A Circus of Ink

by Lauren Palphreyman

  I don’t like this. This is dangerous.

  ‘What have you been up to, little Twist?’

  I should put it back. I’m not supposed to snoop around. Go in, End the Twist, get out. That’s what was written by the Creators. That’s what I’m supposed to do.

  And yet, without knowing why, I fold it up and slip it into my pocket.

  I take a deep breath, then I look up at the cupboard. I think of her small hand on my chest and the way she looked up at me with eyes as sharp as the stars that shine over the Final City.

  Endings don’t bother me. They are written, and we all must serve our purpose. Everything that begins must end, and I have no say in the plans of the Creators. Even if I did, who am I to question the gods who created this world?

  But this time, it feels different. There’s a small part of me that doesn’t want to deliver this girl’s Ending.

  I blow out hot air and shake my head. The decision has already been made. The curious girl will die. It is written. She is already dead.

  I crack my neck as I prepare myself. ‘Okay, time’s up. Let’s get on with it.’ I throw open the cupboard doors. ‘Fuck!’

  I can’t move. I can’t think. I step back and put my hands on my head.

  ‘Oh, fuck!’

  How is this possible?

  There’s no bottom to the cupboard. Instead, a long ladder leads into darkness. The faint scent of shit indicates the Draft One sewers lie below. I’ve lost her.

  This is impossible. We’re on the fiftieth floor of the tower block, and I know every inch of it. I know every inch of every tower block within this Draft. They’re all the same. If the Creators had put this here, I’d know about it.

  ‘Little Twist?’ I say. If she’s not dealt with by midnight, I’m well and truly fucked. I swallow hard. ‘Um . . . Elle?’

  My voice echoes back to me.

  ‘Fuck!’

  I clasp my hands behind my head and look around the room. For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do. This isn’t written.

  How could I have fucked this up so badly? She was supposed to run, yes. But not through a fucking trapdoor in the cupboard! I slam my hand against the wall, and the plaster cracks. Then I close my eyes and steady my breathing.

  Okay, Jay, pull it together.

  I think of the teasing smile she flashed me. ‘See you soon,’ she said.

  She expects me to find her.

  Do I follow her down the trapdoor into the unknown, or do I head to the place I expected her to run to? Something weighs heavily on my chest. I don’t make decisions. This is new. This is wrong. This is dangerous.

  Like her.

  Water drips below. The ladder creaks against the narrow confines of the hole. I touch it. It’s cold. Sturdy.

  This shouldn’t exist.

  Where does this lead? Is she down there?

  My throat feels tight, and I suck in a breath as I move closer. Then I shake my head and flex my fingers.

  This isn’t written. This can’t be right. This can’t be expected of me.

  I touch her death warrant tattooed on my chest. I remember her hand in the same place, my heart beating against it. No one has ever touched me like that before. No one has ever surprised me before.

  There’s something dangerous about her. I don’t think she’s an ordinary Twist.

  For a moment, I let myself wonder. I recall the feeling of her hair through my fingers, the challenge dancing about those bright amber eyes. I think of her face close to mine, her breath tickling my skin. I think about sliding my leg between her thighs to hold her against the wall, then tasting her throat then her lips.

  I exhale. This is wrong. It does no good to dwell on things that cannot be.

  I close my eyes, and my pulse starts to calm down. I know where she’ll go, though the path in my mind seems less certain than usual.

  I shut the impossible cupboard door and stride out of the small bedsit.

  ‘See you soon, little Twist.’

  Chapter Three

  Elle

  Stories have teeth. And they’re hungry. Some stories starve before they have a chance to grow. But some stories are so big and powerful and ancient that people feed them without even realising it. The Creators’ story is like that.

  I see it all around me as I hurry through the Draft, the rucksack I left hiding behind the impossible door on my back. There are hints of it in the constant rain that soaks my overalls and the bleak rows of black, crumbling skyscrapers. In the distance, smoke signals the factories and the power plants that never shut. They take people’s dreams and never give them quite enough to live on in return. I pass billboards with black-and-white images of the Creators on them, reminders of who is letting us live here. And neon Sacred Styluses flicker in the darkness, marking some buildings as Houses of Truth where the Tellers can spread their gospel.

  There are hints of the Creators’ story too in the spattering of bullets that crunch underfoot as I cross a square, and in the blood that runs into the drains. Even in the tattooed men I have to hide from as they head into a tavern.

  Reminders not to sin, not to deviate from the story that has been written, not to get curious. They remind us that we belong to the Creators, and if we step out of line, we will be Cut from the story altogether.

  Like I am supposed to be Cut.

  I glance over my shoulder, wondering how close my Blotter is to catching up with me. I wonder if he followed me down the ladder into the sewers or if he took a more conventional route. I quicken my pace.

  It takes me about twenty minutes to reach the black market. It’s housed in the old power plant, a series of looming shadows beside the river. It shut down when an earthquake struck just before I arrived in the Draft, and I have heard whispers it’s a sign the foretold Ending of the Creators’ story is upon us.

  The slightly brighter lights from the Draft Two skyscrapers blink across the river as I hurry towards the doors, the smell of river weed hanging in the air.

  Does the Blotter know I’ll come here? Is it written? Am I a part of the Creators’ story? Or is this a story of my own? Either way, it is the obvious place for me to go right now, and I’m not trying to escape him. Not yet.

  I think he is different, and different is dangerous.

  I am dangerous too.

  The main hall of the power plant is lit by candles and roaring fires in metal bins. People trickle through the wooden carts and tables selling forbidden items: ink, tattoo needles, weapons, food, pieces of parchment. Low voices echo around the room.

  There’s a tavern at the end where I intend to wait for the Blotter, but I make a detour when I spot my book dealer—a dark-haired girl around my age, nineteen—behind a table covered with battered tomes.

  ‘I’ve got an old one for you today,’ she says, her breath misting in front of her face. She hands me one of the leather-bound books the Tellers read from. ‘Any good?’

  It’s called The Book of Truth, a tool used to spread the Creators’ story, and I flick through the scratchy pages, unable to stop myself from inhaling its musty scent. How can something so dangerous smell so sweet? I shake my head when I get to the end. This isn’t the version I’m looking for. My disappointment is reflected on her face as she slips it back into her satchel.

  When I walk into the tavern, it’s quiet. There are only a few people drinking at the metal tables in the dank space. It’s quiet enough that I can hear water dripping from a leak in the roof.

  I grab the arm of a young girl as she scampers past. ‘Where is everyone?’

  She looks up at me with wide, frightened eyes. ‘A hurricane is coming.’

  I smile, satisfied. My story is spreading. Then I crouch in front of her.

  She’s scrawny and dirty, her blonde hair tangled in knots and her clothes swamping her body. Her parents have probably been Cut and she’s been left to fend for herself.

  ‘You remind me of someone,’ I say.

  ‘Who?’

  My
smile widens. ‘Once, there was a girl just like you,’ I tell her. ‘She had hair as white as the tiled streets in the Final City. And she was brave, like you. Part of her was afraid of the Blotters, but do you know, it was the Blotters who should have been afraid of her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the girl had a dragon,’ I say, ‘and one day, the Blotters came for her. And do you know what happened next?’

  She shakes her head, and her eyes brim with curiosity. I like that about children. They are so often curious, even when it is dangerous to be so. Even though soon, if she survives and is taken into one of the workhouses, they will drill it into her that to wonder, to question, to imagine, is to sin. And those lights will die from her eyes.

  I grin. ‘The dragon ate them.’ Swinging my rucksack in front of me, I hand her a couple of nutrition bars. ‘Head to the Edge of the World. There’s a place for you there.’ I give her a little push. ‘Hurry. There’s a hurricane coming.’

  At the bar, I hand a couple of bronze coins with Creator Michael’s face to the owner, and he pours me two beakers of weak beer in return.

  ‘Don’t stay long,’ he says. ‘I’m clearing out soon. They’ve kept pretty quiet about it, but the Creators are sending a hurricane at midnight. I’ve heard the Ending is approaching, and you know Draft One will be the first to go.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  I carry the drinks over to a table and take a seat, throwing down my rucksack. I slip out of the arms of my too-big overalls and wring them out on the floor, then I let flames from the metal bin behind me cast warmth onto my skin.

  I keep my eyes trained on the door as I wait for him. I wait for the hurricane too. They will both be here for me soon.

  Some stories have teeth, you see. But some stories are like dandelions. You plant them, and if they take, they grow roots and flower and spread on their own. My father told me that.

  I used to try it when I was a child. I wasn’t allowed out of my living quarters, so I’d give the seeds to the nannies and maids and cooks. I’d tell them about dusty hallways filled with butterflies, and birds singing in the dark, and bees nesting in the rafters.

  And sometimes they’d take root and I’d hear the fluttering of wings through my keyhole, or a bird would perch by the bars of my window, or the sweetest amber honey would dribble down my walls.

  My father was angry when he found out what I had been doing. Because stories are forbidden. Because stories are dangerous. Because stories are hungry. He was afraid the Creators would find out about me—about what I could do. He was afraid their story would swallow me whole.

  Well, now they have found me.

  And now they have sent one of their monsters to kill me.

  But he had curiosity in his eyes. He let me touch him. His rough hands were gentle as they brushed against my cheek. And he had a dandelion seed tattooed on his chest. Why would he have that inked amongst all the murder?

  It makes no sense.

  I think he might be different than the others. I think I might be able to persuade him not to kill me. I think I might be able to get him to deviate from the Creators’ story. I think he might even be useful.

  And if not, well. . .I have been planting a story of my own.

  Chapter Four

  Jay

  The girl has to be here. She has to be. If she’s not, I’m fucked.

  And yet for the first time since I was a boy, I’m not certain of it. Usually, I’m certain of everything. My life is mapped out for me. I’m bound to the Creators’ story by the ink that runs in my veins. Yet right now, I’m not sure what is going to happen next. I don’t like the feeling. My chest is tight, my shoulders are knotted up, and my stomach turns.

  I don’t know what the fuck is going on.

  I don’t know how she did what she did. I don’t understand why she wasn’t afraid of me, or why, when she touched me, I didn’t feel like a Blotter. I felt like a man.

  Are the Creators testing me? Have I not proven my loyalty to them? Was that Cut I made in the Final City not enough? Have the past five years in this shitty Draft been for nothing?

  And now I’m thinking blasphemous thoughts and questioning the Creators. That’s what this Twist is doing to me. I need to get my shit together and regain control of myself. I need to end this.

  At least people start to pack away their forbidden shit as I walk through their stalls. At least they’re acting like they should be. They have the sense to be afraid even though I’m not here for them right now.

  The girl should be afraid of me too.

  It pisses me off that she isn’t. That’s why my skin buzzes and my heartbeat gets faster as I approach the tavern. Yeah. Pissed off. Not excited.

  I exhale when I reach doorway to the tavern, because she’s there like she’s supposed to be. But then I see there’s a beaker in her hands like she’s waiting for me, like she knew I’d come. Something else about the place doesn’t feel right, but her eyes lock onto mine, and I can’t look away. Even though my clothes are wet, I’m hot. Why the fuck is she looking at me like that?

  I approach the table. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  I shouldn’t be asking questions. Questions come from curiosity, and fuck, doesn’t that particular question imply I’m curious about her? The corner of her lip lifts as if she knows it.

  ‘I was waiting.’ There’s that little smile again, like she knows a private joke. She nods at the beaker on the other side of the table. ‘I was hoping you’d join me for a drink.’

  ‘I’m here to deliver your Ending,’ I say.

  ‘Okay. But drink with me first.’ Her hair is wet and tangled, and heat from the flames gives her face a flushed glow. It stirs something primal within me.

  I’m not allowed to want her. I should just get the job over with before I do something stupid.

  ‘I can tell you about the impossible door if you’d like.’

  There’s something so self-assured about her—her straight posture, her unwavering gaze. No one has ever looked at me like that before. It’s as if she thinks she’s calling the shots here, which is fucking ridiculous.

  And I don’t know why I do it. Fuck, I know I’m not supposed to. But I sit down and pick up the beer.

  ‘One drink,’ I say. I reckon that’s okay. That still fits with the Creators’ story. It is written that she dies today, and it is written that she’d come here. I still have ten minutes before this day is over. ‘And then we have to get on with it.’

  ‘It’s almost midnight,’ she says.

  The metal beaker is halfway to my lips. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘One drink is all I need.’

  And then I get it. It makes sense again. She’s a Twist. She thinks she can stall me until tomorrow. But she can’t. The realisation makes my chest heavy.

  ‘If that’s what you think, little Twist.’

  The beer is shit, weak, watery stuff, nothing like the stuff they have in the Final City, but it eases some of the tightness in my chest. The Twist watches me over the rim of her beaker.

  ‘How do you know I didn’t poison it?’ she says.

  ‘I’m a Blotter. I know when I’ll die. And it isn’t now.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’m certain.’

  ‘You’re not certain about me.’

  I don’t like that she’s right. In fact, I fucking hate it.

  I lean closer, and I can smell her. Most people smell acrid. Fear smells like that. Not her. She smells sweet, like soap and sweat and honey. Why would she smell like honey? Why isn’t she afraid?

  ‘I’m more certain than you think.’ I take a deliberate sip of the beer. ‘I knew where you’d be. I knew you would come here. And I know what you’re doing now.’

  ‘Do you?’

  As my gaze moves down her body, she shifts, and the corner of my lip twitches.

  I like that she feels uncomfortable. I’m regaining control.

  ‘I found your little map,�
�� I continue.

  She raises her eyebrows, surprised. They’re slightly too big for her face and darker than her hair, but it makes her more beautiful somehow.

  And fuck, did I just think a Twist was beautiful? What the fuck is wrong with me?

  ‘You’re not supposed to have parchment. Or ink.’ I lean back and brush my hands over my head. ‘The map. What were the marks on it?’

  ‘I thought Blotters weren’t supposed to question things.’

  ‘You’d be wise to exercise a little more caution when speaking to a Blotter.’

  ‘What are you going to do about it? Kill me?’ She smiles.

  ‘Careful.’

  Something in my face must finally scare her because the humour disappears from her eyes. ‘It’s where I planted the seeds.’

  She’s making no sense. Nothing she says makes sense. Nothing she does makes sense. She’s trying to piss me off.

  ‘It’s not smart to provoke me.’

  ‘You seem to think I’m going to die tonight, so what harm could it do?’

  ‘I don’t think; I know. It’s written.’

  She studies me, her gaze lingering on every part of my body visible above the table. ‘Was it written that you’d have a drink with me?’

  I narrow my eyes. ‘Shut it.’

  ‘I know why you sat down,’ she says.

  Resting my elbows on the table, I lean forwards. ‘And why is that?’

  ‘You’re curious.’

  ‘Careful, little Twist.’

  ‘That’s an unusual trait for a Blotter.’ Her warm breath tickles my face as she leans forwards too. She’s close enough that I could taste her if I wanted to. ‘You’re different than the others. I can see it in your eyes.’

  Different is bad. Different is dangerous.

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘You want to know where the secret door came from, don’t you?’

  A muscle in my jaw twitches. ‘I know where it came from. The Creators. Like everything else.’

  ‘You don’t believe that. Not really.’

  I can’t do this. It’s not right. I’m not supposed to be doing this. It’s a test. It has to be. I push away the thought of her hand on my chest.