanity when I release her.’

27

‘Tell Dad where my mum is.’

Turning to stare at the astral figure of Jared next to her, Sky had only waited for his nod of silent agreement before letting her thoughts drift to the pathways. They spread outward in all directions, seeming endless and unfathomable at first, until her mind organised the strands and found the one she was looking for.

The last known whereabouts of the skull.

That had been at the circus, after the tiny boy she now knew had been Jared’s young self had lost control of the wolves, and the Big Top had erupted in a chaos that even Gage could do nothing about. But then, he hadn’t had the skull – Severin had stolen it.

So the skull really does amplify his ability to control people.

Even as the unsettling thought occurred to her, Sky grew lighter, and was pulled towards the last place she’d known the skull to be.

She expected to find herself among the throng of rioting Blackfinites who had been at the circus for what Sky guessed had been its final performance. Instead she materialised in one of the smaller tents.

She took a few moments to study her surroundings, seeking out any other figures who might be hiding in the shadows. The circus bells were chiming discordantly, as though they knew the uproar going on at that moment inside the Big Top. Shouts and screams from the people jostling to get out of the tent reached Sky from a distance, and for a moment she wondered whether she was actually just hearing the echo of it through the pathways.

Severin appeared next to her, the tiny boy still clutched to his chest, still unconscious. Severin himself was panting as though he had run to meet her. ‘Good, you found it all right, then.’

Sky could tell Severin had no idea she had travelled back to her life in the present since their last encounter.

‘What’s happening in there?’

‘The last I saw, Gage was having one heck of a time trying to fend off some of the locals. Seems that not having his favourite bauble has quite a debilitating effect on his mind-juju, if you know what I mean.’

‘What about my – what about Gui and Lily?’

In truth, Sky hadn’t seen them on her last visit to the Big Top, but there had been such a crowd that she could easily have missed them. And despite knowing, logically, that her parents had escaped the fire that night, being back in this moment in the past made everything seem less certain. If Sky changed something now which led to them dying, she knew she could still return to her life in the present and find them there alive and well, but the possibility that she had created a timeline where her parents were no longer a part of the world – that would be something she couldn’t live with.

‘They’re long gone by now, if that great oaf has a lick of sense.’

Severin grinned at Sky, and she couldn’t help but smile back at him. Even after all she had learned about him from her visits to the circus and her mother’s memories, there was something about Severin which Sky couldn’t help but take comfort in. Maybe it was their shared talent, or maybe it was the promise of the answers he held.

But that would be gone forever after this night. Sky knew that the circus itself would be a burned shell, and that Severin would be gone along with it. But for now she had to ignore the burning ball of guilt in her stomach, and the fact that she would never get the chance to know her biological father. She needed to get the amber skull and get back to her present so she could save her mother. Her gaze zeroed in on the pocket of his red coat, where the shape of the skull was now noticeably absent.

Ah. So Severin didn’t come directly here, either.

‘Gage’s amber skull – where is it?’

Severin’s eyes lost their playful glint. ‘Now why would you be wanting that,
chère
?’

There was a noise like a gunshot, and both Sky and Severin moved to the flapping opening of the tent to see what had happened. Maybe fifty feet away from where they stood, the Big Top tilted briefly before settling back again. Flashing lights shone in and around the striped tarpaulin as people fought to get out, or simply fought each other in their panic. A high-pitched howl sounded, and Sky realised the wolves were still in there, somewhere.

No wonder they’re panicking.

Of course, even their sharp teeth and claws were no match for a throng of rioting humans.

‘Severin, I need you to trust me. Please, give me the skull.’

The boy stirred in Severin’s arms, and he readjusted his hold on him.

‘You wouldn’t be returning it to Gage, would you?’

Some flash of acknowledgement must have shown on her face.

‘Did he send you to wheedle out my secrets, then?’ Severin laughed, but it wasn’t the pleasant thrum of laughter she was by now used to hearing from him. ‘I shoulda known it was no coincidence that I’d suddenly find another of my kind.’

‘It’s not like you think, Severin.’ He gave her an incredulous look, one fair brow arched. ‘I mean, yes – Gage sent me to get the amber skull. But I’m only doing this to try to save my mum!’

Severin’s mouth had been open, ready to argue with her. Now it snapped shut with a click of teeth before opening again. ‘Your mama? Another Pathfinder?’

‘No, I told you neither of my parents are.’ Again, Severin appeared to be about to disagree with her. ‘I mean, the ones who raised me. I only found out yesterday that my dad’s not my real dad.’

Severin studied Sky in silence for a moment, the distant sounds of the Big Top going into meltdown still escalating, but everything happening just a few yards from them felt a hundred years away.

‘And your mother, is she a lady I might know?’

Sky nodded once. She could see the lines beginning to join together, the connections forming in Severin’s mind, like watching the pathways falling into alignment.

‘This isn’t your time, is it,
chère
?’

Sky shook her head. Words stuck in her throat; they would speed along this final encounter with the man who was just beginning to understand the connection between them.

‘My present is sixteen years in your future. Give or take.’

‘Give or take,’ Severin smiled wryly. ‘And the man you’ve called your papa – that’d be Guillaume, am I right?’

‘He’s my dad, yeah.’ A moment, a look so searching Sky almost had to break away. ‘But so are you.’

Severin’s mouth set in a firm line as he swallowed, then reached out a hand to brush her hair away from her eyes.

‘I should have seen it,’ he said, then shook himself, a smile creeping at the corners of his mouth. ‘It seems Miss Lily gave me a
lagniappe
, didn’t she? But these wonderings are for another time. You need the skull, you said. I’ve hidden it—’

‘Gampa!’

Little Jimmy, who would later be called Jared, squirmed in Severin’s arms, pointing with one pudgy finger to the field in front of them, now very much awake.

Gage moved through the darkness as though his feet barely connected with the ground, the brim of his bowler hat almost hiding the painted pallor of his face, but not his furious expression.

Severin swung the tent flap closed. ‘Run,
chère
. Out the back of this tent and around to where my trailer is – do you remember? Then you need to crawl under the end nearest the door. Reach up, and you’ll find a small box. The skull is inside. Quickly!’

They both looked at the small boy whose lower lip had started to tremble, and Sky reached for him. Severin shook his head.

‘Leave Jimmy, he’ll be fine. Gage might be a twisted son of a … you know what, but he’d never hurt his grandson. Go!’

So Gage is Miss Schwarz’s father, not Jared’s.

With one last look at a man she would never truly know, Sky darted behind a stack of crates out under the tarpaulin of the tent. She looked around her as she straightened, checking that Gage hadn’t skirted around the back of the tent, but she could see the dark outline of him disappearing through the flap Severin had just closed. She was alone.

Sky ran, cold stinging her bare feet, keeping her eyes on the ground in front of her so she wouldn’t miss her footing and go flying on the field. So she almost missed the darting figure heading the opposite way, hair trailing behind her. Hair so red that even the silvery moonlight couldn’t diminish it.

Miss Schwarz?

Sky had no time to wonder further. Only a few more feet, and she was safely tucked into the shadows between the caravans where the performers stayed, and Severin’s was within sight. She dropped to the grass at the end of his caravan and scooted underneath.