by L. J. Hatton
“He had no shadow.” I was too full of pent-up energy to be reasonable; arguing with Evie burned some off. “And he put his hands on you. I saw you wince from across the field.”
A gust of hot wind blasted through the backstage area, blowing Vesper’s wig in all directions. The glass bits hanging from Evie’s trim tinked together.
Klok beeped and produced a string of words on his display.
“That’s not appropriate language,” Evie scolded. “Especially not in front of a young lady.”
“Penn is a boy. Boys use inappropriate words.”
“Do they now?”
Beep . . .
“Yes.”
“Which words?”
Rat-tat-tat . . .
A long string ran across his screen, so fast the words were nearly illegible. Evie made a face.
“Klok, Vesper, go check the animals. Now!” she ordered.
Vesper took Klok’s arm, grinning. The wind died down as her snarling turned to snickers.
Klok gave me the confused look he always wore when he said something he shouldn’t have, and he let my evil twin lead him away.
“You two are unfair punishment,” Evie said once he and Vesper were gone. “Half those words were nonsense.”
“He asked,” I said. “If I hadn’t given him a list, he’d have gone to Nagendra. Then you’d have taped over his screen.”
“If you think you’re actually in charge around here, you’ve let that top hat go to your head. Help me. I can’t fit the skirt myself.”
She held out the reflective wrapper that made her look like a burning candle during her act, and I hooked it into place along the eyelets that circled her waist.
“Get onto your mark before I tell Klok to replace you,” she said.
“How exactly would he announce without a voice?”
“Klok’s more resourceful than you give him credit for. And he’s as stubborn as you.”
She sounded like our father, insisting that Klok was more than the sum of his parts.
“Scoot. The cue’s about to sound.”
Jermay was waiting for me near the hidden arena door, which meant I’d been backstage through Zavel’s magic act, and now the music said the Jeseks’ was ending as well. A dramatic swell announced the climax of their acrobatics, and soon after came applause.
“Go.” Evie shooed me toward the door in our mirrors.
“Be careful out there,” Jermay said as I ran past him. “Warden’s front and center.” He let his hand fall to his side, hooking my little finger with his own—a way to say “good luck,” and an empty promise that everything would be all right.
I made it to the mirror door just as Birdie led her family out of the arena. She was beaming. Bruno, their father, swung her up off the ground.
“This little bird may have arrived late, but she’s a Jesek sure as life,” he said.
“What’s all this?” I asked.
“I flew,” she squealed and flung herself at me.
Two years earlier the idea of her hugging anyone would have seemed impossible. When my father found her, Birdie was half-starved and squatting in an empty house. He gave her a sandwich and she followed him home.
She kept to the darkest storage cars. We all tried to coax her out, but no one could—except Bruno. Every night, he took a plate of food and a book, and sat on the floor to read aloud, as though he was tucking in one of his own children. Birdie would snatch up the food and run, until she got comfortable enough to sit with him. One day, he left his daughter’s old costume with the food. He told Birdie she was expected at practice with the rest of the family.
An hour later, she appeared in the arena. Her hair was a mess, her face was dirty, and the costume didn’t sit straight, but she was there. Birdie hadn’t left the Jeseks since.
“I really did it,” she squeaked. “I flew!”
“That’s wonderful,” I said.
“Come on,” one of her brothers said. “I think Mama may have hidden a cake away to celebrate.”
She grabbed her surrogate brothers by the hands and they walked off together, while she flipped between them.
The Show was family, and nobody was wiping the smile off Birdie’s face when it had taken two years to put it there. I was not about to fail the people my father had promised to protect.
When my cue sounded, I marched to the podium with my head up high. I tromped whiny Penelope down to the bottom of Penn’s boots and held her there. When I spoke my part, it was as Magnus Roma’s son, with Magnus Roma’s voice.
“I hope you’ve all enjoyed our introduction,” I said.
The lights dimmed to a spot, and a ripple of apprehension surged through the night’s excitement.
“But this is The Show, dear patrons. What serves as greatest entertainment elsewhere is merely the beginning here.”
The spotlight raked across the crowd, and furtive glances followed in its wake.
“Do you hear something?”
“Not the snakes!” a voice cried out from the stands.
“Is that a crackle in the air?” I asked. Now people were craning their necks to find the source of the sound.
A small flame flared to life while Evie stood on her mark in the arena’s darkened wings. The flame bounced in her hand, its light catching the glittering shards of her costume. She threw the flaming ball onto the ground, where it unrolled into a spindly thread.
“She’s not human!” gasped a mundane from the stands. Others called out “Alien!” and “Touched!” Monster. Freak. One faceless onlooker managed to spit out the technical term of “pyrokinetic.” I acted like the words didn’t make my skin crawl. We were too close to the anniversary. Videos and photographs of the Medusae were everywhere, thanks to anniversary specials and rallies, and fresh enough in people’s minds to cause an uproar.
“Turn the lights on!” the crowd demanded. There was a rush of stamping feet. “We can’t see!”
“My apologies,” I said. “Evie, these fine people need some light.”
She pulled back sharply on the bit of burning string still in her hand, splitting the air with the crack of a flaming whip. Bright embers shook loose from the tip, falling slowly back to the dirt floor.
“Leaving so soon?” she asked. “Samson hasn’t even gotten to show off yet.”
Beside her, the shape of a large dog formed entirely out of fire, sitting at heel. The top of his head reached her shoulder.
The crowd stopped, uncertain which way to go. The warden was still in his seat.
“Always scaring off our customers, Nieva.” Another spotlight snapped on, revealing Nim in the arena now. As she walked to the center, her costume flowing over her body like liquid metal, a pair of dolphins made from water swam in the open air, waist high, on either side of her.
It wasn’t likely that anyone in the crowd had ever seen an elemental golem before, which was a good thing. The more impossible things seemed to be, the more they were accepted as part of the act. This was all some kind of trick. Only entertainment.
The audience began to calm and retake their seats as a bear grew out of the ground, rising in the form of dust and sand and pebbles with shiny black stones for eyes. It lumbered high on its back legs, but at Anise’s bidding, it bent over, splitting into a litter of chubby cubs that ran to the edges of the arena, chasing the children back to their seats. Vesper floated down from above, accompanied by the owls she had summoned from air so thick it turned white.
I could see the concentration on the warden’s face. Unlike those around him, he would know what my sisters’ creations meant. It was one thing to build the unheard-of out of metal and polymer, like our father did, but to give life to fire, water, earth, and wind was more than science. These golems weren’t built—they were summoned—and that was more than human.
The devastation
I could have wrought with an ounce of their skill . . .
“I give you the daughters of Magnus Roma,” I shouted, hoping to distract him.
The crowd broke into applause as Evie bent live flames to her will, unleashing them to swirl about the tent and light the arena for the others. Nim’s water dolphins dove and leapt among the fire spurts as easily as real dolphins might through the ocean.
Anise ran from one upward-thrusting rock piston to another, making them rise and sink in a complicated pattern. And Vesper . . . Vesper flew. That beautiful wig spiraled out, free as a weed. Her gown fluttered around her feet while she walked on air and awe above their heads.
The warden counted my sisters as they circled the arena, unable to contain his interest, but he didn’t stop at number four.
His eyes met mine.
The intensity of his focus cut against my skin until I could hardly stand it, but I wasn’t so foolish as to look away, or give him reason to believe his curiosity was warranted. There were four elements—only four. Magnus Roma’s son couldn’t possibly be a fifth daughter. He couldn’t be Celestine. Celestine wasn’t even a proper word; it was a description my father came up with. The warden couldn’t know something that didn’t exist.
He smiled, and it was a horrible thing, hypnotic as one of Nagendra’s pets mesmerizing its prey before a kill. I was so fixated on him that I lost track of which part of the routine was being carried out. One of Vesper’s owls knocked me tails-over-top-hat. Samson reared back, to stop me from falling through his body, but I came close enough to light my sleeves on fire.
I knew better than to scream, even when the flames dipped down the seam. Screaming meant that something was wrong, and that would only cause a panic. Evie was close, and she’d never let me burn.
“Always trying to get into our act!” Nim was on me in a second, and I found myself surrounded by her water dolphins, each spouting spray from the top of its head. The crowd cheered while I fizzled, trying not to choke on the smell of melted fabric.
“Shameless,” Vesper added. It was the owls’ turn to circle, drying me off so my clothes wouldn’t cling.
“Back to your place, Ringmaster,” Anise said. She jerked her thumb toward the ceiling, and one of her bears picked me up by the collar of my shirt. It dropped me back on my podium. “Careless little boys don’t get to play in the arena.”
“You can sit in time-out until the grown-ups are done,” Evie said. She made a circle with her finger. “Face the wall.”
The audience was laughing now; they thought the whole thing was choreographed. In reality, Evie was telling me that I should stay slumped down, not giving the audience anything but my back to look at. And to make the point, Anise spun my podium, ground and all, so I had no choice but to comply.
The laughter got louder.
The final act lasted only twenty minutes, but it felt longer. When the end cue sounded, Bijou purred against my throat, reminding me that we were almost clear. All that remained was the bonfire, because no performance ever closed without Evie dancing in the flames.
After the bows were taken, the procession headed out, toward the cliffs that overlooked the river. Evie went first, shining through the night like a woodland elf headed for court, with Nim close behind in case something went amiss. Samson ran beside them, nipping at those who strayed too close. Vesper stayed back to secure the real animals in their pens. When Klok and I tried to join the winding line of lantern-bearing Show members leading the crowd, Anise slipped out of the group to stop us.
“Go back to the train,” she said. “If anyone asks, tell them you’re overseeing the packing of the tents. We’re running behind, and must make up every minute we can find.”
“But—” I stammered. “Is anyone else staying with the train?”
“Squint and Smolly. So you’d best hope there’s no need to worry.”
Squint was an engineer, the man who kept our train moving when my father was gone, but he only stood as high as Birdie’s shoulder. His wife, Small Molly, was two inches taller, but she was still well under four feet. Over the years, the children of The Show had run the two names together. “Smolly” was all she had answered to in my lifetime.
Anise raised her dirt-encrusted goggles and perched them on her head to hold her bobbed hair off her face. “I know Evie believes the danger is lifting, but she’s wrong, Chey-chey. You feel it, don’t you?”
I did. The night had become kinetic. Static before an electric storm.
“Something’s coming. Go back to the train, but if you feel the need, you run. Don’t wait for us. Get yourself clear, and trust us to get to the Hollow. Promise me.”
Her hand came down heavy on my shoulder.
“I . . . I promise.”
“Klok, make sure she keeps her word—by force, if you have to.”
Anise wasn’t as trusting as Evie when it came to my word, so she made sure I didn’t have any loopholes to jump through. Klok was twice my size, and half as willing to go against my sisters’ wishes.
“I will keep Penn safe,” his display read.
“If it comes to a run, then it’s Penelope you’ll have to watch over,” Anise said.
She wasn’t like Evie, who tried to make things seem as bright as possible, or Vesper, given to fits of drama; Anise grounded the rest of us. It was part of her touch. She didn’t raise alarm without cause, and now she was shaken. Klok looked from me to her and back again. He bit his lip, faltering for the first time and looking the most human I’d ever seen him.
“Go on,” she said, nudging us toward the train. Birdie’s moonlit outline was already headed that way, illuminated by strands of colored lanterns in the trees as Jermay swung her up onto his shoulders to carry her. “And Klok?”
He turned around, inclining his head.
“Don’t forget to watch out for yourself, too.”
I went to bed, chanting a silent mantra against my fears. It’s almost time. It’s almost over. They’re almost back. Over and over I repeated words that rang hollow, telling myself that once the bonfire was doused, my sisters would return, and the train would be laying track by daybreak. Those whispered promises lulled me into a half-sleeping haze. One moment I was trying to convince myself not to panic, and the next, I was being shaken awake.
“Back already?” I asked, expecting Anise, but when I opened my eyes, the pair staring back at me were wide and dark, and framed by long hair.
Winnie leaned over me. Then the girl I’d only ever known as mute opened her mouth and said, “They’re coming.”
CHAPTER 5
My train car pitched sideways, knocking me, Winnie, and everything else to the floor, while smoke rose from beneath my door to fill the room.
“We derailed,” Winnie said, but that shouldn’t have been possible. There was no proper track beneath us. “The door is blocked,” she said. The wardrobe had toppled against it.
“The window too,” I added. The car had fallen with the glass to the ground.
“Help us!” we screamed, and beat against the wall.
“No one can hear us.” Winnie kicked the wardrobe in frustration. Her hair hung in tangled knots from the tumble.
“How long have you been able to talk?”
“As long as you, more or less. Can’t you get us out of here?”
“It doesn’t work like that.” I’d spent too much time fettering the Celestine. I couldn’t call her up at will.
Winnie flung the wardrobe open, and began throwing armfuls of my stuff over her head. My whole life, and every dream I’d ever held, amounted to an ankle-deep heap.
“Help me,” she said. “If I lighten it, we might be able to move it.”
I squeezed into the space between the wardrobe and the wall. Pressing my feet against the wall, I braced my back against the wardrobe’s side and shoved; my reward was the scrape of wo
od against the floor. Winnie jammed herself into the gap beside me, and we worked the door wide enough to crawl through under the smoke.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We’re being boarded. They brought in the hounds.”
Suddenly the threat of suffocation wasn’t the scariest thing about the night. If unnoticeables were the Commission’s unseen secret, hounds were the unspoken. They were the ghosts of all those gifted girls who vanished into memories. Some were studied, to see if the Medusae’s secrets could be unlocked, but most were made hounds, the common name for trained hunters. Hounds were touched like my sisters, dispatched by the wardens to capture or neutralize their own kind.
There was no use hoping that this was a freak accident, or a dream brought on by Anise’s warnings. The Commission had attacked the train. My father had fallen out of favor, and we were being collected.
Winnie and I darted from car to car so fast I didn’t know whose space we were in. Through the windows, there was pandemonium, as those who’d been at the bonfire scattered, most with their lanterns still in hand, like clumps of fireflies fleeing across the cliffs.
“He brought in military,” I said, taking in the drab green and stenciled numbers on each rumbling vehicle that had surrounded the train.
“I didn’t hear any choppers,” Winnie said. “They came from close by—probably the reserve base in the next county.”
Calling up reserve troops was a warden’s privilege, if circumstances warranted it. The man who had attended our performance would know he was dealing with four exceptionally strong elementals who had precision control over their abilities. He’d know how smart my father was, and if he wasn’t a complete idiot, he’d know my sisters were as clever. He’d come prepared for anything, but hopefully, he was concentrating on the crowd and wouldn’t notice a couple of girls in their pajamas sneaking out under his nose.
All my hopes of escaping undetected vanished with a young girl’s scream.
“What was—umph!”
One hand covered my mouth and another covered Winnie’s. I had opened my mouth to bite its owner before I smelled machine oil on his fingers.