A man leaning against the wall looked up in surprise, then in weary acknowledgement as he nodded his head to us. He was dark-haired and whiskered, with strong shoulders despite a somewhat advanced age. Overalls stained with the detritus of his station marked him as a workman.
A familiar one.
I couldn’t place it, not with all else filled to bursting in my head, but I nodded back and thought I saw in the set of his mouth a twist of concern.
Did I know him?
Did he recognize me?
Impossible. How could he? My own staff wouldn’t recognize me in this particular disguise.
The echo of the coins dotting my attire jingled as I navigated my way down the tunnel in the handler’s wake. He ducked to avoid bumping his head, and I briefly pondered taking him out here and now—save that he was large enough to give me trouble, and I had no idea when another would pass by.
Too much was left to chance.
Or was I too afraid to act?
The realization came like cold water in my veins. I shuddered, clutched my bandoleer and stared hard at the man’s back as he led me through a twisted hall.
Once upon a time, I’d have seized the opportunity. Was it recklessness that would have seen me make the attempt or fearlessness?
Whatever it was, opium had helped.
“Bollocks,” I whispered.
The echo of it danced along the corridor behind me, earning me no attention from the large cove leading the way. Yet as it faded, a jingling playing counter to my noisy stride began to pepper the air.
A happy sound. An exciting sound. Were I a child—raised as a child should be—I might hear that musical lilt and feel the anticipation of an act, laugh at the business of clowns made to warm the audience. Were I not mired in the terror of knowledge, I might enjoy the organ and the pipes as they played a merry tune.
Bright as the hall we strode through was, it paled in comparison to the vast, underground chamber it led to. My handler stepped inside, barking orders to get out of his way. The music crashed into the hall as though simply waiting for his bulk to stand aside, and it washed over me like a thousand burning knives, driving memories I could not readily claim into my head.
The sweat of anticipation. The cramp of muscles tight with nerves, and the malodorous pong of bodies crammed in tight spaces awaiting the thrill of the audience’s cheer.
The fear of a life weighed on a single knife’s edge.
The first I’d ever seen a corpse, it splattered to the ringside floor.
The knowledge came with a certainty that belied the smoke it surged from.
My knees locked. My chest squeezed until there was no air left. The gaily colored lights dimmed to black, music to a tinny clamor, and all consciousness abandoned me.
Merciful silence reigned.
Chapter Nineteen
When my senses finally returned to me, they came on a slow haze. Limp as I was, I became barely cognizant of a softness beneath me reminiscent of feathers, and a cool bit of cloth upon my brow.
Breathing in was not so easy as it could have been, but much easier after the stays I wore had been loosened. The air thrummed with the roar of a crowd muted by the thickness of the ground between where I lay and the rings that must be overhead—but the music had swelled to an anticipatory crescendo.
Yet my heart did not thud against the cage of stays and straining ribs. My blood slowed sluggish and sweet, and as I took a deep breath, the smoky, floral spice of Chinese tar melted over open flame filled my senses.
I sat up, eyes snapped wide, and clapped a hand over my nose.
Too late.
Small hands caught at my shoulders. Brilliant colors shimmered together, until my senses awakened enough to place the gamine features of the young Flip at my side.
He was dressed in startling crimson and yellow, a jumper fitted like a second skin, and his face was painted with black diamonds and a wide smile, but it was undoubtedly him—healthy and whole, with a lively glitter in his near-black eyes and a furrow formed between fine brows. Strands of his hair clung to his brow, and without thinking of it, I raised a hand that did not tremble to stroke them away.
A tear slipped over my lashes without my acquiescence.
Flip’s brow furrowed deeply, sincere as only a child might be willing to show, and he patted my cheek dry with his callused palm. “There, there, marm,” he coaxed, cheerful for an imp. “All’s well.”
The cloth on my brow began to sag, and I caught it before it dripped its cool water over my costume. Traces of black and blue stained the edges, and I remembered that I was to be a different woman—golden-hued and black-haired.
I lifted a startled gaze to him, but he tucked a finger into his cheek and grinned. “Sommat ‘ere, we got word to watch out.”
“Word?” I blinked, dashing one arm over my eyes and coming away smeared with a bit of kohl. I shuddered. “I need out of this room, Flip. I can’t—The smoke...”
Despite it being too late, the memory of what it had been to shed the opium I’d cloven to was not so kindly buried as those that came before. I remembered the awful sensation of withdrawal, the pain and the fury and the despair, and I feared that now more than I feared anything else.
A sign in itself that the smoke had done its job.
I had no doubt that Marceaux gave it freely to his people. He always had.
Flip caught my flailing hand and steadied me as I rose. “It’s always set t’ burn,” he told me, bracing oddly powerful legs against my tottering weight. “Ringmaster’s orders.”
As I thought. “The stuff’s no good for a growing body, Flip.” A desperate chide, meant as much for me as him.
The kinchin cove shrugged. Before he could say more, the door to the small chamber burst wide, and my small bed—made of a combination of costumes and feathery accouterments—fluttered in the draft. “Shivver’s up,” came the voice of a no-nonsense woman, and I squinted in the brilliant light.
My nerves were certainly calm.
Frustration would come later—no doubt with Ashmore’s care—but for now, I had no other choice but to follow the tide it pulled me in. I gave Flip my back. “Lace me again,” I instructed. Primarily for the speaker who waited.
Flip bent obedient fingers to the task, and I turned my head to whisper, “What’s happening out there?”
He spoke without moving his lips; a neat trick. “Blood’s loose in the ring. Ringmaster’s in a fine snit.”
“Why?”
“Lord only knows it.” A sharp tug and a fine knot cost me a bit of breath, and as I adjusted my breathing, he added, “Veil’s got plans fer punishment, but—”
“That’s enough,” ordered the woman, and her silhouette became a sturdy matron in apron and woolen pants bagged into high boots. She beckoned with a chafed hand, harsh lines carved into her worn face. “Get on, lass.”
I had no more opportunity to prepare. Stepping out of the costume chamber I’d been left to recuperate in felt as though I walked onto a busy rail station platform. The cacophony increased, a roar merged with orchestral violence, and hands in wool and leather darted between reams of rope, gears fitted to devices I had no name for; apparatuses turning, whirring, clunking. It smelled of oil and grease and sweat, all undercut by the flavor of the smoke still on the back of my tongue.
With remarkable poise, I kept up with the woman pulling me between a net of skeins pulled taut. “Where are you taking me?” I called.
Perhaps she did not hear me over the noise.
Without ceremony or further ado, I was guided past the awe-inspiring collection of mechanical creations, down a corridor much less noisy, and into a side room with another collection of ropes anchored into a circular disc inset into the floor. She pushed me onto it, checked a timepiece fastened to a chain about her throat, and snapped, “Don’t fall over.”
It was all the warning I received.
The ropes twanged around me. A thrum began in the wood beneath my feet, and I bottled a s
hriek of surprise as the floor shuddered.
The woman checked her timepiece again, gave me a sharp look, and then pulled a lever set into the floor on the far side of the disc I wobbled on.
With a groan of gears and triumphant clash of orchestral refrain, the whole lifted. It spun, thanks to the ropes affixed to it in diagonal foundation, and I had barely enough time to take a steadying breath, wipe the bloom of sweat from my brow, before my head crested an opening cut into the floor of the ring I entered.
As entrances figured, I’d seen similar, but never been part of the same.
An eerie smoke covered the ring, parting to allow me through as though accompanying me in a dance. I winced beneath the glaring light of lamps stoked high.
My first glimpse into the interior of the Midnight Menagerie’s circus was one cut by wild color streaming from show globes in every ornate style one could imagine, fitted in gold and brass and stained glass. The fog within did not choke like the drift I had come to know, but spun like gossamer fingers in a shimmering thread, and the music that soared under the straining red sky filled my senses with a keenness I felt had been sorely lacking.
All since I’d given up the tar.
I did not stumble as the disc fitted into place beneath the fog, but reached for the sky as though claiming the adoration of the crowd that clamored.
The smell of the fog was faintly smoky, but under it, a coppery tang.
Blood in the rings.
It was to nobody’s credit that I stood tall that night; the confidence I wore came to me by way of the smoke I’d resolved never to touch again. And yet, for all that, I would never have succeeded without it.
Some fears are too great to take on face to face. Whatever else others may think of it, whatever they may say, I would have faltered without it.
This was what it meant to be haunted by weakness.
Marceaux might have been old, but he had lost none of the skill by which he directed. He stood upon a circular platform much like the one I’d ridden to reach the floor, and he no doubt commanded the attention of all who looked upon him. Wearing garish colors of bright yellow, verdigris and vermillion, his waistcoat strained over his belly. He brandished his cane—heaven help me, I remembered that cane—to the ring meant to watch.
Mine. All that he saw was his, and the pride of ownership within that egotistical demeanor had not been earned. Not here. Never here, the pleasure gardens where Hawke had sweated and bled. Where my friends had fought.
I wouldn’t allow it.
Though he towered over me, his smile turning manic beneath his overly lush mustache, I could not mistake the glitter of malice in his eye. His top hat, striped where formality dictated it be solid black, glittered with sequins, and he sparkled and shone.
The part of my mind colored by the smoke thought it a pretty thing to watch.
My throat closed.
Knives. I knew the knives. A few thrown, a few missed, and I’d do my part. The whole of the affair below seemed a busy one, and I wagered it’d be easier to slip away once my role was completed.
First Hawke. Then Marceaux.
The purpose of this jaunt was not revenge. I could not be distracted.
“Get to your post,” came the harsh order, delivered with that selfsame smile. None could hear the ringmaster over the noise of the chanting crowd when he pitched it just so, but I did.
The threat implicit behind the gesturing cane forced a shudder.
Had I ever felt that bite? I couldn’t recall; my flesh jumped and twitched as though it had, but perhaps I’d only seen it, watched it.
A caning left terrible scars when done so brutally as to leave wefts deeper than the lash.
I fixed a smile upon my lips, curtsied low to the crowd, who roared a welcome. Putting a bit of extra sashay into my walk, setting the coins jingling and flashing, I strode to the platform indicated by the ringmaster I loathed.
He had not recognized me after all, but what did I expect?
I was not so special as to stand out in a veritable sea of talented bantlings and orphans.
Did I want to be?
No. Purgatory and posies take it, I had no interest in this life.
When the fog kicked up around my feet, I caught a glimpse of another set edge. I was therefore prepared for the juddering that quickly followed, and made the most of my showing by walking forward onto my hands and holding my legs into the air with a near perfect split.
Cheers accompanied the maneuver, heightened when I pulled my legs once more straight, and bent back as far as the corset would allow.
I had not been dressed for contortion, but the pain the stays carved into my ribs was not so great that I could not complete the backwards walk-over. It was needless, surely, but I’d be dishonest if I claimed not to enjoy the attentions. At least some.
The approval of strangers, all eyes upon one and all but begging for more, could be a heady thing.
Flush with success, I threw my hands to the searing light and forgot for a moment that I was afraid.
That I should have been afraid.
Opium and adrenaline. Why had I ever given it up?
When the ringmaster raised his white-gloved hands, it took some time for the crowd to take note. Lamps around the ring suddenly went dim, leaving him in a colored gloss; leaving me in shadow to pant for breath.
My knees seemed watery, my throat dry. I clutched at my bandoleer and forced my head high.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” roared the monsieur, whose age did not weaken his showmanship. He cavorted on his pedestal, a jester with all the power of a king, and offered his cane in both hands, as though he offered a sword to a lady. Though the whole of the floor seemed to vibrate, I thought I felt a shift beneath the thin soles of my boots. “Mes amis! Tonight, you are fortunate to witness a spectacle prepared by our very own hosts pour vous.”
A cheer followed, but the monsieur was not ready to give up the attention.
He tucked his cane beneath his arm, a flash of a verdigris lapel as studded gems sparkled and shone, and gestured in my direction. “The gods demand supplication, and tonight, death hovers on a razor’s edge. A little petite mort, perchance?” An obscene chuckle. “Blood calls to blood, like to like, and the kiss of the fates may bestow mercy...or hell.” His voice guttered in brilliant presentation, and with both hands now flung wide, he intoned, “Tonight, we give to you the humbling of a beast!”
The show globes lit once more, a wild glitter, and as I lifted my hand to guard my eyes, I suddenly realized that I was no longer alone upon the raised platform.
Fire ringed the stage designated mine, and though each was contained behind glass, the heat washed over me. Sweat poured down my shoulder blades.
A second disc had risen from the fog, a wheel painted in dizzying patterns of red and white and black. It was like any other target used for such knife-work as I was meant to display, but unlike them, it already contained the trick.
A figure, a broad body splayed with arms and legs wide like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, had been strapped in place, muscles straining against his bonds.
The moment I recognized Micajah Hawke was the moment a hush fell over the audience, a collective indrawn breath, for none could mistake the identity of the collared beast meant to be humbled.
Punishment, Flip had said. Punishment from the Veil.
So Hawke was the beast to be shamed. In his own circus, no less, supplanted by a bloodthirsty fool.
I froze in that ring as eyes flaring hot and still unnervingly blue pinned me to the floor. The music soared—a wild chorus of danger present and waiting—and I knew without a doubt that he could see through the disguise I wore. He always had. Whether in collector’s guise or a masquerade, whether above or below, he had always known me.
Just as I would never fail to distinguish him from all others.
I dared not call it anything but simple familiarity.
Breeches of taut leather strained over his thighs, the hide stitched deli
berately rough, as though he were little more than a barbarian from an uncivilized land. Powerful muscles bunched, flexed as if part of what kept him tied to that target was his own strength.
His hair hung loose, as black as the false color I wore and reminiscent of the blue gleam caught by the show globes painting his flesh in a deeper shade of swarthy gold. The collar at his throat unleashed a surge of overwhelming anger within me; almost enough to taint the softness the smoke had allowed.
The expression he gave me was not relief. The flare of his eyes tightened, locked away what little recognition he’d allowed me, until only a sneer remained—a cruel twist given to the rings he had once reigned over as master.
Marceaux could dress as he would, dance and cavort and gesture as he chose, but even compared to a half-naked beast mounted upon a target, he paled.
Well the whole knew it.
The audience no longer cheered. The music played by an orchestra given cues continued its excitable harmonies, but it did not match the frenetic interest of the audience any longer.
All knew something was different, but how many understood? How many of these spectators, hungry for something exciting, knew what was at stake?
Even I didn’t know. Was I meant to harm the disgraced ringmaster or kill him? Marceaux had seemed so eager to place me here—but why?
Was I meant to fail or succeed?
What did Hawke demand of me?
I dared not look away, for all that I suffered nerve-racking palpitations caused by that steady azure stare.
I had planned nothing; there was nothing to plan without understanding—and now I understood all too much.
The Veil meant to break its tiger. To humble him, humiliate him.
And I was the tool, unconscious though the decision was.
The dark lashes I’d always admired narrowed to an aggressive slit as my lips pulled up into a wild, wicked smile.
The first of my blades winked as I drew it from the sash.
Chapter Twenty
I showed it to the audience, as expected, and the hush that undercut the score became a hum. I hefted the narrow, finely honed blade in hand, tossed it into the air and caught it in the other, earning a murmur.
Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles Page 22