by A. R. Kahler
“Well,” Mel says, interrupting my flashback. “Everyone was onstage for the finale.”
It’s such a simple statement that I feel like an idiot.
“What about the Shifters?” I ask.
She raises an eyebrow at me. The Shifters are the people currently tearing down the tent. Shapeshifters. Just a little bit of genetic magic and they’re able to lift the heaviest of pylons. Or turn themselves into dragons or freaks, depending on their mood.
“I already double-checked with them. It wasn’t their doing, but they’d like to shake the hand of whoever did it.”
“When did you start getting all cushy with the Shifters?” I ask. She hands me the wine before I even reach for it.
She shrugs again. “I like knowing all the newbies. Besides, the Shifters love to party.”
Which is true. I’ve been to the Shifters’ bonfires. Lots of booze, lots of laughter, and lots of lewd behavior. Definitely Melody’s scene.
“Anyway,” she says. “I know it’s not them. Which begs the question: Who hates Mab enough to set her effigy on fire? That’s the sort of wrath-incurring shit you only read about in the Book of Revelation.”
I take a long drink before answering.
This is the hard part of Kingston’s memory magic. Not everyone remembers the same things, and if they do, they remember them differently. In this case, Melody believes the tent was set on fire accidentally, and that’s why we lost a good number of the troupe. She doesn’t know the truth. Kingston, Mab, and I, we’re the only ones who know that Lilith is more than just a lost little girl. Lilith is actually a vessel for the demon Kassia, the demon who burned down the tent and killed half the troupe.
Okay, that might be an overstatement. Oberos, Prince of the Summer Court, was stupid enough to try attacking us in an attempt to get at Kassia. Combined, the two tore our show a new asshole.
Oberos didn’t make it out of that battle. I still have nightmares of him exploding into burning butterflies.
Kassia came out victorious. In some fashion, at least: the little girl Lilith is back, and apparently Kassia is once more safely locked inside. For now. Again, the vision flashes through my mind. It makes my cold skin go colder.
“Earth to Viv,” Mel says. She pokes me in the ribs as she grabs the bottle from my hand. “That was a question.”
“Oh,” I say. I shake my head. Down at the pitch, one of the king poles—the massive poles that hold up the canopy and all the high rigging—starts to tilt toward the ground as the Shifters strike it.
I want to tell her about the Summer Court. I want to tell her about the danger that I know is looming on the horizon, the pending war I can feel in my bones. But I can’t. I’ve tried. My contract forbids it.
Which means I need to do what I’ve been doing too much of lately: lie.
“I don’t know,” I finally say. “I’m sure Mab has a string of jealous lovers out there. Maybe one of them decided to strike back.”
This makes her laugh, as I’d hoped it would, and the momentary tension dissolves. She hands over the wine, and we settle back in the grass. We watch the Shifters tear down and don’t talk about anything serious for the rest of the wine. We chat until the bottle is empty and the night gets colder than is comfortable. Then we meander back down to the trailers and say goodnight. The tent’s still not entirely packed away, and it probably won’t be until just before sunrise. I do not envy the tent crew.
Kingston’s not inside my room when I get there. There’s a good chance he won’t be back tonight, especially not if Mab’s having him act as watchdog or asking him to twist the rules and use his magic to help the Shifters work. I strip off my clothes and settle into my tiny twin bed. My bunk in the double-wide trailer isn’t the most luxurious of lodgings, but it’s starting to feel like home. Granted, because I don’t really remember having a home, that’s not saying too much.
I lie back and stare at the light slashed across the ceiling. The warmth of the wine is fading, and in the back of my mind I wonder if this is how undercover agents feel. I know that we’re on the verge of war, yet everyone else is oblivious. I want to scream the truth in their faces, but instead I just grin and bear it and wait for hellfire to rain down. When I close my eyes, all I can see is Mab’s burning effigy, the flames looking remarkably similar to the fires from my vision on the hill. As sleep drifts over me, Mab’s body becomes Kassia, and she’s no longer burning, but dancing in the flames. The last thing I see before darkness closes in is Kassia holding out her hand and asking me to play.
* * *
You’re not supposed to know when you’re dreaming; that’s sort of the first rule.
So the moment I realize I’m standing in the old tent, the moment I know I’m fast asleep, I’m already wishing I’d wake up. Not because the sun is streaming through the blue and black canvas and the air is heavy with heat; not because I look down and find myself standing in a pool of blue ink; I want out because in front of me, dead center, is our once star contortionist, Sabina, arched back on her pedestal with a vacant grin plastered on her face. The puddle at my feet drips from a slash in her neck, the neon-blue blood dripping slowly down the velvet and steel of her stand. Sabina, whose death spelled the beginning of the end for so many others. Sabina, whose murderer was never actually found.
I take a step back and nearly trip over something that clatters at my feet. I turn.
The shock of seeing Roman impaled on his six swords, his body supported on their points like some bloody bridge, is muted. I’m transfixed by the blood dripping blue rivulets down his splayed arms, at the look of surprise on his face. But the disgust I’d felt when we found him like this barely three months ago is missing. I feel like I’m floating. Floating in blue light and blood.
“I told you,” Mab says. Her deep, dusty voice anchors me back to the ground. I turn and she’s standing there, the third point in this grisly triangle, wearing smoky glass stilettos and a glittering blue ringmaster coat. Her hair flows over her shoulders in waves of black, and her eyes glint green. “I told you your powers would blossom in time.”
“My …?” I begin, but before I complete the sentence, there’s a noise beside me, and I look over to see Lilith standing there with her tabby cat, Poe, clutched in her arms. Lilith’s in a blue baby-doll dress, her black hair tied back in blue ribbons. She looks like she should be sitting on some little kid’s nightstand, not standing in the dust of the ring.
“Silly Vivienne,” Lilith says, her cherubic head cocked to the side like a broken sparrow. “Thinking she can get away.”
“Get away?”
Lilith’s grin widens. Her skin cracks like broken concrete, faint lines of red light spilling from the fissures that rip across her cheeks. Her eyes flush fire.
“You cannot run away from your own past, stupid girl,” Lilith says. Her voice is deeper and burns with brimstone. It sends chills down my spine. “Your demons will always find you. Always.”
Poe leaps from her arms and twines around my feet. His touch makes my skin tingle and burn. I can’t help but watch the dead cat as it prowls away, toward a body lying broken on a cold tile floor, the linoleum stained with smears of blue. A girl with curly brown hair and lifeless eyes. A girl whose faded laugh rings through my head and stains my heart.
“Claire,” I whisper. The word is a dagger for reasons I can’t even grasp.
Mab’s hands clench my shoulders. She whispers in my ear.
“You can’t run away forever,” she says. Her fingers dig deeper, and the dream explodes in the screams of stars.
Chapter Two
Wonderland
I’m nursing a cup of coffee in my hands and watching my reflection waver in its black mirror. My hazel eyes are bleary and ringed with dark shadows, my long blonde hair pulled back in a wayward ponytail. I look like I’ve been run over by one of the giant semis that carries the tent. I feel like it too. Something’s itching in the back of my brain, but I can’t put my finger on why my instinct tells
me I should be freaking out. It feels like I haven’t slept in a week.
Kingston never showed up. I try not to dwell on it. I tell myself I’m a big girl, and it doesn’t matter that my boyfriend didn’t sneak into bed in the middle of the night to curl up next to me. Like he had every other night. But as I sit and look at my coffee and try to remember why my dreams feel like a clusterfuck, assuring myself of anything positive is impossible. Especially at 6 a.m.
I hate jump days.
The rest of the troupe is milling around at about the same pace as me. I glance up and watch the Shifters crowded around the coffee table. They’re in leather and denim and ripped plaid shirts, like some punk-rock Hell’s Angels. Almost all of them are covered in tattoos and piercings, and at least half of them have dreadlocks and multicolored hair. They look like the type of people you’d run away from in a dark alley, which, appearances being what they are, means they’re most likely precisely the type of people you’d want to run into in a dark alley.
I realize I’m staring when one of the new guys catches my eye and winks. He’s got a pink Mohawk and a septum piercing. He reminds me a lot of Roman, the old leader of the Shifters, although the new guy is a bit more squat. The thought of Roman makes my stomach clench. It’s hard to forget the last time I saw him, impaled on his swords and bleeding in the morning sun. Memory stirs, but then the guy looks away and it’s gone.
“Hey,” Kingston says. He sidles up behind me and twines his hands over my shoulders, giving me a light massage. I glance up at him. There are dark clouds under his eyes, and he’s definitely wearing the same sleeveless shirt he wore yesterday. I clearly wasn’t the only one who didn’t sleep for shit. “How are you?”
“Where were you last night?” I ask. I don’t want it to sound as accusatory as it does; I try to tell myself it’s because I want to know what’s going on, and not because I’m bitter that he didn’t come back. I set the coffee down on the picnic table.
Kingston doesn’t answer at first. He looks away, toward the trailers. Toward Mab’s office.
“Searching,” he says.
“For?”
He shrugs and reaches for my coffee, taking a long sip. When he returns it, there’s only a tiny bit left. I glare at him, and he waves his hand over the mug; it fills itself back up with dark heaven. I take a slow sip. Generally speaking, Kingston likes his coffee a bit stronger than the rest of us. I can’t tell if I’m glad or disappointed that there’s no magical booze in this one.
“Just glorified guard duty, double-checking contracts and all that,” he says. He’s not speaking very loudly, which tells me more than enough: Mab doesn’t want this becoming common knowledge. “Mab started a rumor that the effigy burning was a publicity stunt, though how anyone buys that is beyond me. At least she’s not asking me to tweak anything.”
I nod and lean back against him. He kisses the top of my head.
“What are we going to do?” I ask. I want to tell him what I’ve seen. But if I do, he might be obligated to make me forget. Holding back kills me, but I refuse to risk it.
I also hate feeling like I can’t trust the man I love.
“She won’t tell me,” he replies. I can tell he’s trying hard to control his voice, just as I can tell he’s as frustrated about it as I am. “We just keep performing until she says otherwise.”
“She says Oberon’s declaring war,” I say. “That means people dying. How can she be okay doing more performances when we could be ambushed at any moment?”
“That’s Mab for you,” he says. “The show must go on.”
“Easy for her to say. She’s got her Court to run back to.”
He sighs.
“I don’t like it either. But she’s our boss. And she’s the Winter Queen. The show is important to her; she won’t let anything bad happen to us. She’s probably sending ambassadors over to Oberon right now to smooth things out. If she says she’s got it under control, she’s got it under control.”
I nod and he leans down, kissing me gently on the lips.
Trouble is, I’ve heard that before. Spoiler: Mab didn’t have it under control. And it didn’t end well.
*
Mab glitters center stage, like a disco ball made human. A disco ball with curves to kill, poured into sheer leggings and a ringmaster coat of pale-blue mirror shards. Every inch of her breathes sex and rock and roll and every other thing your mother told you to avoid, from the points of her gunmetal stilettos to the tip of her whip cracking in the spotlight. She is smoke and seduction, the coolest palette of blue and haze. Only her top hat seems out of place, with its ruby as bright and lush as a beating heart.
I watch her from the side of the tent. I’m wrapped tight in the billowing shawl and heavy beaded necklaces I’m forced to wear for my psychic gig. I can’t help but contrast Mab and her barely concealed tits and my own twenty layers of tulle and velvet. On the one hand, I don’t have to carry a giant tree of cotton candy like I did in my last role. On the other, I look like I inherited all the hand-me-down clothes of every cliché medium in existence. I glance at one of the male acrobats warming up in the aisle beside me. Shirtless, of course, and wearing only spandex and rhinestones.
Why am I the only one in the show that looks like a prudish grandmother?
After Mab’s initial whip cracks, Kingston saunters onstage. He’s in his usual magician attire, which is to say, not much at all: sequined black dress slacks, gleaming leather shoes, and a black cape slung over one shoulder. I can practically feel the estrogen flush the moment he walks on stage. And, most likely, a few jolts of testosterone as well. If Mab is sex and rock and roll, Kingston is slow jazz and cuddling with handcuffs. From his saunter to the feathered serpent tattoo that twists itself down his perfectly sculpted torso, every inch of him equals sex god.
I grin a little at the thought that he’s all mine.
Mab and Kingston square off onstage and bow formally to each other. Then Kingston rips off his cape and twirls it in front of him in a billow of black. He pulls it away to reveal a stand covered in glowing golden baubles. I raise an eyebrow. This is new.
Mab takes a few steps back, flicking her whip with small cracks like a housecat eagerly waiting to pounce. Her light-blue lips are curled in a grin. I don’t know when she switched from burgundies to blues, but the new color palette makes my memory shift uncomfortably.
Then, before I can figure out why I’m suddenly trying to remember my dreams, Kingston picks up a glowing ball and tosses it to Mab.
Her whip reacts, fast as a lashing serpent. I barely see her arm move as she flicks the tail out. With a crack that echoes like a gunshot, the globe explodes in a cloud of golden dust and glittering light.
The crowd barely starts applauding before Kingston tosses another sphere at her. Another flick, and this explodes as well. Mab twirls on one heel and snaps the whip in a figure eight before her, and then Kingston throws another ball, and another. She plucks both from the air in a series of two short snaps, the exploding baubles lighting the stage like strobes. The crowd doesn’t know when to stop clapping, so they keep up the applause, the cracks of her whip barely audible over the noise.
Kingston doesn’t stop throwing. Mab is practically dancing now, leaping back and forth across the stage, the whip a blur in her hand. Kingston is moving just as fluidly, lobbing glowing spheres and spinning and flipping with every toss. The stage is covered in glowing golden glitter, the air above them a constant stream of glimmering dust. It’s like watching fireworks fall in slow motion. Like watching gods weave constellations in the night sky.
“Kingston is pretty.”
The voice shouldn’t carry over the applause, but it does. It cuts through the din like a scalpel, directed to my ears alone. Despite the heat of the tent, I shiver. Then I look down at Lilith.
Every time I see her, I expect for her to freak out just like the night she burned down the tent and nearly killed me. But she’s just staring out at the show with a childlike grin on her
childlike face. Her white dress glows blue in the light, the tiny embroidered carousel horses on the hem glittering with sequins. Her curly, black hair falls loose around her shoulders, a ribbon just peeking through the waves. I don’t know if she realizes her hands are held at her chest like she’s cradling something that isn’t there. I don’t know if she remembers her cat, Poe, that was killed by the Summer Fey and subsequently released Lilith’s powers. I’m still not entirely certain what happened that day or why Lilith’s cat apparently contained all of her evilness. All I know is, the cat is gone and the girl’s still here.
I think I would have preferred it the other way around.
“Yeah,” I say. I try not to shrink against the bleachers. I don’t raise my voice because I don’t want one of the punters to shush me. “He’s pretty.” I wonder how many more times we’ll have this conversation.
“I like Kingston,” she says. She looks up at me. Her green eyes glow. “I like him lots.”
“I know,” I say. A few months ago, she tackled me in a cornfield because I admitted to liking him too. I try not to talk to her in general, but when I have to, Kingston is the last topic I want on the table. “He … likes you too.”
Lilith laughs. It’s not the innocent twinkle you’d expect her to have. It’s deep.
“I know,” she says. The vapid tinge to her voice is gone. My hackles rise. She sounds a lot like Kassia, the demon hopefully still locked beneath her skin. “And soon he’ll have no choice but to prove it.”
Then, before I can ask her what the hell she means—not that I’d expect to get any answer out of her—she vanishes underneath the bleachers. I watch her go. It’s only when I notice the applause has swelled in intensity that I realize the act onstage is done. I look out to catch the end of what looks like a spectacular denouement. The air glows with blue and gold sparks, while both Mab and Kingston breathe heavily, hands clasped together and bowing as one. Then they turn and head backstage. The lights dim, and the floor of the stage glows with stardust.