Black Ice Burning (Pale Queen Series Book 3)

by A. R. Kahler

  “You’re the winner of tonight’s raffle,” she says. “VIP access.”

  “What’s VIP, Mommy?” I ask.

  “It means special,” replies the lady. She holds out her hand and three emerald tickets. I look to Mommy, who smiles wide and says it’s okay.

  The lady takes my hand, and it feels like holding my best friend’s hand. I trust her. I know she’s going to be fun. She pulls us out of the line and takes us past everyone. I try not to look at them while we walk past, because the people don’t look happy that we’re budging. Mom told me never to budge—it’s impolite.

  We go past the ticket booth and into the main circus. There are many performers here, and they are dancing, and I want to dance, too, but Melody is holding my hand too tight for me to walk off. Someone else is walking toward us now. It’s a woman, and she isn’t wearing many clothes, but she has a big black coat and a big hat on her black hair. She is beautiful. The moment I see her my heart skips. She feels dangerous, like a big wild cat. But Melody is smiling at her and so is my mom so it must be okay.

  “You must be Vivienne,” the woman says, hugging my mom. Mommy nods, and then the woman shakes Daddy’s hand. They say something, but I’m not paying attention—I’m looking over to the side, where a man in a cape is making doves appear from his hat. There’s an older girl right beside him, and she’s looking at me funny. Like she already hates me. But I don’t know her. Maybe she just hates everyone—she’s wearing all black.

  “And you must be Claire,” says the woman, who I think said her name was Mab. She kneels down in front of me, then reaches out and strokes my cheek. I feel something wrap around my heart, like string. I hear her voice, too, but her lips aren’t moving.

  You are mine forever, she says. You will serve me until the end of time. Past your dying days. You will serve me as your mother failed to serve me. You will continue where she has left off.

  And something flashes across my eyes then—my mother signing a book. My mother saying she will give up her firstborn child. Me. I hear her voice, hear it wrapped against the woman’s. You have always been mine, Mab says in my ear. Before you were ever born. And you will serve me to the end of time, because you were created solely for me.

  Someone grabs my shoulder. Not Mab. The angry girl. Mab is gone, and so is Mom. The circus is still there, but it’s different. The girl shakes me. I realize I’m kneeling in blood.

  “Come on, Claire,” Lilith says. Her words are rough.

  “What the hell . . .”

  “Exactly,” she replies. She stands up, forces me to my feet as well. “You let yourself get distracted.”

  “But what was that?”

  The circus grounds are derelict. Canvas flaps in the wind from the broken tent, and the caravans and booths lining the promenade look as though they’ve been through a battle.

  “We are close to Penelope’s prison,” she says. She gestures to the chapiteau. “The memories of this place resonate with your own. They will try to trap you in your history, damned to relive it for eternity. The closer we get, the easier it will be to trigger. Which is why you must keep focused. Remember why we are here.”

  “We’re here to kill Penelope?” Wait, why did that come out more like a question?

  She sighs under her breath.

  “Just stay close. Mentally and physically. I can’t keep dragging you out if you let yourself get distracted.”

  “But what was that? What did I see?” It felt familiar, but I don’t remember it. Was it a memory, or an illusion?

  “What did I just say about staying present?” she asks. “Penelope was ensnared by Mab. Just like you. Your inner hells are similar, and they will try to trap you.” Then she steps forward, pulling aside the tattered curtain of the big top. “This way,” she says. Then ducks into the tent.

  The chapiteau isn’t home to the dusty center ring and a circle of benches. Instead, it looks like a hoarder’s carnie paradise. Every inch of the space is filled with piles of clothing and stacks of furniture—broken mirrors balance atop vanities, old popcorn makers overflow with stuffed animals. Everything is dusty and derelict, faded from sun and wind despite the cool darkness of the tent. The place feels like an antique store, with that heaviness in the air that makes your skin tingle with dust and the weight of history.

  It’s not altogether a good feeling.

  “Touch nothing,” Lilith says. She’s a few feet ahead of me, navigating her way through the rows of antiques. Easy for her to say—she’s basically a twig with legs.

  I weave my way through behind her. Strains of music filter through the objects, a deep melody that is both inviting and foreboding, like a dirge made for a carnival clown. Of course, now that she’s told me not to touch anything, that’s all I can think about doing. The place was made to be played with—the piles of foam swords, the gilded tree covered in masks, the row of twisted mirrors like in a funhouse. It makes me forget where we are. What we’re doing. It makes me want to play, and that puts me on edge.

  “What is this place?” I ask, partly for conversation but mostly to keep myself from doing something I’d regret. If this is hell, it’s a lot more whimsical than I expected.

  “Her prison,” she says. Somehow she’s a dozen yards away, standing atop a vanity covered with gems and seashells. “This is where she spent her time in the netherworld.”

  “It’s really not bad. Save for the dust.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Each of these is a memory, some she made, some that were made for her. Hell isn’t about external torture, Claire—you yourself know that it only goes so far, lasts so long. Physical pain becomes dulled. True torture exists within.” She looks around, disgust clear on her face. “To you, this is a bunch of junk. But to her, each of these holds a memory. Good and bad. But when all you do is reminisce every day, never moving forward, never getting older, never able to remember who you are or what you were . . . that is hell. That is how demons are made.”

  “And how were you made?” I ask.

  I expect her not to answer, or to get snippy. Instead, she doesn’t stop examining the items dripping from the vanity she stands on. Apparently the don’t touch rule doesn’t apply to her.

  “Oberon locked me in an enchanted box,” she says, ridiculously conversationally. “I couldn’t die and I couldn’t grow old. He buried me in the earth and let me rot.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Oberon,” I mutter.

  She looks at me, her expression grim. “Oberon did a great many terrible things during his reign. Many he blamed on Mab. Trust me, I was not his worst creation.”

  I don’t push the subject.

  “Eli says Penelope is more powerful than him. Is she stronger than you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But how? Just reminiscing about the past isn’t enough to turn someone into a monster. Eli said her power is tied to something deeper. Darker.”

  “Hatred is a very deep power,” she says. “But yes . . . this is not all there is to Penelope’s hell. This is her prison. But just like every other aspect of this realm, there are layers. Rooms. She was sent here for her betrayal, and she was sent to suffer. Do not be fooled by the appearance of this place. The tortures she endured here are worse than you can imagine, and they came in every form.”

  She looks to the corners of the tent, biting her lip. I don’t know if she realizes she’s doing it—the movement makes her look like the child I know she isn’t.

  “Penelope and I, we underwent horrible things. Experiences that should have killed us. But we weren’t allowed to die. For her, I believe, partially because of her contract, and partially because of her anger. Her hatred grew. As it did, so did her power. Her desire to get out and seek revenge. It twisted her into this new creature. And that is deadlier than any pact, any magical force—her power comes from within, from a flame that has only grown over the years.”

  “But we can do it, right? If we have her name?”

  “It seems like th
e only option. Though it is not in my nature to inspire false hope.”

  “How kind. How are we even going to find it?” I ask, gesturing around. “Unless she, I dunno, labeled the tags in her favorite unitards.”

  She sighs. “Just stop asking questions and start looking. The longer we linger, the harder it will be to leave. And I’d rather not stay here for another eternity.”

  “You said not to touch anything.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it, no. But I’m not here to do all of your dirty work.”

  Then she goes back to rummaging.

  I curse her under my breath and veer off. She said there’d be guards. Things to fight and kill. Instead this is just a dirty attic, and for all her talk about danger, I can’t see what harm a few memories would do. After all, this place wasn’t designed for me. One man’s torture is another’s vacation. Or something.

  So I pull a dagger from my pocket and use it to poke around. I spear a few dolls that look like they’re made from potatoes and rags, poke a hole in a beach ball sitting in a pram. Every time, Lilith casts me a glare, but that’s the only thing that happens. No explosions or demonic guards. Honestly, this level of hell is a little boring.

  Maybe that’s what this is about. Bored to death. Literally.

  It’s only when I’m examining a music-box-style jewelry case, complete with spinning ballerina, that my heart begins to beat faster. Because there, on the crushed red velvet, is a single necklace. Black obsidian, thin silver chain.

  “This was my mother’s,” I whisper to no one.

  The sight of it fills me with a sort of gravity, a weight in my chest that makes it hard to breathe, impossible to look away. This was my mother’s, yet it’s here, in Penelope’s prison. It’s here, in the bowels of hell, when it should be with me. The empty spot on my finger aches from where the ring holding a shard of this once lay. Penelope stole it. She stole it once, and she stole it again. The pendant hums. It belongs to me. It has always belonged to me.

  In the back of my mind, or maybe from the corner of the tent, I hear Lilith calling my name. Telling me not to touch it. But the words are faint, drowned out by the thrum of the necklace. My fingers close over it before I can even register that I’ve moved.

  Twenty-One

  “Come in,” I say at the timid knock. I already know who it will be—no one in this show knocks at my trailer door, save for Mab and Kingston, and I know their knocks like I’d know a perfume.

  Vivienne opens the door and steps in, looking around the trailer timidly. I can practically feel the gears in her head turning: This is what it looks like to be a star in this troupe. A small trailer, barely bigger than anyone else’s. Doesn’t she want more?

  I do, I want to tell her. And I will have much more. Soon.

  But I keep my mouth shut and continue brushing my hair. I was made to be looked at. Not to speak, not to rise up. But to be the pretty woman on display. The pretty freak on display.

  “Um, Mab wants to know how sales are,” she says.

  I nearly slam down my brush.

  Instead, I force my lips to smile and concentrate on my hair, on the way my fingers break through the red strands like dolphins piercing the waves. I let my eyes glance to the pendant around my neck, the obsidian glinting—the only black jewelry I own. Remember this, I tell it. Remember how this feels. Mab is just trying to test me. Using the new girl. An old trick. Mab knows precisely how sales are. She knows everything that goes on within this show.

  Almost everything. Almost.

  Vivienne is too young to understand this. How it feels to be so trapped. To smile and nod and bow every time Mab makes a request because Mab once saved your life. But she will know.

  Her contract has no end date. Just like mine. Why, I wonder? She has no powers, has no ties to Faerie. There is nothing to mark her as special. And yet here she stands, ensnared as tightly as I am, for as long as I am. She will serve Mab until the bitter end. And oh, when that end never comes, how bitter it is.

  “Of course, dear,” I say. I give her my most winning smile. Let her think I am happy. Then she will tell Mab I am happy, and our queen will never be wiser. I set down the brush and turn to her. Gesture her into the room.

  She steps toward me. Young, frail thing. Only here a week, and already she has the stoop to her shoulders, the weight of knowing the truth of this place. Perhaps not consciously, no. The magician keeps her stupid. But her body knows. Her soul feels what her mind cannot.

  “Can I get you a drink?” I ask. I pull out a drawer, showcasing the array of clear and pale-blue bottles. “Gin, perhaps? I managed to get some limes from the food cart.”

  “I’m fine,” Vivienne replies. She opens her mouth as if she wants to ask something more, then looks to the window. Does she already feel the paranoia? “The numbers?”

  I reach in and pull out a bottle anyway, pouring a thin stream of gin into a tumbler. I forgo the tonic and lime. I like things neat.

  “Do you feel,” I say, “that even these walls are of glass?”

  “Sorry?”

  “We are constantly on display,” I say. It’s too much, I know. But I have to see if she feels it. If she knows. Mab be damned, I have to know if I’m the only one who sees through all this. “Even in our beds, we are part of a show.”

  “I . . .” She sighs. Poor thing. She doesn’t know what to think. One week here and already she has seen death. A part of me wants to tell her she will be seeing much more. She joined at the wrong time. There was never a right time.

  “We must all play our roles,” I continue. “At all times, in all measures. Our audience expects nothing less.”

  “I guess.” I can tell she wants to leave. But she will go nowhere. Not until she has learned what Mab wants to know. Already she knows not to disappoint our queen.

  “Be wary. Remember that we are always performing, Vivienne. Even to each other. But I promise you this: I will not put on a performance around you. You have a friend in me. If ever you need someone to speak to . . .”

  I raise my drink.

  She gives me a weak grin. Does she know how long her contract runs? Does she know that she is like me? A freak on display. A pawn in Mab’s games. I will save her. I will set her free. I drink to this. To freedom. To all the lost little girls Mab took under her wing, and never let go of.

  Then Vivienne begins to laugh.

  “You?” she asks. “You honestly think I’d speak to you?”

  The gin is bitter in my throat. Vivienne is still chuckling to herself, but I cannot find the joke.

  “Seriously, Penelope. Who are you to give me advice?” She steps over and grabs the pendant from my throat, holding it up between us. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you? Because you’ve been here the longest. Because you’re the oldest.”

  She leans in close. I try to swallow the gin but it sticks to my throat. Burns away at my insides.

  “Age doesn’t mean you are wise, Penelope. Not in here. In truth, it means you are the dumbest. You were the first she ensnared, and you have yet to figure out how to escape. Why would I turn to you, when you are the most pathetic of us all?”

  I can’t reach up to grab my necklace back. My hands won’t move, and the gin won’t stop burning. I can’t even scream through the pain that builds in the back of my throat.

  “You think your little plan to escape will work. You think you can free yourself. But Mab owns you. She owns every scrap of you. And she won’t let you escape. You’ve seen what happens to those who defy her. But you’ve been at her side forever—she will have a special place in hell for you.”

  She swivels me in the chair then, and I want to scream. I want to run. From the sight of my shriveled face, my flesh drooping from my eyelids, my scalp bare and my beautiful hair strung about my shoulders in red-grey wisps.

  “You think you are beautiful,” she hisses in my ear, and now her hair is black, her skin porcelain, “but you are mortal, my dear. You have aged, even if you do not see it. Yo
u have grown ugly. Compared to me, you will always be so. At my side, you will always be the one overlooked.”

  She stands and loops the pendant around her neck. Her fingers curl over the stone as her lips curl into a smile.

  “Shall we see what you’ve saved for remembering? Shall we see what you’ve plotted against me? You have damned yourself, Penelope. You betrayed me, when I gave you everything, when not even your own parents wanted you. I will show you how I treat those who do not deserve my protection.”

  She pulls me from the chair and I am on a wooden platform.

  A crowd surrounds us, and Mab is nowhere to be seen as rough hands tie rope behind my back. Tie me to a pillar of wood. The crowd is raging, on the verge of bloodshed. They yell and cheer and scream obscenities. I know two of them. I have never met them, but I know them. My mother and father. They hold rotten fruit and scream at me, and when they toss the fruit, I cringe back, feel the sharp smack of it on my naked flesh. I turn, sobbing, and stare at the man binding me to the pillar. He smiles when he sees me struggle. Pulls my bonds tighter.

  “They want to rip you apart, little one,” he says gruffly. When the knot is finished, he caresses my cheek with his scarred hand. It makes me want to vomit. “They want to tear you to pieces.”

  And they have before. I remember now. The hundreds of times I have been trapped up here. The thousands of times they have decided there were better ways for me to go—to draw and quarter me, to fill my skin with burning embers, to slowly rip every single scale from my bleeding flesh.

  The man chuckles. “And here she is to decide your fate. What will it be tonight?”

  He forces my chin forward, to where Mab cuts through the crowd. She stands before the cage in a sleek dress with a high collar, like she is off to a funeral. My funeral.

  “I saved you from this,” she says. “Without my protection, to this you will return. You think your family would save you? Would be better caregivers than I?”

  She smiles and looks to the man beside her, gesturing him forward.

  “You are a monster,” my father says. “We wanted a daughter. We never wanted you.”