“What?” Regan squinted back. “You’re going to say something, about how I used to be. Right?”
“Maybe. A little.”
“Have I changed? Do you like me better now? Am I better now?”
“No.” Zilch shook their head. “Not better. Happier.”
“I’m… glad.” Regan nodded a couple times, then sighed. “This is weird. Our lives are weird.”
Zilch picked at a loose thread on their forearm. “Yes.”
“I’m glad we have them.” Regan shot them a covert glance to see if he could catch one of their rare expressions he was growing to recognize as happiness. When he was rewarded, he shot Zilch one of his own. “So listen, I’m going with Evelyn to the Emerald Bar tomorrow night.”
“Why?” Zilch looked over fully, completely serious in an instant. Regan resisted the urge to even think the phrase ‘dead serious’ to himself, and, naturally, failed.
“Turns out Garrett Cole is actually dead. Which means this is… actually on-subject.” He cleared his throat, itching at his frill. “SkEye’s saying I killed him—which I, obviously, don’t remember doing… but it’s still the kind of thing I’d like to clear up. And it’s just something Evelyn needs to do, so. Figured I’d tag along.”
“Bad idea.” Zilch frowned, a much more recognizable expression than their smiles. “Safe at the house. Parole in general isn’t.”
“I know. Still gotta find the answers, safe or not.” Regan sighed. “I think I just said something weird, for me.”
“No,” Zilch had to admit, looking away. “You always wanted answers. Even more than safety. Anyone who thought otherwise… was wrong.”
“Hey,” Regan said, and they looked back, wearing a slightly different look from their usual default neutral. On anyone else’s face, he’d call it soft. “When this is over, how about you tell me more about myself?”
“When this is over, you’ll remember. I won’t have to.”
“Yeah, but it might still be kind of nice.”
They nodded. Regan smiled.
❈
The smoke from the sidewalk cracks parted in swirls like thick fog as Regan and Evelyn carefully skirted the edge of the blazing crater that used to be the city center, nervously testing each step. Even cracks in the sidewalk could be deadly. And they didn’t see a soul. Like the halls of the Turret House, the streets of Parole were deserted; people were holed up inside after the explosive encounter at the detention center. No horns or alarms or gunshots, no sound except for the ever-present white-noise thrum of helicopter blades far above.
When a chopper’s searchlight swept up and down their street, Evelyn grabbed Regan’s arm and forced him to keep walking steadily through the white glare. A sudden dart away from the light would trigger the enforcers’ suspicion, but continuing as usual wouldn’t draw attention. Law-abiding Parole citizens were well used to surveillance.
They made an attempt at disguise. Regan wore a dark, heavy trenchcoat and wide-brimmed black hat, and Evelyn wore an actual gas mask Lisette found in storage. An older unit, left over from the early days of the fire scare, when oily black smoke first choked the city streets. The kind nobody could really afford now, except Eye in the Sky, the only people actually supposed to be alive here. The thing was bulky and uncomfortable, but it would keep the wearer from dying slowly from Parole’s black lung.
Lisette had even found one for Regan, but he couldn’t even try. Just thinking about the cloth mask—and remembering the feeling of gasping for breath, ghostly hands clamped around his throat and lungs—anything more was unthinkable. Maybe walking around without a mask was playing with fire, but everything was in Parole.
Evelyn had more sense, as always. And for once, Regan was glad he couldn’t see her face. He knew what he’d see, and he didn’t like it. Before she’d put on her mask, Regan saw the tension in her eyes. The stress of this nightmare weighed her down, drenched her like cold water. Nobody could be on all the time, Regan thought, but she should never look this tired.
Up ahead, as grey and empty as Evelyn had to feel, was the Emerald Bar. No golden lights spilled from the windows; they were dark, empty holes like a skull’s eye sockets. Where bright lights and curtains had once been, only wet asphalt remained, with bits of paper and broken glass littering the street. “Evelyn Calliope Tonight” was still emblazoned across the marquis, but they’d been hastily pasted over with a torn paper banner reading “CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.” Yellow police tape crisscrossed the grand entrance, and Evelyn suppressed a shudder.
“At least there are no white chalk outlines,” she said, voice muffled by the mask. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Mm-hmm.” Regan agreed, staring at the dark building. “Ready?”
“Yeah.” They slipped around the sad front and into the side alley where they’d met and where fate had turned their lives so completely upside down. Just a few days ago, but it seemed like another lifetime, another world. They hurried up the metal stairs and through the small side door that clanged shut behind them.
They were followed.
Backstage was as dark and empty and sad as the house front. Evelyn kept her elbows close in, hugging her upper body; with all the lights out, the shadows were menacing, the black pits at the edges of the wings seemed bottomless. Ropes and pulleys made strange crisscrossing shadows in the pale slivers of light. She stopped, and stared at the reverse of the heavy red velvet curtain. How many times had she stood here, waiting for her entrance, hearing the drums pulse with the adrenaline through her veins, feeling her heart rise in her chest?
“So. Where do we start?” Regan prodded.
Evelyn jumped—she’d been lost in her head. “Oh… it doesn’t seem like there’s anyone here.” She was almost relieved. “I was expecting someone. But without her, I don’t really think there’s much we can—”
“Shhh,” Regan hissed, letting the noise dissolve into a hiss of his tongue. “There is someone here.”
“What does it… taste like?” Evelyn whispered, immediately on alert.
Regan took a deep breath and drank in the air, rolled it over his tongue like tasting a fine wine. A look of concern crossed his face. “Sick.”
Evelyn held up her hand. “Listen.”
Regan was still, and held his tongue. At first he heard nothing, but after a few seconds, a faint sound leaked through the thick curtain like a stain. A girl, singing. Pale light, soft as a nightlight in the gloom, slipped from behind the curtain.. Evelyn pulled it back and peered out onto the stage. Regan leaned forward to look over her shoulder. He froze at what he saw.
The stage wasn’t empty. Someone swept across the smooth surface like a ghost, feet barely touching the ground. A girl in torn white lace, long limbs all sharp angles and hollows. She swayed and tilted, seeming pulled by an invisible string through the top of her head. She floated upright as if led by an invisible dance partner. She whirled and pirouetted in her eerie waltz, long fingers outstretched to the imaginary strings that supported her. Undone, fraying ribbons trailed from her toes that glided across the stage, tracing patterns in the dust.
And she was not alone. Hanging from her hands were little dolls, marionettes that followed her every movement—but they had no strings. They floated, just like her.
Evelyn took off her mask and motioned for Regan to do the same. She took a deep breath and took a soft step forward. “Hello, Jenny,” she called softly.
The pale ballerina jerked, and plummeted back down to earth, as if the strings that held her up were cut. She dropped with a soft thump, and turned slowly to face them. “Oh, hello, Evelyn,” she said in a high, whispery voice. “You’re back. I hid when the men in the gas masks came, I hid until everybody left. I’m all alone.”
Regan froze in place as the girl started moving across the stage toward them. Her grey eyes hung half-open and her pale skin was almost as colorless as her long white hair.
“Is she… all right?” he asked quietly.
“
Chrysedrine was harder on Jenny Strings than most,” Evelyn answered. “She’s sweet, but she has bad days.”
On the ground, Jenny had a strange, limping gait, her feet scuffing and dragging along the floor. “I love it here,” she said, and a little smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “When I dance like this, it’s like I’m the one being held. I’m the doll, I feel safe… I wish Garrett would let me dance in his show.”
She held her hands up, wrists bouncing, fingertips twitching. And the delicate dolls floating beneath them danced. A wooden ball-joint ballerina doll in a pale pink tutu—maybe Jenny’s ruined one had looked like that years ago—and another in a tuxedo and little top hat. They spun and bowed to one another, spinning through the air beneath her hands.
“I know, sweetie.” Evelyn said quietly—oddly, she looked down and directed the words to the dolls that floated beneath Jenny’s thin hands. “Maybe someday you will.”
“Maybe.” Jenny sighed. “But people don’t like dancing with me. And I don’t want to hurt them. So I just play with my dolls instead…” She smiled to herself and gave a dreamy sigh, and the pair of tiny marionettes swooned and leaned against one another for a moment. “Who’s your friend?” she asked suddenly. The puppets turned to look up at Regan, but Jenny’s half-open eyes stayed on Evelyn.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Evelyn laughed nervously, looking up. “Jenny, this is Regan. Regan… meet the amazing Jenny Strings. She’s been a good friend of mine for a long time.”
Regan gave her a slow nod. “Ev says you saw what happened here.”
“No!” Jenny recoiled, hiding her face behind her arms. The marionettes stood protectively in front of her like tiny guardians, trembling a little on their invisible strings as her hands shook.
Evelyn moved between them. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry Jenny, I forgot!” she looked ashamed. “Please forgive me. Regan, just talk to the dolls. Gently.”
“Tell him,” Jenny whispered, voice shaking. “That you’re never supposed to look at the puppeteer during the show. She doesn’t exist. It’s only them…” Then, slowly, her head tilted up, and she stared at Regan with large, pale grey eyes. “I remember you,” she whispered. The marionettes turned their heads toward Regan and began to shake.
Evelyn brightened. “Really?” She asked the dolls. “What do you remember about Regan?”
“He was there,” Jenny whispered. “The night… he was there when…” She trailed off. Very quietly, she began to tremble as well. “When it happened.”
“You don’t have to say it, honey, we know part of it,” Evelyn said gently. “But we don’t know everything that happened, and we need to find out. Can you help us?”
Jenny Strings trembled on the spot. “No!” She gasped, lurching backward, flying away with only her pointed tiptoes dragging across the floor. “I don’t—I don’t want to, no, no, nonononononono…” She turned away and curled up into a floating fetal position, cuddling her dolls close.
Evelyn sighed, and shook her head sadly. “Give her a while to herself, she’ll be okay.” She turned and started to move off stage. “Maybe seeing you for the first time was too much of a shock.”
“But it wasn’t the first time.” Regan frowned. “She recognized me. I’ve been here before. We can’t leave now, she definitely knows something.”
“Jenny Strings knows a lot of things, more than anyone ever thinks. But right now, I think it’s better if we—”
“It’s in his room,” Jenny said suddenly, shrill voice echoing through the dark theatre.
“What’s in his room, honey?” Evelyn asked. “Do you mean Garrett’s office?”
“Yes…” Jenny quavered. “He left you some words on a record. I put it in the machine.”
❈
“Here we are.” Evelyn stopped outside a door with a brass nameplate on it. The door hung ajar, and she gingerly pushed it open with one fingertip.
The office had been turned upside-down. Drawers were pulled out with their contents emptied on the floor. Garrett Cole’s financial life was scattered across the room, loose paper and books and old photos of famous faces who’d graced his establishment. A smashed laptop lay dead on the floorboards, discs and data drives fallen around it like shrapnel, or like a robot dog shot full of bullets.
There was an overturned chair in the middle of the room, far from anything else. Regan frowned. The chair clearly belonged behind the desk, and there was nothing above it on the ceiling. Why would someone move that chair, then knock it over?
But Evelyn was staring at an antique gramophone, a record player with a funnel-like megaphone that sat on the desk, the only undisturbed thing in the room. A large round disc rested on the platform, already spinning, and she slowly, gently, pressed the needle to the vinyl. After few seconds of white-noise static, the record began to play. Eerie, dark jazz filled the room like smoke, pops and crackles distorting the tinny music like wrinkles in a ragged ancient paper. And then, above it, a voice.
“Hello, Evelyn.”
She gasped—it was the canyon-deep, midnight-blue voice that vibrated in her breastbone and the soles of her feet. Garrett’s voice, captured on this ancient vinyl circle. She shivered and drew unconsciously closer to Regan, listening to the dead man talking.
“You’re hearing this because you deserve to know the truth. Secrets tend to eat you from the inside, and by now I’m hollow as a drum. And you’re the only one I can trust.
Celeste was right. Someone was trying to kill me that night at the Emerald Bar—that’s why I hit the alarm and evacuated the place. I know who sent them, and I know why.
How do I begin… oh, everyone knows the Wonderland story. But you don’t know my part in it.
I wasn’t always a club owner, my darling. I was a scientist once. I helped create the first syringe of Chrysedrine, the drug that plagues this city. So in a very real sense… this place is mine. Its wonders and horrors. Every child who accidentally hurts someone and gets cut down by the Eye in the Sky, every back that arches in the agony of withdrawal. The quarantine. The barrier and the guns and the ruined lives, all mine.
I had good intentions of course, we all do on the road to…well, Parole. Ask your friend Rose. I gave her the injection that saved her life after the attack that took her legs. I brought people back to life, I gave them beautiful gifts, I did so many things to so many people, thinking I was saving their lives…
All at once, people started to change. Half of Parole metamorphosed, gifted with beautiful, or nightmarish powers overnight. And then they started to die. And when I realized reality, when I saw the body count rise, I couldn’t do it anymore. Instead, I left. But I kept making my precious drug. I thought I could make it the lifesaving miracle I intended. I thought I could fix everything. I was a fool.
And there was… a boy. A boy I thought was a casualty of war. I was wrong.
There were thousands of casualties, don’t get me wrong. But it’s hard to imagine thousands of faceless masses. It’s much, much different when it’s…
Well. When I saw what I'd done, I ran away—like you did, when you burned to become yourself, Evelyn. We two runaways found each other, and we helped one another fulfill our dreams. When you said you wanted the power to help save this city, I told you to roll up your sleeve. Soon you had your voice, and that was all you needed. And working with you fit, we clicked, you defended the streets and I ran Parole from the backstage of a bar—and for the first time I was doing something good with my life.
But I had a bigger goal: I needed to save this city. So I put the lives of thousands over just one life. I fully committed myself to Parole. All of us. And some precious nights, singing with you.
Oh, now where was I? Ah. The boy. A ghost now, in more ways than one. Haunting me. His name was Hans.”
Regan’s mouth dropped open. He hadn’t been sure which name he’d expected, but he knew which one he’d been hoping for. It hadn’t been that one.
“How do I explain him? Too smart for his own good
; chaotic and unpredictable; a sad, wandering spirit; a terrified child in over his head; a sharp-toothed wolf, I still don’t know which he is. But that ghostly young man was very interesting to Major Turret, and anyone who attracts the Major’s attention… well. To make a very long, very dangerous story short, I promised to set that boy free, and I failed him. I failed us all.
I wasn’t kidding when I said ‘ghost,’ by the way. He’s a powerful psychic. Projects himself… pray you don’t get his attention, Evelyn, it’s not a walk in the park. It’s not even a run through a dark alley. Just stay away from him.
Hans screamed at me in my mind after I left—after I abandoned him. For months he wouldn’t let me eat or sleep, kept rattling his chains. And I didn’t listen. I just kept up my work. But I swear, Evelyn, I swear to God, I thought I was doing the right thing. Ha—put that on my tombstone. No, never mind, you know what I actually want.
Well, one night, he stopped. For days, weeks, there was nothing. At first I was relieved. But then the guilt came, I was sick… I went to find him, praying he was alive. To apologize, say I’d do anything to help him again. Worst part was, I really would have.
But Hans was gone. Nobody knew where. Now honestly, even in Parole, how does a coma patient disappear? Particularly right from under the nose of Major Turret himself, and all his little Eyes up in the Sky? Even I’d have trouble pulling off that little number. But an honest-to-goodness ghost boy? Now that… might be a hat trick.
Now, I’m a man who knows disappearing acts. I knew he was alive. And angry with me. I still owed him a life. And the night of your show, he tried to collect. I wasn’t surprised, I’d been waiting for the axe to fall for years.
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