And nobody, not even Daron, could tear their stares away. The lights washed over her in a radiance he’d seen plenty of times, yet somehow it caught her differently. Like fire, or sunlight. She assessed the crowd, shrewd and closed-lipped. Giving nothing away.
Erasmus stood and beamed, his teeth as dazzling as the silky purple sheen of his vest. “Like with every performer and performance, we leave you with three props. An old top hat, a stool, and a glass of water. From there the story is yours to tell,” he said. “Once upon a time, a magician vanished into a world below…”
Kallia nodded intently, circling the items with quiet, intense focus. Before long, she casually took a seat on the stool, balancing the hat and glass in both hands. Her eyes drifted teasingly across the audience, over the judges’ table. At Daron.
Don’t you worry. I know the rules.
Her words returned to him in the small curve of her lips as she cast her gaze forward, topping the hat over her head. After taking a long sip from the glass, she tossed the remnants in a line behind her before smashing it to the ground.
The entire room jumped from the noise. Kallia bent over the broken glass, cupping her hands as if to capture a creature born from the sound. She hurled her hands out before her, releasing a noise of smashing glass. Again and again, she repeated the action, until the sound took on a life of its own. A strange, slow beat. Steady as a heart.
With the tempo set, Kallia smiled at her confused audience before lifting a single arm. Fire rose high from the ground, in a perfect line behind her from the remnants of water she’d thrown.
In a matter of moments, she’d caged sounds in her hand and bore fire from water.
“We must stop her—she’ll burn the whole place down!” Mayor Eilin wheezed from his seat, suddenly very much awake. Fire was obviously no friend to Glorian, but only the mayor reacted in fear. The rest of the judges appeared too mesmerized to even blink. Just like the audience.
Daron blinked at the glimmers of other sounds following the pattern of smashing glass: the slow rapping of a metal drum. A piano, pounding out lower chords. Robust blows of a horn that melted and melded everything together.
Music.
The floor shook at the sudden stomping of heels. At the startled gasps and exclamations, Daron craned his neck around. Women paraded down the aisles in flashy red circuswear, wielding their rusty instruments with flair. They played to the rhythm of the smashing glass, seizing the tempo with a song of their own. The bold tune of a midnight party, nowhere close to ending.
“This is ridiculous,” Judge Bouquet half-shouted, half-seethed, the music drowning him out.
Not a soul in the room was sleeping anymore. Some had even begun standing for a better look, their mouths agape. Eyes round as moons, and grins unsure but catching as the flames before them.
The fire rose high behind Kallia like a curtain, turning her into a dancing shadow for a moment while the Conquering Circus moved like flames below the stage. Daron wasn’t sure if he’d somehow fallen into a grand, chaotic dream. A world below, as the story would go.
Kallia swayed her hips, fierce triumph playing across her face. Her heels hit every beat as she kicked back the stool, taking the arm of a tall man in black pants and no shirt. Why the man needed no shirt was beyond Daron, but it was none other than the assistant, giving Kallia a playful spin before helping lift her onto the pegs of the stool.
And somehow, she kept ascending. After the first step from the base of the wood, another step formed to meet her foot. Then another, and another. The backdrop of the fire darkened her silhouette on the strange staircase of wood, bending and stretching in impossible ways to keep her standing.
Rising.
The applause intensified. From the rowdiest in the front to the quiet spectators in the back. Erasmus jumped up and stood on his seat, whistling with his fingers. None of the judges joined him, or dared show enjoyment. Only Daron, with a wry shake of his head. This would easily be his first and only five of the night.
The table banged beneath his elbow. Startled, he shot a quick glance down the line of judges and found the mayor thrusting his empty hourglass in the air. Time was up.
And nobody cared. No doubt Kallia was aware of the mayor’s signals and chose to ignore them. The people had become her time keepers, and they weren’t ready for the show to be over.
The floor gave another rumble beneath Daron’s feet, but not from the dancers surrounding him. He braced himself against his seat as the violent motion continued—rougher—impossible to ignore or mistake as any part of the act when one of the circus performers shrieked a note out of tone from her flute before stumbling.
The crowd stirred in a flurry of wooden groans and creaks from seats gripped and patrons rising. Even the music sputtered in discordant spikes as the players fought to plant their feet firmly over the carpeted aisles, their expressions aghast at the stage.
When Daron looked back up at Kallia, his blood chilled.
The top hat tipped on her head dropped to the ground.
A high scream.
It sounded from the audience, all watching as Kallia wavered in the air—nothing to steady or balance her still—before she slipped over her next step.
And fell.
Daron shot up from his seat. A barb-like feeling burst in his chest—a strange familiar panic—before a wave of applause came roaring.
Kallia had landed in the arms of her assistant.
Safe. The word pulsed through him. It took Daron a second to catch his breath, lower back into his seat, and calm his heart. Whether it had been a trick or a mistake, Daron couldn’t tell. Kallia hid her face in her assistant’s chest before throwing a coy smile out with a grand sweep of her arm, a burst of victorious laughter.
As if the fall hadn’t been enough, a series of lights sparkled from the stage. The top hat, which had fallen near the edge with its rim out and open to the crowd, began pouring out light. Sparks shot into the air like fireworks. And a swarm of peculiar black orbs came flying out, dissolving to glitter as they flew over the heads of those seated.
Little black birds soaring from the hat, vanishing into fireworks.
17
Kallia had never seen so many flowers in her entire life. Enough roses to fill rivers, fiery gloriosas galore, and the most curious kinds of plants with glittering scale-like petals and lights in the veins of their leaves. At Hellfire House, she’d mostly received trinkets and jewels, the occasional vase of flowers. But never this many all at once. The people of Glorian might not have had the means to attend performances before, but they sure knew how to show their appreciation.
“Marvelous act, you put on, my dear—absolutely marvelous!” one woman trilled, stopping Kallia with her gloved hand and a long-stemmed rose. “I don’t think I’ve felt my heart race so fast since I was a little girl.”
The whole circle that had gathered around Kallia chuckled, even Mayor Eilin. Despite the jovial manner with which he led the contestants and guests around the after party at the Prima, she couldn’t ignore his tight-edged smiles. To no surprise, he and the judges had scored her a collection of ones and twos. Demarco, the only four among them. But it was the roars of the crowd that saved her, everyone standing and begging for more. Not even the experts’ panel could go against the clear voters’ choice. Though they’d made quite a show of it, drawing out the names of the contestants who would remain in the running, until at last, uttering Kallia’s as if against their wills. Though now, they all raised their drinks. Just for tonight. Tomorrow, her success would be forgotten. And the claws would come out again, itching for another chance to knock her out.
Kallia barred those thoughts behind smiles, saving her sweetest for Aaros. He groaned underneath the weight of what looked to be his very own garden in his hands.
“Room for one more?” Kallia peered between leaves and stems and ribbons, finding a corner of a face in the mess of it.
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned. “I agreed to hau
l your spoils of war but it doesn’t mean you can abuse the power.”
“I just gave this city the best damn show it’s ever seen. You can’t expect me to be able to lift anything other than my wine.” She sipped at her glass and twirled the rose in her other free hand. Aaros squared her a look. “Oh fine, I guess I can hold one.”
“My hero.” Aaros craned his head over a bright orange-and-pink bouquet as he mouthed, “How are you holding up?”
Kallia’s stomach knotted. Only at the pricks at her palm did she realize how tightly she was gripping the rose. The adrenaline of performing could make her forget so much of an act, but not this one. Aaros had seen it clearly in her eyes like a fire running cold.
Fear.
Not of breaking her neck from the fall, but of something else.
That slip had rattled her; the hat only worsened it. Kallia had not been the one to make the entire show hall quake, nor had she summoned those awful birds.
It could’ve been anybody.
A jealous competitor. A bitter judge.
“Such promising talent across all of the gentlemen tonight, I’d say. Valmonts trained them well,” Kallia overheard a man say. He looked as harsh as his tone betrayed, in his stark gray top hat and stiff coat. “That girl though … using circus folk? All the dancing nonsense?”
“It was far too much,” his peer agreed. “A magician’s stage is no place for a showgirl.”
Kallia bit her tongue. She’d heard just as many whispers at her back as she had praise, post-performance, and despite how she forced herself to shake it off, it grated on her. She’d already arrived a burning fuse. It wouldn’t take much more to set her off.
“From their lackluster applause, I’d say those magicians could learn a thing or two from a showgirl.”
A new voice entered the gentlemen’s conversation. Demarco, stone-faced as usual with a near-empty glass in his hand. The moment they realized who’d spoken, the men blanched and huffed away. Demarco lifted his glass at their backs as if to bid them good-bye, before spotting Kallia watching him.
Heat flushed to her ears. His stare was heavier than hot iron, the same as when he’d held up his score of four for everyone to see. After meager numbers across the board, she’d been pleasantly gratified, then vexed. Four. Out of a possible five. He’d enjoyed her act enough to grant a high score, but not enough for a perfect one. It somehow grated on her nerves more than the mayor’s gleeful one.
Four. That imperfect number carved in the back of her mind.
Before she could step right up to him and demand why, he dropped his gaze, drained his glass, and turned away toward the bar.
“Look, there goes the Patron boy. What I’d give to see him grace the stage again.”
Behind Kallia, two elderly women in gem-bright gowns—clearly outsiders—peered at the bar behind their lacy, half-moon fans. “You think he’s seeing anyone?”
“What, are you asking for a friend?”
“Oh, you are bad. I’m just curious.” Her companion swatted her with her fan. “It’s been a while since he was last in the papers.”
“More like since he’s been in society! It’s been years. He has to move on.”
“Don’t be so heartless, Celie.” A reprimanding tsk. “It’s a shame, really, his assistant. Those two were sweet on each other.”
“Maybe not as sweet as we thought,” the other whispered. “He sure seems fine as hell, now.”
The two tittered on, venturing toward the bar as if to get a closer look at the subject of their gossip. Kallia would’ve followed were it not for the sudden ringing in her head, pulsing.
It was the dizziness. She’d been feeling funny ever since she stepped off the stage, especially after all the tricks she pulled. An endless tug-of-war against her body.
She teetered back when a hand caught her elbow.
“Easy there.” Aaros strained to hold her up along with the flowers. “Time to turn in?”
Kallia’s temple throbbed in assent, but she didn’t dare show it. Not with all these people around. “Yes, it’s a rather boring party, and we’ve had a long night.”
“That we have.” His shoulders relaxed. At the slight movement, a few petals fell from the bouquets in his arms. “What do you want to do with your new portable garden?”
“Just…” Kallia stroked at a row of soft petals, wishing she could keep them all like she had at Hellfire House. But carrying old habits from there only invited its presence. “Just drop them off at the front desk. They can toss or keep them for the hotel. It could use more color.”
Aaros’s brow furrowed. “I’m not entirely sure if that’s how it works in hotels, but I’ll give it a swing.”
She didn’t even have the energy to blush. She’d never been in a hotel before in her life, how was she supposed to know? She’d never had to continue entertaining guests after a night of performing, either. That, too, was new. Hours of soaking in the praises of others soon turned into a task she never thought would tire her, and Zarose, was she exhausted. Even her lips had grown stiff as bricks after hours of smiling. As the night weighed on her, she felt no guilt in abandoning her wine and slipping through the party, ignoring the calls of her name, the subtle touches at her arm to stop and chat. All she wanted was to curl up in bed alone.
“Cheater.”
The hiss stopped Kallia short after one step on the stairs. Behind her, one of the younger magicians—Ives—leaned against the large marble bannister, throwing her the darkest glare.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” He staggered forward to stand a step above her. The sour wine on his breath reached her in full force. “First you make a contestant disappear, and next you violate the rules and saunter around like you own the place? They should’ve never allowed someone like you in.”
Kallia bit back an enormous scoff. She shouldn’t have even wasted a moment on him, but the word snapped inside her. Cheater.
“How astounding,” she said through a grin. “I’m simply amazed.”
Ives paused. “By what?”
“Your fragility.” Her features hardened to ice. “I broke no rules. I outperformed you fair and square. Just because you delivered a mediocre act does not give you the right to take your frustrations out on me.”
His jaw dropped. “How dare you speak to me like that.”
“Likewise. Now get out of my way before you start to really annoy me.”
And before the others noticed. She had no qualms airing him out as an ass to the whole party, but their fight was on the stage. Whatever bait he was trying to throw at her, like hell she would give him the satisfaction of taking it where everyone could see.
The young man’s nostrils flared. “Funny how you act all high and mighty when you have no reason for it. I’ve only seen your kind at the underground clubs and bars, the only places girls like you belong.”
Kallia’s blood boiled. Don’t. Her fist tightened at her side, and she kept it there. Trembling. The instant Ives noticed it, his awful leer sharpened. “But none of you make it to the top, and we all know why. You’re just a spectacle, something pretty to look at—nothing more.”
“And how can you be so certain I’m nothing more?” Kallia drawled, a cold calm falling over her. “When it was the crowd who cheered my name tonight, and had all but forgotten yours?”
His face reddened. “That loose mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble if you don’t—”
“If she doesn’t what?”
Demarco had appeared at the foot of the stairs. Leaning against the bannister, unamused. Normally Kallia would roll her eyes at his official airs, but his presence exuded a force no one wanted to go up against. Certainly not the drunken magician, who’d scrambled off instantly with nothing more than an apologetic squeak.
“An unnecessary rescue, Mister Demarco. I was handling it.” Kallia inhaled, raking an exhausted hand through her hair.
“No doubt,” he said, looking up the length of the stairs. “He
was shaking with fear as you were practically stumbling up.”
“You were watching me?”
A muscle in his jaw ticked at her suggestive tone. “You dropped something.” He brought around a rose he’d kept behind his back. The poor flower had lost more of its petals, its head hanging limply over the stem.
Kallia refused to smile at the beaten rose. A small scowl twisted her lips instead. “Keep it. A rose for a rescue. Now we’re even.”
“What need do I have for it?” he asked, though he held onto it while gesturing up the stairs. “I was heading in the same direction, anyway. Thought it was time to call it a night.”
“Not one for parties?”
“Not anymore.”
It was impossible to miss the hardness in his voice, and something small within the cracks. A secret. That she wanted to know it irritated her more than anything, especially after hearing those ladies gabbing on about him earlier. “Walk with me, then. We are neighbors, after all.”
Demarco cast a wary look across the sea of bodies surrounding them. “Maybe you should go first. I’ll keep a few steps back.”
“Embarrassed to be seen with me?”
“No,” he exclaimed with such earnestness, she almost laughed. “It’s just … you know, people might think—”
“That we are going up the stairs and walking to our rooms?” Kallia held her chin high before taking the first step. “If they’re inclined to spin stories, they’re the ones with the problem. Not us.”
“They’ll spin stories, either way.”
She continued on her way, regardless. A faction of the party already thought the worst of her, so it made no difference who she traveled up and down the stairs with. Though at the sound of him following behind her instantly, she couldn’t help the flare of satisfaction working itself into a small grin. “What are you afraid they’ll say? I heard you’re no stranger to the gossip papers.”
“No friend to them, either.” His tone turned cautious. “Whatever you’ve heard about me, it’s most likely false.”
“Then you’ll no doubt be thrilled to know that I haven’t heard much.” Some business with his assistant, she recalled. So vague, yet Kallia had turned the possibilities over in her head. She’d never admit it, never give him an inch of her interest, but she was curious.
Where Dreams Descend Page 15