by Kim Smejkal
The High Mistico used terms like desertion, aiding and abetting, heresy, and willfully spreading heterodoxy, making it all sound official enough. The subtle subversions the Mob had always put into their shows were twisted into catastrophic proof of dissent.
Assembling in a line at the edge of their new stage, the troupe looked unbothered and perfect, their costumes mended, their masks in place. Despite the guards and mistico muscling them around, they chatted and even laughed. Grisilda and Fawn began practicing some vocal exercises, echoing each other’s gibberish scales. Each new member joining them in that line was greeted with hugs and smiles even as High Mistico Benedict named their crimes, justified each execution. Such good players, even Celia couldn’t tell whether their casual calm was forced or true.
Anya had guessed that Diavala would build up to the reveal; she’d been waiting too long not to savor this moment to its fullest. Like Tanza, feeding her insatiable ego.
As the Mob was put into position, Celia continued to flail around, as if possessed, under the bell jar. She stole effects from every show she’d ever done: dancing, turning, writing on the glass in weeping black paint. Diavala had even provided her with colored glitter to throw around like a fool. Nothing too absurd for the devil under the bell jar. No commands came from the audience, but Celia didn’t need them. Most knew of their show, had already bought into it.
Then the doors to the temple creaked shut behind Marco and Tanith in their sharp black-and-red fire-master suits. Marco glared as he stomped to the front, ready for battle.
Celia’s gaze flew to those heavy double doors, not understanding. The audience was assembled, the devil was under the bell jar, the Mob were all onstage, Diavala was finishing off the list of crimes.
Everyone was in position—except Anya.
Diavala came close enough to the bell jar so that no one else could overhear, watching Celia’s reaction with undisclosed glee. “Remember, she can live if you play along. This is a gesture of my goodwill.”
All those days ago, Nero had called it. Celia had screamed her weakness and Diavala had listened. She’d split them up and taken a hostage, another fail-safe against any inkling shenanigans onstage.
“Damn it, I hate youuuuu!” Celia wailed at Diavala, weaving it into her performance.
Diavala acknowledged Celia’s rage with a wicked smile.
Celia slapped her palms against the glass as Diavala walked back to the front of the stage.
Another jab on her arm. In her cheater’s mirrors, ink bloomed and then disappeared quickly. Diavala wants you to behave. And Celia swore she could hear Anya hiss it from behind those closed doors.
Don’t, Anya inked, and then, irritatingly, dotted a string of exclamation points so Celia didn’t misunderstand her. Anya might not have been onstage with them, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t communicate.
This was it. What they’d intended to do in Malidora, they would do now.
And then, if that wasn’t enough, they’d do a little bit more.
Diavala thought she’d bested them, but they’d experimented with her ink in earnest. All those orders for the Mob they’d completed, the trip into Malidora, their act every night. By now they knew every limit and could have mapped out the boundaries like expert cartographers. Being separated like this made the night harder for them, but not impossible.
Not at all.
Celia took a deep breath and took herself back to their first show. Unlike that first night, however, she reached toward pandemonium on purpose.
Her transformation changed abruptly: from angry devil to trapped innocent in a blink.
Celia made herself look small and spent. Her shoulders rocked with exaggerated sobs. She wrote the word—Why?—on the glass with her paintbrush. She made deliberate eye contact with the people in the front rows to get them to see her as broken and lost. One couple kept drawing her gaze. Fallan and Pia, holding hands. Fallan’s souvenir ribbon was again tied in his hair, with Pia holding its twin in her free hand. Celia took it as a sign of loyalty to the Mob, as if they hadn’t made up their minds yet, and bolstered, she performed directly for them.
I may have horns, but do you see the cruelty in this?
The Rabble Mob whispered to themselves now, robust acting cranked up even more, pretending to be confused at the switch. The guards behind each Mob member had to duck wildly gesturing arms. Captain Andras tapped her baton on the glass with angry code—whatever you’re trying to provoke, devil, stop it.
Celia didn’t know how well it was working, but hundreds of faces processed the message.
Diavala reacted to the change with grace disguising her anger. The devil couldn’t beg for mercy. The Mob couldn’t change the show—their own execution. Celia’s gaze didn’t move from Diavala, but her insides reached toward the Mob at the side of the stage.
She put a clawed hand over her heart. The signal for pandemonium.
Please, let this work.
Interlude
A dimmed stage. A devil trapped behind glass.
She stole the Divine ink from the temple that bore her. She ran away with it in her veins and conned her way onto a stage. The Devil in the Bell Jar was never a show, but Diavala herself deceiving them and leading them astray. Thankfully, she was caught before a wildfire of chaos consumed the land and they turned away from their beloved Divine.
The devil does ridiculous things under its glass prison. Every gyration of its body is grotesque and ugly. Many in the crowd know how the famed Mob show ends: a triumph of good over evil. They are a part of the good, and tonight will be no different. They always win.
They wait with bated breath to see how this long chapter will end.
Then the devil begins weeping. Pleading with her whole body for them to end her torment.
Tentacles of swirling gray fog spread through the crowd, reaching, caressing them with doubt.
But there should be no doubt. She is Diavala herself—a trickster, a thief—they can’t sympathize with her!
They cast covert glances around them, wondering if they’re the only ones feeling strange. They look to Ruler Vacilando for cues on how to respond, but she ignores them, intent on the show in front of her. Her hand flutters to her shoulder, absently stroking her Divine ink.
It seems wrong, though, so wrong all of a sudden, that they’ve broken such a thing. It may be ghastly, but something tugs and roils inside them. They don’t want to believe they were part of what put it there. Part of its humiliation.
A few begin to make their way toward the stage. One giant—who, if they thought to ask what hid under his officer’s shirt, would show them a tattooed salamander—abandons his post and is the first to move to the front.
Then a blinding flash of purple and blue flames erupts from the stage, startling them, making them jump back. They hadn’t expected the rest of the Mob to be part of this. They’d thought the night was about the Devil in the Bell Jar, the final act in a show that began in the Asuran Rover field months ago. They shield their eyes against the unexpected newness of it. They squint toward the stage, waiting for the image to re-form. Their excitement has transformed to nervous anticipation, for whatever is onstage now will be novel. Something deliciously fresh for them to react to.
When the purple and blue flames die down, the devil is gone.
Someone stands there, the beastly mask at her feet. She doesn’t look exceptional. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. So small and slight, she seems closer to child than adult, despite how those dark eyes flash with feeling. She looks more frightened than frightening, far from the Diavala they’d imagined. Just a person in a costume.
The people would murmur to one another if they could breathe. Music begins. At first it’s nothing more than a low hum, and they think it’s their blood singing in their veins. As the volume increases, they realize it’s the Mob itself, singing a woeful lament. The volume rises until it’s caressing every corner of the temple, perhaps all of Illinia.
&n
bsp; How she weeps and tries to escape her prison. Hands on the glass, pushing, pleading.
How beautiful and fragile she looks. How broken.
With her paintbrush—the one she’d used to mark her prison before—she writes Help me. The ink drips down the glass like tears.
The Mob sings a moan set to music.
It’s beautiful. And so sad.
When a few of the inklings add their voices to the lament, more doubt blooms. A young, raven-haired inkling near the stage leads—no, too young to be an inkling yet, an apprentice—their voice powerful and strong even as they dart nervous glances to the light-eyed High Mistico.
Something stirs among the mistico then, because they see something similar to the final inkling test. A test of loyalty, where a choice must be made. They look to one another, to the heavens, to their High Mistico. Could this be their test? Perhaps this has all been orchestrated to determine if they are kind and compassionate, if they are merciful and benevolent.
If, now that their Divine is about to manifest for them, they are worthy of her.
What does the Divine want them to do?
The Rabble Mob’s act has always included the crowd. Somewhere here is a call to action. They’d all heard stories of a show, once, where the people freed the devil because they’d seen something different.
Maybe this was the difference, right here in front of them.
Their High Mistico still hasn’t moved to stop the singing, nor signaled for execution.
A few mistico begin moving forward, as if they have no control over their limbs. The Divine is testing them, and they won’t fail her. They believe in her benevolence, and they need to prove it.
The person with the hidden salamander is beside the bell jar, speaking to the one trapped behind glass.
The crowd stirs. More people begin moving. Mob mentality takes over, and then it’s no longer about whether they should free her or not, but about who will be the one to do it. They fight for the honor of setting things right, jostling one another. They act on a base human impulse that’s impossible to rationalize.
A couple steps forward, one of them raising a blue and purple ribbon above her head like a banner. They will right the wrong. They will free her.
And the one trapped behind glass smiles like the sun. Yes, come to me! We’re on the same side!She turns her gaze to the High Mistico and nods at the victory.
He is in no hurry. He doesn’t gesture the mistico back or ask Ruler Vacilando to do anything. In fact, when guards grab two members of the Mob, he commands them to stand back.
This fuels the people and the mistico both. He is the leader for this epic day, and he does not stop them.
They made the right choice.
Then everyone goes still.
But every heartbeat speeds up.
A black spiral has appeared on the collarbone of the little thing trapped behind glass. A message in ink.
She looks down at it, awash with new despair. Then she spins around and around in circles, obeying the order.
Moments before, they’d been wholly committed to freeing her, convinced that their Divine wanted them to. The Mob’s chorus had urged them on. Inkling voices complimented the show. Ruler Vacilando had only bowed her head in reverence. The High Mistico who’d captured her and brought her to face justice hadn’t interceded.
But . . . the ink. What did it mean?
She winces against pain and lifts her shirt, showing her midriff. A black handprint. She presses her hand to the glass at precisely the same angle, doing what she’s told.
The person with the salamander on his stomach has stepped back. His gaze swivels away from her and toward the crowd. His huge arm sweeps to them. Come! He gestures to the crowd. Come! He begs the mistico.
People move their hands to their bodies, touching similar inked commands that they’d accepted and answered.
That they believe in. That they will never doubt.
They know the truth then: if the Divine commands the one trapped, she’s supposed to be trapped. The Divine sees all, knows all, and the ink is her way of speaking.
They’d almost made a terrible mistake and failed her test.
The near heresy around them is tangible. It’s frightening and exciting to be a part of something so big. Hundreds of people are entirely made of silence and hesitation. Now, no one wants to be the first to move.
They may well be frozen there forever.
A blue and purple ribbon flutters free, swirling in the air with a gust of breeze before settling at the base of the glass dome near the devil’s feet. The unmasked devil stares at it.
The High Mistico is onstage again, facing the people, his back to the bell jar. He says, “The devil and her followers still had one trick up their sleeves, trying to lure you into disavowing the ink. I am glad, my people, you’re not so easily fooled. Your faith is your greatest strength.”
Ruler Vacilando speaks. “Our faith holds true.”
Yes, they think. Our faith is strong. The ink is truth. Thank you for saving us from our own folly.
Inktrava sel Immorti. They will always listen to the ink.
And they wait for the Divine to reward their loyalty with her presence.
Chapter 34
It looked like failure.
On the pretense of adjusting her dress, Celia smeared paint to hide the marks on her collarbone and her stomach so no one noticed when they disappeared. Anya had chosen simple designs and visible parts of the body, but as Celia had discovered in Malidora, it was difficult to hold them in place for long. The Mob had sung extra loud, seamlessly working around Anya’s unexpected absence, so Anya had known when to ink them.
A loosed ribbon at the base of the bell jar fluttered in Celia’s peripheral vision, flashing periwinkle then plum and back again, taunting and teasing her. It looked like failure, but there was always another side, another way to tilt your head.
They’d gotten the crowd to pity her, as planned. They’d gotten the mistico to see something different than a devil under a bell jar, as planned. They were going to free her. Celia and the Mob had cast themselves in the light of good.
Then, the ink.
The people hadn’t bought the story Celia and Anya had tried to sell. The people would always believe the ink was pure. Ruler Vacilando had stood and bent herself in half, her forehead on the low wooden banister of her balcony. She may have been perched up high as overseer, but her pose only proved who served whom.
It had been easy to convince the Mob to see the ink in a different way because they saw everything in a different way; the rest of Illinia was a wholly different story. Believers would always be believers. Salamanders would always become significant to those who needed a salamander. Smoke and mirrors couldn’t hide the fact that people saw what they wanted to see. How could she and Anya have ever thought to compete with rapture? If they’d tried this in Malidora, they would have surely failed.
As Celia watched the worshipers, their love and reverence shining, a familiar ache rose in her throat. Their Divine was such a lovely thing: a spirit of caring, an invisible hand cupping their cheek. Their mistico were solid pillars upholding a rich, sacred tradition. Their ink was sacred art and substance. If Celia hadn’t come to the temple and seen the inner workings, poked around for answers, and gotten disillusioned over the span of years, she knew she’d have been one of them. They weren’t stupid or gullible, they knew only the outward face of something she’d seen the putrid guts of. Sometimes she pitied them. More times, she envied them.
Diavala addressed the crowd, then turned to Celia and spoke. Though her words were mostly muted, Celia caught the general idea. See the masses behind me; they are mine. See how they love the ink. They will never turn away from it. See it, Inkling, how little power you’ve ever had.
The ink would always win.
They’d hoped this first part would be enough to illuminate the ink’s corruption and make people see the truth. But they’d suspected it wouldn’t
.
Yes, Celia thought. We may be rats, Diavala, but we finally realized it.
The contingency plan lived and twisted in her gut like a worm. Now that its time was coming, Celia couldn’t tell whether the worm was excited or agitated or afraid, but it writhed unbearably.
Celia splayed all ten of her fingers against the glass. Ten. This started when we were ten, Anny. Then she clenched her hands into tight fists. It was time to close the loophole.
The people’s belief was their greatest strength, and they would use it.
Here was Celia’s final inkling test.
She would become the murderer she’d always known she was.
Blood roared in Celia’s ears as Diavala commended the people for holding true. Then Diavala moved close enough to have one last conversation with Celia.
“Nice effort, Inkling,” Diavala said, her voice muffled by the glass separating them. That barrier wouldn’t be there much longer, and Celia’s hands twitched at her sides.
Diavala tsked, enjoying herself. “If you hadn’t gotten your friends involved, there might have been hope for them. Alas . . .”
Perfectly on cue, the Mob began singing again, starting softly, ready to surge, giving the finale a proper musical accompaniment. Diavala arched an eyebrow at the singing Mob, but otherwise gave no outward sign she hadn’t expected it. If she were to cast herself as the Divine, she couldn’t make it look as though she’d lost control at any juncture of this day. The hymn was more choral chant than war march, nothing alarming.
But Celia was close enough to see every angry twitch on her face.
“Background music will only bring the whip and blades down faster, Inkling,” Diavala said. She’d humored them and tolerated one interruption, but this was too much.