The Immortal Circus: Act Two (3 page)

“You get
used to it,” Kingston said. He didn’t sound happy about it.

“But
aren’t you scared?” I asked, barely whispering. “I mean, we have a fucking
demon in our midst. Not to mention the oh-so-tiny fact that the entire Summer
Court will happily torture each and every one of us if it means getting to her.
We’re sitting ducks.”

He
sighed. But he didn’t have a quick response, not for that.

“I
know,” he finally admitted. The words wrenched out of him, as though they hurt
to say. I wondered if maybe voicing his doubts went against his own contract.
Now that Penelope was gone, he did seem to be Mab’s right-hand man. “But I’m
taking precautions. Mab is too. I’m not going to let you get hurt.”

I
ignored the sentiment.

“I still
don’t see why Mab didn’t let me kill her,” I said. I felt sick the moment the
words left my lips. Since when was I okay being a killer?

Even
Kingston looked shocked at my statement. He raised an eyebrow and leaned back,
as though examining me in a new light.

“Mab’s
not like that,” he finally responded. “And Lilith … Lilith’s not all bad. She’s
just misunderstood.”

I
laughed.

“Are you
kidding me? Lilith tried to kill me. She’s fucking psychotic. What part of that
is
misunderstood
?”

Kingston
sighed and looked out toward the Shifters.

“You’ve
been here long enough to know that nothing is how it appears.” He nodded to the
woman currently twisting herself into what looked like Björk,
swan dress and all. “We’ve all got more going on than what’s on the
surface.”

I clamped
my jaw shut. I knew that tone of voice. The conversation was over.

And
yeah, I knew very well that I couldn’t believe my eyes, not even regarding
myself. But that didn’t make his answer any less bullshit.

There
was no way that just ignoring the time bomb that was Lilith would make it go
away,
no way that I was misunderstanding a homicidal maniac in girl’s
clothing.

I leaned
back on my elbows and watched the Shifters laugh and roll around in the sand.
At least with them, you knew you weren’t seeing the full picture. It was the
others—the ones who looked innocent or normal—that I had to keep my eye on.

One of
these days, I would get a straight answer from Kingston.

I just
hoped it was before Lilith decided to prove me right.

“I liked the new whip act,” I
say. We’re at the backstage tent, right before the final curtain. Kingston is
sitting on an empty steamer trunk, his cloak thrown over the back and a dove
fluttering on his outstretched hand. The moment I appear at his side, the bird
disappears in flash of yellow and a twirl of flame. I can’t help but think how
similar it looks to the way Penelope went up in smoke.

“Thanks,”
he says. “Mab’s idea. Said she was getting tired of being onstage solely as a
sex object.”

I chuckle.
“Really?”

He grins up
at me and slides from the crate. “Well, not her words per se, but I know that’s
what she meant.”

I feel like
there’s something I should be saying, something about my interaction with
Lilith during the show, but the panic has taken on a muted tone, like waking up
from a bad dream and slowly realizing it was all just in your head. Still, I
see Kingston and my intuition tells me there’s something significant on the
line. Something is amiss. I shrug off the foreboding and focus on the
performers running around backstage, readying themselves for the final bow. I
don’t want to be the drama queen.

Melody
comes up from the front of house, a popcorn box in one hand and her enormous
pink wig in the other. She’s in her usual tight pinstripe suit, her face rouged
pink and baby-like. She tosses the box to me when she’s a few feet away, then
slides her Marie Antoinette monstrosity on her head, transforming her into some
twisted man’s dream of innocent objectification.

“Evening,
ladies,” she says. “How’s it hanging?”

“Just fine,
doll,” Kingston says. “How you feeling?”

She nods
and looks distractedly across the backstage. I don’t know if she remembers
getting so sick when Penelope was on her rampage. I don’t even know if she
remembers
Penelope
because every time I’ve tried to say the name, the
word gets stuck in my throat and I feel like I’m choking. Still, I know without
a doubt that Kingston’s making sure Melody is protected.

He had
tried explaining it to me, a few days after things had settled down. Something
about her being the perfect host for a magical tithe that kept the troupe
immortal and safe … so long as she aged and died in return. I’d asked him if
she had gotten sick because of the murders or if the murders were possible
because of her illness. He’d said there wasn’t any difference. When I asked for
clarification, he just shrugged and said that magic was tricky. And often
ruthless.

I can’t
help but look at her differently, knowing all that. Knowing that this girl is
going to wither and die just so the troupe remains young and gorgeous and
healthy.
She knows,
I tell myself.
At least she’s not in the dark
about that too.
But it doesn’t matter: I want to hold her and apologize
because my very existence within the troupe is killing her.

Every time
Kingston asks how she’s feeling, when he wouldn’t ask anyone else because
everyone else is contractually obligated to be healthy, well … it’s a reminder
of just how unfair magic really can be.

I glance
over to a flash of movement. A girl in sparkling violet spandex is running across
the lawn, her curly brown hair bouncing with every step.

“Hey,
babe!” the girl calls out the moment she nears us. And then she wraps Mel in a
hug and they’re kissing like Kingston and I aren’t even there.

He looks at
me and raises an eyebrow, and I’m reminded of the day Melody warned me away
from dating within the troupe. I’ve yet to bring it up because that was the day
she was kidnapped by the Summer Court, and I don’t know if she remembers any of
it. I tread lightly on potential minefields of memory. But I still find the
irony of her dating advice incredibly amusing.

“Hey guys,”
Sara says, once she’s extricated herself from Melody’s arms. She smiles, and it
makes dimples appear on her artistically accentuated cheekbones. The fuchsia
makeup almost covers the scar by her left eye. “The new act was awesome,
Kingston.”

He bows.
There’s applause within the tent. Time for the final bow, which, of course, I’m
still not really a part of. In fact, I should be getting out to my booth in
case someone wants their fortune read before heading back to monotony. One last
glimpse of the beautifully impossible before the real world claims them.

Before they
go, Kingston wraps me in a quick hug. Then the three of them head toward the
backstage curtain, where the rest of the troupe is lined up and ready. I turn
to go to the front promenade. As I walk past them, Sara waves just before
ducking into the tent.

Memory
burns, and my chest constricts.

Something
about her is so fucking
familiar.
But then she ducks under the curtain,
and I’m left with nothing. I shrug deeper into my shawl and head for my booth.

As expected, the crowd leaves
the tent and barely gives me a second glance.

My booth is
more a small tent than anything else. The exterior is fairly nondescript, but
inside, everything is lush velour and dangling beads. The entry curtain is made
of amethyst and quartz—“genuine,”
Mab admitted, when showing me my new
digs, “to enhance your skills”
—
and the light comes from a few dozen
electric candles flickering from standing sconces and hanging from the steepled
ceiling. I can just barely see the punters walk past outside; a few stop and
peer in. One child brushes past the curtain, stops in the center of the room,
and stares up at me, before her parents duck in to pull her out. I smile and
wait.

Psychics
don’t seek out clients. They wait for clients to come to them. Then, as Mab
suggested, I say something like “I was hoping I’d see you” and give them a
mysterious smile. Mab gave me many pointers on how to be a winning psychic. Most
of them were just for show; the rest of it, the actual fortune-telling bit,
came naturally.

A little too
naturally.

As usual, I
just lean back in my chair and stare out across my crushed-velvet table and
shuffle a pack of faded Tarot cards. It’s really getting to me, the fact that
no one seems to remember or be bothered by Mab’s effigy anymore. It’s been this
way ever since people started showing up dead at the beginning of the summer
tour: Mab sweeps everything under the rug, and we’re left waiting and wondering
who’s going to be the next to go. At least those of us who are allowed to
remember.

I glance
down at the cards in my hands.

I’ve tried
doing readings for myself and gotten nothing but a jumble. But maybe, because
this reading is about the show …

I shuffle
with intent now. The cards whir in my fingers, and a small part of me thinks
that this is stupid; I shouldn’t be messing around when I’m technically on
duty. But no one’s coming in, and the show’s been over for at least ten
minutes. Stragglers are unusual, especially this late in the game.

Besides, if
someone comes it, it will just make me look more authentically dedicated to my
craft. Or something like that.

No one told
me how to read the cards or how to deal them. I just started shuffling one afternoon
and followed my gut. So when instinct tells me to stop shuffling, I do. I flip
a few cards facedown on the table in a triangle shape, for no particular reason
beyond that the shape makes me think of the tent. I set the deck aside, next to
the hokey crystal ball and obsidian pendulum I’ve never used and hopefully
never will. Then I flip the cards over one by one.

The
Tower. Ten of Swords. The Emperor.

Something
settles in the pit of my stomach. It’s the same sensation I had when I first
saw Sabina, posed and bleeding on her contortion pedestal. The same feeling I
had when we found Roman impaled on six bloody swords. The same as the haphazard
visions I shouldn’t be having.

I feel the
end.

“I hope
that’s not about us,” comes a voice.

I glance up.
It’s Sheena.

We both look
down to the cards in front of me.

“I didn’t
know you read,” I say quietly. She’d read my tea leaves once, but I learned
quickly that psychic gifts tend to pick and choose their outlet.

“I dabble,”
she says. She sits down across from me.

Sheena’s
hair is purple and short, and she’s got a wispy sort of appearance that makes
her always seem like she’s trying to fade into the background. Which, oddly
enough, she’s able to do in spite of the hair. She’s one of the few people
hired on full-time as a concessionaire, although, as I learned after Roman’s
death, that’s not the real reason Mab keeps her around.

I take a
deep breath.

“What do you
think it means?” I ask. Which is silly, as I’m the one who’s meant to be doing
the readings.

She presses
a finger to her lips and looks at the cards intently. Did she always have so
many rings in her bottom lip, or are they new? I need to start paying better
attention to my surroundings.

“I think you
know exactly what it means,” she says. She peers up at me. Her light-gray eyes
sparkle purple. She points to
The Emperor
. “Oberon is coming. He’s
angry; Mab has wronged him greatly. The Blood Autumn Treaty has been broken.
Now, he won’t stop until his son and his honor are avenged, or until we’re all
dead.”

That’s what
I was hoping wasn’t the case.

Instead, I
say what many of my clients have said: “You can tell all that from the cards?”

“No,” she
says. She goes back to looking at the cards. Her jaw tightens as she bites her
lip. “I know that because he’s told me.”

“He … told
you?” I stare at her. I knew she defected from the Summer Court, but I had no
clue she was still in contact. How was that even possible? I thought she was
trying to hide from them.

“Do you
remember when Mab asked me to speak to Roman?” she asks, her voice light as a
whisper.

“Of
course,” I reply. How could I forget?

“Then you
remember what I do,” she says. “I speak for the dead.”

I nod.
Here, I thought my own talents—what I knew of them, at least—were strange. But
to channel the recently deceased? I shiver at the thought. I’m still not
getting used to so many dead things. I kind of don’t want to.

“Well,
Oberon knows this.” She looks up at me, and the haunted look is back in her
eyes. Suddenly, she looks tired, older, as though the full weight of her
situation is finally bleeding through. “And he’s been sending … messengers to
try to get in touch with me.”

“Why?” I
ask.

She takes a
deep, shaky breath.

“For you,”
she says. “He wants to speak with you.”

Something
bubbles in my chest, a note of fear.

“Me?” I ask. My voice shakes against my will. “What would he want with
me?”

I had no hand in killing Oberos; all I did during the attack was fend off
Kassia, and I don’t even remember how I did it. He shouldn’t even know I exist.

Sheena shakes her head. “He won’t say.”

“But how? How is he even talking to you?”

There’s a pause, and suddenly I’m acutely aware of the vastness of the
field we’re in, the stillness to the night air now that the crowd has
dispersed. The walls of my tent seem far too thin.

“The dead,” she says. “He knew I could speak to the dead, and he knew I
was here, close to you. He’s been … killing off his subjects and sending them
to me. With messages.”

“That’s awful.”

“That’s war,” she says. “Both sides do terrible things.” She shakes her
head and looks at me. “He says he knows what you are. And if you want to know
what you are, you will go to him. Before the war starts. Before you’re killed
in the crossfire. Whatever you are, you’re important to him. Maybe more so than
the Treaty itself.”

Her words are knives. But not for the reasons she might assume.

Oberon knows what I am. He knows, and he can tell me.

I don’t know how that’s possible, especially not when everyone
here—myself included—seems perfectly oblivious to the question.
He knows.
The
emotions mixing in my chest fill me with guilt. Part of me is excited at the
idea. The rest is terrified for what she insinuates.

“What is the Blood Autumn Treaty?” I ask. I’ve heard it mentioned over
and over, but no one will tell me what it is. Only that it’s important. That
Mab broke it. And that, in breaking it, she set a whole lot of shit in motion.
I can’t imagine how I’m tied to it, and I’m fed up with wondering.

Sheena’s lips purse, and for a moment I’m worried she’s going to brush
the question off or at least say she can’t tell me due to her contract.

“Give me your hands,” she says. I raise an eyebrow.

“Some things are better shown than said.”

I hold my hands out on the table, my skin just touching the cards still
laid out there. Sheena looks at this and laughs.

“
The Tower
,”
she says. It’s the one card not covered by my
hands, the peak of the pyramid. The painting shows a stone tower crumbling
under lightning. And in the corner, a small figure huddles. “She’s going to be
our downfall.” I don’t ask what she’s talking about. A part of me already
knows.

She reaches out and begins tracing the lines of my palms with a finger.
Her touch tickles.

“We have to go back,” she says. “We have to follow the roads back.”

I watch her finger, watch as small trails of light seem to follow its
wake, making the lines of my palm glow in some complex symbol. Then the tickle
of her touch becomes a tingle, and the vibration makes my world go white.

Everything
is fire.

Fire in the trees, fire in the fields, fire in the sky. Fire, but
that’s not the only red in the world; everything else is blood. Blood and
burning.

Sheena shimmers at my side, a ghost of herself; I see the girl, but I
also see through her. A light shines in her chest, a flickering sphere of
purple that I somehow know is her true self, the real faerie she keeps hidden
under layers of glamour.

“Where are we?” I ask. My voice is hollow. At my feet runs a stream of
red, and I refuse to look closer to see if it’s water or blood.

“Faerie,” she says. “This is the past. This is the battle that ended
the war.”

Something flashes on the horizon, a blinding light that rumbles
through my bones.

Creatures burst through the trees, then—some humanoid, some
animal-like, some nothing more than floating balls of light. But all of them
are running and screaming. The creatures with limbs carry weapons or sacks or
bits of furniture. Some are on fire.

I watch as a deerlike creature with a female torso runs through the
ghost of Sheena. Sheena disperses like smoke in a breeze and then gathers again
when the creatures are gone.

“I cannot show you all,” she says. “There are things Mab has sworn us
to secrecy about. But I can show you this. The aftermath. This is the Blood
Autumn.” She points to the horizon, to where the light just flashed. There are
smaller flares above the trees, but nothing as bright as that one burst. “And
that,” she says, “is the demon that caused it all.”

Kassia,
I want to whisper, but the word chokes in my throat.

Sheena notices. She nods.

“This is the day both sides met to declare a truce. The demon was
caught and trapped somewhere in the depths of Faerie. It could not be killed,
not without the Assassin’s help. But the demon had slain the Assassin, so
capture was the only solution. The truce was simple: none would release the
demon, lest it rip apart the world. It would lie forgotten, contained in its
tomb, never to stir again.”

“But Mab broke the truce,” I say. “She let the demon free.”

Sheena nods.

“Faerie was on the verge of destruction, and that carnage would have
overflowed into the world of man. To break the Blood Autumn Treaty is to
endanger all worlds. Now that Oberon knows what has been done, he will not
stop. Not until the demon is destroyed or captured again. Not until his kingdom
is safe.”

“What does this have to do with me?” I ask. But a part of me knows. I
remember how it felt to press my glowing hands to Kassia’s flesh, to feel the
power of stars flow through my veins. Somehow, I’m the one who can subdue her.
If only I knew why.

Sheena opens her mouth.

The vision shatters.

“A bit
late for readings, isn’t it?” Kingston asks.

His hands are on my shoulders, and it takes a moment to realize my own
hands are empty on the table. Sheena is nowhere to be seen.

I shake my head and bring my hands to my lap. I try to stutter out a
response, but he just laughs and leans over to kiss me on my forehead.

I have a million questions. I don’t even know where to start.

“What are you looking into?” he asks, before I get the chance to open my
mouth.

It takes me a long time to answer.

“I wanted to know what was going on. With the show. What Mab was hiding.”

“Doesn’t look too promising,” he says.

I shake my head and glance up at him. For the first time in a long time,
he actually looks a little worried.

“What does it mean?” he asks.

“I think it’s Lilith,” I say. I decide to leave out the whole “Oberon
wanting me” thing; I’ll clarify that with Sheena later. “Oberon’s coming back
for her.”

Kingston nods.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” he says. “It was only a matter of time.”

“You knew?” I ask.

He nods.

“I’ve always known what Lilith was—what Oberon would do if he found out
about her.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He touches his throat. “Couldn’t,” he says with a wry grin. “Mab made
sure of it.”

“So what do we do?”

He takes a deep breath.

“We wait,” he says. “Mab’s smart. She wouldn’t jeopardize the show. If
we’re actually in danger, she’ll call us to arms. You saw what happened when
Oberos attacked.”

“Shouldn’t we be doing something, though? Training or arming ourselves?”

Kingston smiles.

“You forget, Viv: everyone is here because they’re running from
something. Most of those “somethings” involve murder. Our performers are
already trained killers, even if they don’t remember it. Oberos attacked
because he was young and stupid. Oberon knows better. Right now, he’s just
blowing smoke up our ass.”

And trying to find me,
I think. But I don’t say that. I don’t know
why, but I don’t want Kingston to know anything that Sheena told me. I have no
doubt that she was putting a lot on the line to come and speak to me, and I
don’t want her jeopardized for it.

Those small acts of friendship are really all I have in this troupe.

“Come on,” he says. He lifts me from the seat. “Let’s get you out of
those layers and into my bed.”

I chuckle as he pulls me to standing, and I try to keep the humor as our
lips press and his hands wrap around my hips. But it’s hard to stay in the
moment. It’s hard to forget Sheena’s warning.

That in itself is why I don’t want Kingston to know I’m worried. Because
if he knows what I’ve learned, there’s nothing to say he won’t be obligated to
magic it away.

It’s
afternoon, a few hours before the next show, and we’re walking down the main
street of the nearest podunk town. The sun is shining and there’s ice cream, so
I’m not complaining about the small-town ambiance. Sara’s holding hands with
Mel, and I’m watching the people watching us walk past. No doubt a few of the
guys are raising their eyebrows in the hope that we’re a lesbian threesome.
This makes me smile inside, so I just keep licking my ice cream and staring
into their eyes, trying to channel Mab.

I’d tried to find Sheena this morning, but she was gone. The girl is very
good at fading into the background.

“What do you think it means?” I ask for what feels like the twentieth
time this week.

“What?” Mel asks. She hands over her ice cream to Sara. I realize they’re
both perfectly in step. Sara’s wearing a striped green T-shirt and a straw hat;
these, paired with giant sunglasses and sandals, make her look like she should
be lounging on a beach somewhere. No one would know she has three long throwing
daggers for her new act tucked into the canvas tote slung jauntily over her
shoulder. Melody looks a little more reserved beside her, though she’s ditched
her usual loose cardigan for a holey V-necked shirt and lime-green skirt. I
wonder if they tried to match or if that was just a byproduct of spending so
much time together.

“The effigy,” I say. I haven’t said anything about what Kingston or Mab
told me. I want to know just how much the rest of the troupe’s been let in on
and who believes Mab’s crappy cover-up. A publicity stunt? Really?

Mel shrugs.

“Klaus says it was all for shock value,” Mel says. Klaus, right. The new
pink-Mohawked Shifter dude. I wonder if all their leaders adopt the hairstyle.
“Something about keeping all the newbies in line.”

“Why would Mab need to do something like that?” I ask. Mab’s not above
scare tactics—hell, I don’t think there’s anything too outrageous for Mab—but I
can’t see why anyone would blame her for this.

“Unrest,” Sara says. “A lot of the new people are unhappy with their
contracts.”

I raise an eyebrow and feel a drip of ice cream dribble down my hand. I
don’t bother licking it up.

 “Unhappy?”

Sara nods and hands the ice cream over to Mel.

“Yeah,” Sara continues. “I guess a lot of them didn’t really look their
contracts over before signing. I heard a few of them say they were thinking of
leaving or trying to renegotiate.”

“What are they upset about?”

The two of them share a look.

“Come on, don’t do that,” I say. “Just because you’re sleeping together
doesn’t mean you can keep secrets.”

“It’s just,” Sara says slowly, “you’re kind of seen as the old guard, you
know? You and Kingston. Everyone sees you as Mab’s henchmen.”

I stop walking and stare at them. “That’s ridiculous. I’ve only been here
a few months.”

Sara shrugs. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

“What about Mel?” I say. “She’s been here longer than me.”

Another shrug.

“Yeah. I don’t know; it’s different,” Sara says.

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Mel says. “It’s just stupid cliques. Give it a
couple decades and everyone will be old guard.”

“Right,” I say, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s why I’ve felt so
singled out. That, on top of actually knowing what’s going on.
Mab’s henchmen.
Kingston would die laughing if he knew.
Especially
if he knew how
uncomfortable it makes me.
You wanted to be a part of the show,
he’d
tease, and I’d have no way of countering his statement.

Maybe he already knows. Hell, maybe he coined the phrase.

“Why do people want out of their contracts?” I ask. Not that I blame
them. The more I learn about mine, the more I’m thinking I should have read the
fine print a little more carefully.

“Well, a lot of them …” Sara bites her lip. Melody picks up her slack.

“A lot of them, the Shifters especially, feel like they were set up.”

“Set up?” I ask. Melody nods gravely and starts walking again.

“Yep,” she says. “Woke up to find themselves surrounded by dead relatives
with blood on their hands, or on the run from the cops with a gun in their
pocket and no memory of shooting up the Burger King. That sort of thing.”

“That’s …” but I can’t say “ridiculous,” because it’s not.

“That’s not the strange part,” Sara says. “Most of them have some latent
powers.”

“Like?” I ask.

Sara looks around. We’ve long passed the main drag—we’re in a residential
area now, one devoid of life save for a dog chained in the front yard of a
pristine white house.

“Like this,” she says. She cups her hands in front of her and blows into
her palms. A small flame appears and ripples there; when she stops blowing, the
flame winks out.

“You’re a witch?” I ask. Because it looks remarkably similar to
Kingston’s magic.

“No,” Sara says. “I’m a firebreather. I can summon flames. Never knew I
could, until Mab showed me how.”

I furrow my eyebrows.

“And you’re all like this? The new performers? Violent pasts and magic
powers?”

Sara nods.

“Then what’s your story?” I ask Sara, right before realizing it’s
probably beyond rude.