by A. R. Kahler
“There has to be a way.”
“There isn’t.”
I search his eyes for a tell, for any hint of a lie. Maybe he wants to keep her like this—a doll he can play with. Maybe he doesn’t want her to remember for another reason. But if he’s lying about his logic, it’s not showing. It’s not a lie if she thinks it’s true.
That’s when his earlier words filter through my head. If Oberon had control over the Oracle before . . . maybe, just maybe, he’d know how to reclaim her. After all, he wants her back. He has to know how to get her powers to manifest.
“I’ll find a way. You clearly don’t know me; I never fail in a mission.”
For the first time in the conversation, he’s the one who smirks. He edges forward, the slightest shift, and I don’t like the sudden change in his demeanor.
“That’s not what I hear about Roxie,” he whispers. “Sounds like you fucked that one up quite well.”
I grit my teeth. I want to punch him. No, I want to stab him or chain him up and torture him for a few days. Instead, I keep my face blank. Don’t let him see it’s working. Don’t let him see it got under your skin.
“As far as I’m concerned,” I say smoothly, not looking from his eyes, “that job is still on. I haven’t failed. Not by a long shot.”
“Whatever you have to tell yourself, Claire.” He steps back then, but it doesn’t feel like defeat. It feels like he’s taking control. He walks over to the door and pushes it open. “I think we’re done here. I can’t force you to take your mother elsewhere. Just as I can’t force you to leave. As you said, you run the show. So you call the shots. You want your mother to slowly die here, feel free. Just don’t expect me to hold your hand through it.”
“You’re an asshole,” I whisper.
“And you’re sentencing your mother to a slow, painful death. Remember when I said her memories would burn her up? I meant that literally. You’ll get to watch her slowly cook from the inside out. Personally, I’d rather be an asshole. At least I get to sleep at night. Ta-ta.”
I bite back the curses in my head and storm out the door. If he won’t be of any help, I’ll find someone who will.
My brain is raging when I leave Kingston’s trailer, and my initial response is to leave. Run. Head to a bar or to my bath and scream or fight or drink or float my way to oblivion. But the moment the idea of walking away passes through my mind, I’m struck with that same anxiety as before—I can’t leave my mother behind. Not unless I’m doing it to further Mab’s cause.
Kingston was lying. He had to have been. I can’t let myself believe that he doesn’t know what to do, that in keeping my mother here, I’m torturing her. This was supposed to be quick. Clean. It was supposed to be easy.
I wasn’t supposed to care. Which is why, when Vivienne comes up to me as I storm from Kingston’s trailer, I nearly break down right there.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
Damn it.
I wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes and convince myself it is anger and frustration and allergies.
I can’t view her as my mother. I can’t even view her as a person. She is a tool. One I will use. And tools don’t have emotions or needs. Neither do I.
“Hi,” I say. I know she asked me a question. I don’t want to answer. I don’t know if I could piece together the lie if my life depended on it.
Right now, I’d give almost anything for someone to come by and give me a reason to leave. I’d even welcome the damned changeling. Or Lilith. Because standing before Vivienne creates a gravity I don’t want to fall into.
I won’t fully admit it to myself, but a part of me wants to collapse into her arms and cry and be comforted. Now more than ever, I want to know what it feels like to be cared for. To have someone else try to share my burden. I can’t, though. My burden is her.
“You don’t have to pretend, you know,” she says. She takes a step closer. Hugging range. Her eyes don’t leave my face, and I can’t meet her gaze. “I am a mom—these aren’t the first tears I’ve seen. What’s wrong?”
“Everything.” My voice doesn’t hitch, thank gods, but it’s lower and gravelly and definitely sounds like I’m on the edge of a breakdown.
“Oh.” Clearly not the answer she expected. People hate it when you answer that question honestly. “Do you want to talk?”
“No offense, but I don’t think you’d understand.”
Or maybe you would, and then you’d fall apart, so you really don’t want to go down that road.
She smiles sadly. “I know what you think of me,” she says.
“I don’t think you do.”
“Oh come on, I’ve known since the moment we met. You think I’m simple.”
I actually laugh, it’s so ridiculous. But the action just makes another tear well up. I sniff and look away and laugh again. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with a grown woman, especially a woman who can’t know she’s related to me. I’m not a therapist. But I’ll probably need one after all this.
“I don’t think you’re simple.”
“Really? Because I’m pretty damn sure you were bored out of your mind all morning.” The fact that she cursed gains her a small point, even if it was a pretty harmless one. “To be fair, I am, too. I hate talking about my job.”
“You and me both.”
Her smile turns a little brighter. Then she looks back up at the tent and sighs.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. It’s stupid.”
“I highly doubt that.” Wait, I actually mean that. I want to know what she’s thinking. I want to have some insight into her life. Pain wells up inside me, sharper than any dagger. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to make you feel better.
“You really want to know?” she asks.
I nod. I don’t want it to be the truth, but it is. Jesus, I need to get out of here. I need to kill something.
“I want to run away.”
I don’t have a response to that. Thankfully, she keeps talking.
“This . . . all this. This is what I want. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve thought about running away and joining a circus. Being a star under the spotlight. Falling in love with, I don’t know, some dashing lion tamer or magician or something.”
She catches herself in the daydream, but she doesn’t apologize or say but Austin’s perfect for me. Because that would be a lie, and somehow, I know she doesn’t want to lie around me.
“Magicians aren’t all they’re cracked up to be,” I mutter. She catches it, but the wistful expression doesn’t leave her face.
“Even so . . . I don’t know. I have everything I’ve ever wanted, and yet there’s a part of me that wants this most of all. To run away. To be a part of something as big and beautiful as this. Some nights I wake up and think I have, you know? Like one of those dreams that’s so real, you wake up and have to convince yourself that your waking world isn’t the dream.”
“So why didn’t you do it?” I ask. I don’t know why I ask it, because I know every answer she gives will be some prefabricated lie Kingston implanted in her. But the words leave my lips anyway.
She shrugs and looks at the big top.
“Life got in the way, I guess. I don’t know. Things with Austin and me got serious. I got pregnant. Not that I regret that,” she adds hastily. “It’s funny. So much of my life feels like a blur. Guess it’s just old age. But the moment Claire was born . . .” Her face lights up, and a tear actually forms at the corner of her eye.
Another one tries to form in mine.
“Well, I’ll never forget that moment. Seeing her face for the first time. Holding her. Hearing her cry. She was such a little angel, and I knew that it was the one thing in my life I’d done right.” She wipes away the tears. “It’s funny. I remember that moment clearer than anything else. Out of my entire life, Claire’s birth is the thing that’s stuck with me. I’ve forgotten her recitals and graduation. But I’ll never forget that. That’s what
changed. When I became a mom, when I had that responsibility, everything else seemed unimportant. She was my world. Is my world.”
I don’t say anything for a moment. The air between us grows thick, and she laughs to herself, looking around the show as if she’s trying to find a different cue.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said any of that. Must just be this place—makes me start thinking things. I’m sure you’ve heard it all before from your own mother.”
I choke down a sob and turn away, bending to tie a bootlace that doesn’t need tying.
“Actually, no,” I say. “I haven’t.”
When I’ve forced myself back together, I stand and look at her. She’s staring at me the way Austin had earlier. As if she knows something, or thinks she knows something. As if she wants me to press a little bit harder so the truth pushes through the cracks of this lie we’re all playing at.
Time to see how much she actually knows.
I pull out the necklace and hold it out to her. I’m ready to crack, but if I don’t do this now, I might not have another time with her to myself.
“Do you recognize this?”
She looks at it, curiosity darting over her features.
“I don’t think so,” she says.
I take her hand and set the necklace within. Her fingers don’t clutch around it. I expect a shock of power, for her memories to transfer. For something to happen. But nothing does.
“It’s pretty,” she says. “But it’s not my style.” She holds it up before her eyes, letting it dangle and glint in the muted light. Then she takes my hand and gives it back. I hate to admit how nice it feels to have her touch me, her fingers tentative.
“Where did you get it?”
“My employer,” I say. “Same woman Claire used to work for. Thought . . . I don’t know what I thought. It’s not important.”
Clearly the stone’s not important, either, but I loop it back over my neck anyway. It’s still something of Vivienne’s. Even if she doesn’t remember it.
A metaphor for yourself, eh?
The crack in me fissures deeper. I need out of here. Now. Before she sees me break down.
“I need to go chat with the crew,” I say. “Thanks for the talk.”
Then I turn and head into the tent. I barely make it to the first row of bleachers before the tears come. And for the first time since Mab chastised me for showing weakness, I don’t try to stop the flow. I sit on the bench and sob in silence.
Because somehow, I know Vivienne wasn’t talking about some false memory. She remembers my birth. Of everything else in her life, she remembers bringing me into the world, and that gives her joy. It gives her something to live for.
I want to hold on to that. I want to remember it as well.
Instead, I’m going to throw all of it away.
Eight
I want out.
Trouble is, I can’t get any farther than the perimeter of the circus before my contract latches back into place. I tried a few times. One toe over. See if I could duck out for a drink, or a screw, or a kill. But I can’t. I’m stuck in here just like the rest of the performers, and the only way I’ll manage to escape is to come up with a logical reason to leave—something that will further my mission. Fucking faerie contracts.
I walk the perimeter, one hand on a pocketed knife and the other clutching the necklace Mab gave me. I need to speed up the process. I need to get Vivienne’s powers to manifest before she dies. And I need this all to happen before the Pale Queen makes a move. Whatever move that would be.
The calm drags against my skin like nails. I know this tactic. The Pale Queen won’t attack until Mab is sufficiently weakened. Like draining blood from a body, she’ll wait for all of Mab’s minions to leave before striking. I’ve used similar methods to make people talk: bleed them until they’re on the edge of death, when they’ll do anything to stay alive. That’s when you make your demands.
And once they crumble to your whims, you kill them. Two birds, one stone.
Maybe the Pale Queen just wants to rule in peace, but I doubt it. It takes a psychopath to know one.
Which is why I need to find her, before Mab becomes weak. Before the Pale Queen has an army. While there’s still a chance.
“You think so ill of me.”
I glance around, but my surroundings are empty—just rolling farmland to one side and an expansive parking lot on the other.
“Gods, Claire. You’re hallucinating.”
“I am no mere hallucination.”
I pause, and I can’t help it—chills roll down my spine. It’s not a feeling I’m used to. Slowly, I look to my left, toward the parking lot, the knife in my pocket flipped open and waiting.
There, standing a few feet away, is the Pale Queen.
Impossible.
She’s standing on circus grounds.
“You can’t be here,” I hiss.
The woman steps toward me, raising her arms out to the sides.
“And yet, here I am.”
She’s in the same dress she wore in the dream, all white and cream and dripping silk. But across her face is a mask. Delicate, glittering, made of white lace and diamonds. It molds to her features, revealing only luscious red lips and eyes that smolder like embers, crackling hues of red and orange and violet.
I expect some sort of alarm to sound. The enemy is here. She is here, and she is standing on Winter’s territory, and no one seems to notice. For a split second I consider screaming out, demanding someone help—the circus is filled with magical murderers—but then I remember, I’m the fucking assassin. The grip on my knife tightens.
“Why?” I ask.
“Why?” she replies. Her voice is cool, her elocution perfect. “You know why I am here, my dearest. We both know you are not that blind.”
Numbers add up in milliseconds.
“You want my mother.”
Those lips purse into a smile.
“I have no interest in a mortal,” she says. “Only in what that mortal might become.”
“I won’t let you kill her.”
“Of that, I have no desire.”
She is closer now. So close I could reach out and shove my blade through her gut. It’s no hallucination, no vision or illusion. She’s here, standing before me. I can feel her presence. There’s an energy around her, a static that crackles against my bones. A scent that defiles this world. It’s like standing around Eli, my demonic ally. But much, much worse.
My knife stays in my pocket.
“Why are you here?”
The smile widens.
“You ask the wrong questions, my dear.” She reaches out as though she’s going to touch my cheek but pauses with her hand an inch away. Even there, the nearness burns like fire. “So like her, aren’t you?”
“I will kill you,” I whisper.
She laughs. It’s not an evil, maniacal laugh. It’s sweet. Almost innocent.
“We shall see about that. I had hoped you would understand by now, Claire—I am not just a queen. I am an idea. And you cannot kill an idea once it has taken hold in the hearts of many.”
“Why. Are. You. Here.”
“To see you. To see if you had changed your mind.”
“We are enemies,” I say.
“Are we? Or are we both tired of being ruled? Manipulated? Perhaps we are simply both ready to take command.”
I pull out the knife then. It’s a simple iron blade—only a few enchantments, and none nearly strong enough to bring her down. But maybe it will buy me time if I need it. My hand moves almost on its own accord, and I can’t tell if it’s instincts or the contract spurring me to action.
“You’ve declared war on Winter,” I say. “For that alone, you deserve to die.”
I’m about to go on about how she’s now threatening my mother, but before I can, she laughs again. This time, there is a hint of madness.
“Oh, sweet Claire. I’m not declaring war on Winter. I’ve declared war on Faerie itself.�
�� She presses her hand to my cheek then, and the static between us turns to fire. I can’t help the scream that pierces my lips. I drop the knife, but I don’t drop to my knees—the stabbing heat within keeps me standing on pillars of flames.
“Actually,” she continues, her voice barely cutting through the scream in my head, “I’m not declaring war. I’ve already won. The question is, whose team will you fight for when the final curtain falls?”
The pain stops. I drop to my knees, blink away the tears I can’t hold back. My hand goes blindly for another knife. But by the time I have the weapon in hand, the Pale Queen is already gone.
I should tell someone that the Pale Queen was here. Something binds my lips, though, and I don’t know if it’s hurt pride for being bested or fear. I try to tell myself that it’s all a test—in theory, someone should be approaching me about this. Kingston should have felt the intruder. Or Melody. If either of them had, they don’t mention it to me. I watch Kingston practice his whip from a distance. Eavesdrop on Melody while she chats with another girl about ticket sales. Beyond hearing that numbers are down, and it’s a good thing they’re moving to a new site soon, I don’t learn much. I’m the only one who knows the Pale Queen was here. I’m the only one who knows the circus isn’t safe. Well, me and Lilith, though I doubt many people take her seriously.
Maybe keeping Vivienne here wasn’t the right choice after all. There has to be somewhere else I could take her, somewhere that Oberon and the Pale Queen couldn’t touch.
The only place would be Winter. But if Vivienne’s contract forbids it . . . Well, from what I’ve seen, faerie contracts are impossible to change.
“What are you doing out here?” the changeling asks. I pause and realize I’ve been pacing back and forth on the edge of the grounds. Probably muttering to myself.
“Thinking,” I say.
She raises an eyebrow, as if she finds that hard to believe. Girl is begging to be punched.
She holds something out to me. It’s a ticket, pale blue and covered in swirling script.