The Immortal Circus: Act Two (6 page)

I turn, slowly, to where Lilith sits. She’s on the top
bleacher, in the shadows. And I have no idea how long she’s been there.

The moment we spot her, she begins clambering down the
bleachers, crawling over them like a child on a jungle gym. It makes her look
like something from that horror movie
The Ring
. Her black hair is in
pink ribbons, and she’s wearing a baby-doll dress that makes her look
positively cherubic. Which, given her fiery interior, is even more terrifying.

“Heard you,” she says as she moves, “heard you talking. Came
to see.” When she reaches us, she stands a few feet away, her glossy shoes
scuffed and dusty in the ring. “You think we’re going to die.”

The last sentence, the somberness of it, makes my hair stand
on end.

She’s still locked up,
I try to convince myself.
Kassia
can’t escape.

“What are you doing here, Lilith?” Kingston asks. He tries
to keep his voice light, but there’s an edge to it. “You know Mab doesn’t like
you eavesdropping.”

“Auntie Mab dislikes many things,” she says. Her voice keeps
that eerily sane quality, the tone that makes me think she’s about to flip out.
“She dislikes secrets most of all.” She cocks her head to the side. Her green
eyes bore into mine. “You’re keeping secrets. So many secrets. Even from
yourself.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, but I’m
suddenly acutely aware of the note Sheena gave me, still tucked away in my
Tarot pouch. Was Lilith eavesdropping on that too?

“He is coming,” Lilith sings. “The Broken King is marching,
marching, marching out to get you.”

She starts to do a little twirl.

“Lilith,” Kingston begins. But she stops mid-twirl and
stares at him.

“I did not forget,” she whispers. “How you hurt me. I did
not forget that. No, no. He will come for you as well. And when he does, I will
laugh and play. The Broken King will kill you both, and I will laugh and play.”

She completes the spin and then leaves the tent, bouncing
and humming with every step.

When she’s gone, Kingston squeezes his eyes shut. It’s only when
he loosens his grip on my leg that I realize he’s been clutching it with white
knuckles.

“What the hell was that all about?” I ask.

“She’s getting worse,” he whispers.

“I noticed.”

He doesn’t ask me about secrets. He, like me, has probably
already had his fill. He fishes around in the pocket of his shorts and pulls
out a cigarette. I can’t tell whether it was there or if he manifested it
through magic. It’s already smoldering when he brings it to his lips.

“Who is the Broken King?” I ask.

“Oberon,” Kingston says. The word sounds like a curse,
especially under the big top; I expect crows to caw or lightning to strike. If
anything, the air just seems to grow a little warmer.

“Why did she call him that?”

“Because,” he says, “the Summer Court’s falling apart.
Oberon’s claim to the throne grows weaker every day. His people don’t think
he’s fit to rule, not with Mab dominating the Dream. His kingdom is broken, and
he’s broken too.”

I watch the smoke that trails from his cigarette, inhale the
familiar scent of cinnamon and brimstone. Just that tiny whiff is enough to
make my lungs tingle and burn. In a good way.

“And that’s why he’s coming after us,” I say. I almost say
me,
but I catch myself. Kingston’s eyes flicker over me, but he doesn’t press
it.

“So it seems,” he says. Another deep inhale. The smoke that
trails from his lips on the exhale reminds me of serpents or vines. I’m harshly
reminded of the talk he gave, months ago, on the dynamics of faerie sustenance.
It’s hard to imagine that here, under the lights of the big top, we’re
manipulating an entire economy. That our existence might be destroying a whole
realm.

I stare at the smoke and wonder how we’ve gotten so far off
topic. I’m still churning inside. Austin’s a ghost I can’t exorcise, and I
don’t want to. It’s not that I want to find emotion for him—Kingston’s
everything I could have wanted and more. It’s just that … Austin’s a link to
everything I chose to forget. And right now, it feels like my past has a
frighteningly large impact on my future.

“You’re going to fall in love, soon,” I say, glancing up from the cards spread out in
front of me. It’s twenty minutes before the evening’s first show.
I’m back in my gypsy wear and trying to focus on the present—and not
how creeped out I am over the idea of Lilith listening in behind the
walls of the booth. The woman on the other side of the table doesn’t tear
her eyes from the spread. She’s mid-forties, with a few streaks of silver in her
hair and one of those thin tie-dye blouses that went out of style in the seventies.
“Someone tall and fair-skinned. There will be much happiness.”

Melody told me, when I first signed on, that I needed to get
better at lying. She doesn’t tell me that anymore.

She’s watched me work.

Now, lying is all part of the job. Hell, it feels like it’s
the only thing I do anymore, not that I’m complaining. The lies are what are
keeping me alive. Sane. Besides, my gig is fortune teller, not counselor. The
woman sitting across from me doesn’t want to know the truth the Tarot cards are
actually revealing through the haze of my migraine. She doesn’t want to know
that her son is addicted to heroin, and her ex is about to take her to court.
She doesn’t want to know that she’ll lose the house in the settlement or that a
year from now her start-up business is going to go under. And yeah, there is a
tall, fair-skinned man involved, and he
will
make her happy. Until her
son goes into rehab and the douchebag leaves her.

I try to tell myself it’s not lying so much as twisting the
truth. Giving her hope.

The woman’s still not looking at me. Her eyes are transfixed
on the
Death
card. She’s staring at it like it’s some viper waiting to
attack. I really wish someone would make a deck where
Death
is called
“Happy Change” or “End to Suffering” or something more accurate like that.
Explaining it to the public is getting old. Granted, in this case it actually
does mean someone’s going to die. Potentially.

Heroin’s not something to mess around with.

She points to the skeleton card with a shaky finger.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “It just means things are
changing. But hey, that’s life, right? It’s always changing.”

She just smiles timidly and nods.

I should tell her about her son. I should warn her about her
bastard ex-husband. I should, but then she wouldn’t leave a nice tip in my
little glass jar, because the truth hits too close to home. And I can tell she
already knows. The worry lines carved into her forehead, the way she twitched
the moment I set down the less appetizing cards. A great deal of telling
fortunes isn’t reading cards but reading the story inscribed in the
questioner’s features, their ticks and tells. Most people already know what I’m
going to tell them. Which is why I don’t always point it out.

She stands. Before she goes, she pulls out a five and rolls
it up, then places it discreetly in my tip jar.

“Thank you,” she says. She’s got the voice of someone
hanging on by a thread, grasping for any hope she can find. Like most people
who come to me. God, if only Mab had warned me just how depressing the job
could be.

I do my best to smile comfortingly, even though my stomach
drops at the way her hand shakes.

Warning her wouldn’t make a difference. That’s kind of my
mantra.
I can’t change someone else’s life.
I can’t even change mine.

Still, as she walks off, I can’t help but feel like a bitch
for not trying.

I slide the cards back into the deck and start shuffling,
staring idly out onto the promenade. There are still people lined up at the
sparkly green ticket booth to my right, and the noise and congestion closer to
the tent is starting to fade out. Another full house, another night of flawless
acts and standing ovations. If only I could take some pride in that. If only I
didn’t feel like I was waiting for the ax to fall.

Kingston didn’t say much the rest of the afternoon. And for
my part, I didn’t press him. The headache from that morning kept getting worse,
and no amount of water or coffee or meds took the edge off. Pride is pretty
much the only thing keeping me from asking Kingston to soothe it, but right
now, with the ache that’s nestled happily behind my temples, I might just cave.

I tell myself it’s pride and not lack of trust, but I have
to be honest with myself; a small part of me isn’t so certain that if I allow
him to use his magic on me, he won’t just erase the whole Austin thing to save
himself a great deal of inner trauma. When I hear the fabric rustle behind me,
I immediately tense up and stop shuffling.

“Hey, pretty lady,” Kingston says. “Care to tell my future?”

“You scared the shit out of me,” I say, but I’m smiling. The
twist in his voice makes me think maybe everything’s back to normal, at least
from his standpoint. I put the deck back on the table and reach my hands up and
behind me, wrapping him in an awkward reverse hug.

“I see a mysterious woman,” I say. I should probably close
the curtain of the booth before a punter looks in, but the risk is minimal. The
fire artists are walking up and down the dirt promenade, breathing and whirling
billows of flame that draw in the crowd like moths to, well, a flame. Any sort
of PDA in the fortune booth is far less appealing than the spectacle outside.
“She spells trouble.”

He chuckles, the vibration rolling from his lips down my
neck. I shiver in spite of the layers of tulle and velvet.

“They always are,” he says. Then he bites my neck.

I slap the side of his face. Gently, of course. Can’t mar
the star magician right before the show.

“Cool it, loverboy,” I say.

He nips me once more before standing. He reaches over and pulls
the drawcord, and the velvet curtains separating us from the public close. The
booth goes dark as night.

Before I can say anything, he pulls me up from the chair and
pins me to the table, making the whole thing creak with our weight. His fingers
are in my hair and one hand is tight on my hip. His lips are hot on mine and my
skin is on fire. I hate myself for the little moan that escapes my lips as he
presses himself tighter to me. But then his lips cover mine and the thought
vanishes.

“Aren’t you going on soon?” I mutter against his lips.

He bites my lower lip and doesn’t let go when he mumbles,
“I’ve got five minutes.”

I laugh, but I don’t push him off. I place a hand to his jaw
while the other reaches down to the back of his leg, pressing him even closer.
Now,
he’s
the one who lets out a little moan. I grin.
Point:
Vivienne.
The fire he’s sending through my bones spreads, making my skin
shiver. It’s not just desire: I mean, it is that, but there’s more to it, more
than carnal need or whatever the hell I’m usually gripped with. It
tingles.
The ache in my head transforms, becomes a rush like a second heartbeat. I know
he’s not using magic, but that’s what it feels like. The tingling spreads from
my lips into my chest, wraps around my heart and then wings out into my arms,
through my fingertips, and all I want is him closer, closer.

Kingston gasps against my neck as the tingle becomes a hum.
I grip him tighter, dig my fingers into his skin, no longer caring if I leave a
bruise. My brain is spinning, spinning, and the darkness behind my eyes is
filled with stars.

“Vivienne, what …” he says, his hands suddenly clenching
tight. The pain is a spark inside me. One that feels insanely, ridiculously
good.
The heat is a fire, the stars a sun. I need him. Now. I need to tear him apart.
It’s only when he starts to push me away that my eyes flutter open and I
realize it isn’t just my desire making me see stars.

My hands are glowing in the dark of the booth.

I yelp. My grip releases and he steps back to the wall
behind him. The moment there’s space between us, the light goes out, leaving
only shadow and shaking breath.

The seconds stretch. Outside the booth, I hear the jugglers
calling the audience into the tent. Kingston should be backstage now, circled
up with the rest of the troupe. I should be with him. But neither of us moves
or speaks. There’s just the ragged rush of blood pumping through my veins, the
weighted question I’m too terrified to ask.

After a few moments pass, he asks for me.

“Viv … what was that?” I’ve only heard him frightened once
before. Just once. He’s faced down the end of the world and kept his nonchalant
air. The quake in his voice confirms the worst.

I can’t answer him. Of course I can’t answer him—I have no
fucking clue what just happened. But in the back of my mind, I know that’s a
lie. We both know what that was. But neither of us wants to admit it. So much
for my powers being kept under lock and contract.

“I don’t …” I say. I can’t finish the sentence, and I don’t
have to. He knows just as much about it as I do.

Maybe more.

“We should tell Mab,” he says. I can only imagine how
thrilled she’ll be at another visit and another kink in her carefully preened
contracts.

I nod. He doesn’t see it, of course, but I can’t speak. All
I can see is the look in Lilith’s eyes the moment I gave over to that flood of
power, the shock and fear and pain. The tingling is gone, but I don’t trust
myself to move. I definitely don’t trust myself to touch him. Not now.
Ever
again?
The thought flitters through my head like a curse.

“I need to go,” he says.

I hear him move and can almost feel him shift closer to hug
me before he stops himself. Even in the darkness, I can imagine his brown eyes
are filled with concern. At least, I hope it’s concern. I don’t want to believe
he could be looking at me with shock or fear. Or disgust.

“I’ll talk to her,” he says. “Just don’t … don’t …”

He sighs and ducks from the booth. I sit there in the dark,
staring at my hands, and wait for them to glow again, wait for something to
make sense.

They don’t. Nothing does.

“Shit,” I whisper. It sounds like a sob.

The ache in my head is back, and I start shaking
uncontrollably. This is too much, too much.
The Broken King is coming for
you.
Maybe I should let him take me.

Before I lose control and hurt someone.

Kingston doesn’t come back. I don’t see him during
intermission or after the final curtain call. He isn’t changing out back when I
find Melody and Sara and offer to buy the wine tonight. He isn’t anywhere to be
seen, and Mab’s just as absent. And so I sit beside Mel and Sara and try to
pretend nothing happened. I try to drink away the ache in my head for fear that
if I let it go, it will lead to something else. I try to laugh as the Shifters
joke, try to convince myself that maybe this is them letting me into their
world again. But when the night dies down and the fire is ashes and everyone is
making out or passed out, I’m hit with the terrible realization that I’m still
on the outside. And without Kingston, I’ve got nothing.

It sickens me, really, and not just the wine and the
headache. As I walk back to my trailer, I’m acutely aware of how isolated I am:
not just from the people around me, but from my past. I have nothing to hold on
to, nothing to make me feel complete. And that—my mind swirls—that makes me
want to know more. I don’t want to be the girl that’s with the guy because
without him she’s nothing. I want to be the girl who’s with the guy because
she’s powerful and he’s powerful and they’re powerful together.

I have no memories of what I was. And right now, I have no
one to hold me here. I am drunk and adrift, and right now I just wish I could
go back to the beginning and undo coming here. Because I’m alone. I’m alone,
and it feels like it’s only going to get worse from here on out.

I curl up in bed and stare at my hands in the dark. The
headache throbs.

“I just want to know,” I whisper.

And between my fingertips—a spark.