Iris had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn’t hear the light footsteps behind her. And so when she let herself collapse to lie upon the grass, she collided against someone else’s back instead—someone strong and slender, with sinewy muscles.
“Tired from a hard day of reading?”
“Jinn!” She whipped around, a sudden swell of emotions drawing tears from her eyes the moment she saw him sitting upon the grass, his back to her. She hugged him from behind, burying her face in his hair. “Jinn, you’re okay!”
But the memory of the last time they embraced made her flush. She quickly turned back around, wondering if he remembered his fingers trailing up her arm. His lips on her neck…
“Been in the vodka again, have you?”
He clearly did not. Well, he’d been more asleep than awake, then. Half in a dream…
Still.
She hit him in the back of the head.
Jinn grunted, holding his head with a wince. “And that was for?”
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” she said, turning around with a blush. “Don’t be stupid again. Watch your back next time.”
That frantic moment she’d pulled him out of the lake during the first round. She still remembered the way his hands had reached greedily for her face as he pulled her closer toward him, his lips cracked, his consciousness slipping away from him…
Iris shook her head quickly, warmth still rushing to her cheeks. Probably didn’t remember that one either. “G-glad to see you up and about. You know, I’ve made some progress on this mystery of ours since you’ve been out. The mystery of the Fanciful Freaks.”
“Oh?” was all he said.
Iris was more than a little annoyed. “You don’t care?”
“I have other things to care about,” Jinn answered simply.
It was then that Iris noticed Jinn had something in his hands. By the time she turned to look at it more clearly, Jinn’s hands were already at the base of her jawline where her braids had gathered. She reacted sharply to his touch, her breath hitching. Working swiftly and softly, he bound the braids that Granny had weaved in a purple ribbon, forming a perfect bow.
“Wh-what’s this?” Iris asked, the heat in her cheeks spreading across her face.
“Didn’t you tell me to buy you a gift?”
At Astley’s. Iris bit her lip. “But…”
“I bought it that day. Before you ran from Coolie,” he said. “I just…” He paused. “I just didn’t know how to give it to you.”
“Why now?”
She could feel Jinn raise his head toward the sky. “I guess I realized that sometimes it’s better not to hesitate.”
And yet hesitation was already ingrained in their relationship. Words not said. Secrets kept. It was the mountain between them that Iris didn’t know how to cross. Even thinking of closing the gap made her body flood with an anxious kind of energy she could only dispel by being happy with this moment. Just a moment like this, without asking for more.
But didn’t she want more? Could she without even knowing who and what she was?
Tenderly, she touched the bow. “It’s not a hat,” she whispered.
“Don’t be picky. I remembered, didn’t I?”
Jinn’s smile brought more warmth to her body, warmth that made her feel less like an eternal corpse. She remembered what he’d told her before the first trial—that it was enough that she was Iris. There was another option to all of this. Taking Granny, running off. But something in Iris just wouldn’t let her move from this spot.
She still had to know.
“Jinn…” She fell silent for a long time before continuing. She thought of the words Jinn was crying out in his dream—something about his father? “Do you cherish the memories you had with your father?”
Jinn was taken aback. She could tell by the way his muscles tensed.
“I’m sure there are memories you like to think back on,” she continued, looking up at the sky. “There have to be. He was your father.”
“That’s what makes it hurt all the more,” Jinn answered. Iris could hear his quiet anguish.
Iris let her fingers touch his softly. And together they stayed like that, sweetly, gently, tenuous in their intimacy, intimate in their silence as the minutes passed. Jinn lowered his head before speaking again.
“That day at the fair, I saw him lying on the grass beside one of the flames. Like me and so many others, he’d been knocked down by the explosion. I saw him gasping for breath… and a man standing over him.”
A man standing over him? Iris bit her lip but remained silent.
“I can’t quite remember the man’s face. Sometimes I think I—” He paused, struggling with himself. “Sometimes I think I can remember, somewhat. That pale skin. Contours, shapes. Sometimes. But… I’m just not sure. It was ten years ago. I was nine, and I was terrified. But I do remember his cigarette—and the way he glanced at me before he dragged my father away by the leg through one of the flames. And I remember the flames. I hate flames. I hate them.”
Jinn touched his throat bitterly, as if his own fire was clamoring to erupt. All the time he’d used his abilities to help her without her knowing how much it pained him to do it. She should have realized it by now. It must have been why he’d opted out of being a fire-eater at Coolie’s company. Just because you could do something well didn’t mean you liked doing it. But when you had no choice…
“That was the last time I ever saw my father. I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I don’t even know what that man did with him…”
Jinn’s voice broke. He raised his knees, gripping his head. “You asked once where I’m from. I was born in Paris after my parents moved from Istanbul.” He paused. “No, not moved. Exiled. My father was part of a political group of intellectuals dissatisfied with the Ottoman Empire. I think they called themselves the Young Ottomans.”
“Young Ottomans.” Iris listened intently, absorbing every bit of information. After years without knowing, each new detail brought the young man known as “Jinn” to life in a way that captivated her.
“Many Young Ottomans were exiled to Paris in those days. My mother died shortly after giving birth to me. And after my father’s death in South Kensington, I lived in London. On the streets. I had to learn the language. Avoid danger. From criminals. From gangs my age who beat me and stole my money.”
As Jinn frowned, Iris thought of Max and his friends and swallowed. It explained his distrust, at any rate.
“Once I discovered my abilities, I joined different circuses, fire-eating, before finding Coolie. But that memory of my father burning—of my kind father being dragged away… Eventually, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I turned down the job and became your partner.”
Jinn fell silent. Opening up to another meant making yourself vulnerable to pain. And she could feel his throbbing in her own chest.
“My father was a gentle man,” he insisted as if he needed to convince her. “A writer. A thinker. Calm and understanding. If I didn’t know him at all, I’m sure I’d be at peace today. Sometimes not knowing is a kind of peace, Iris.” He stifled a sob, shaking his head. “I wish I didn’t remember him. I wish… I wish…”
Iris heard his breath catch in his throat as she enveloped him with her arms once again from behind. “It can be a kind of peace,” she answered. “It can also be a kind of hell. I’m sorry, Jinn.” She didn’t know what else to say. “From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry.”
“My mother used to say that when we lose something, we gain something in return,” a voice cut in.
Max. He was approaching with a sack of potatoes balanced over his right shoulder. Iris and Jinn shot to their feet in surprise.
“When things go wrong, I try not to think about what I’m losing. Just what I’m gaining.” He gazed at Iris with a soft smile before he lowered his brown eyes to the grass at his feet. “Though I seem to be losing a lot these days.”
Max seemed unusually pale, his characteris
tic cheer forced. Iris wondered if anything had happened to him.
“What are you doing here?” Jinn said. “You weren’t around when I woke up.”
“Had things to do.” Max looked close to sticking out his tongue. “Thought I’d stop by.”
“What things?” Jinn pressed.
Instead of answering, Max dropped the potatoes unceremoniously on Jinn’s feet, grinning wide as his teammate began cursing. “I hate that fancy stuff they cook at the club. Can you believe they bring us everything but good old hearty potatoes?”
Cherice had mentioned that potatoes were his favorite food one time while they were out. But this was a little…
“Tonight, I swear I’m going to barge into the kitchens and force them to cook these. It’s what we deserve.”
Max’s laughter felt a little strained. It was the times he was the most excitable that made Iris the most worried.
As Jinn kicked the burlap sack off his feet, Iris approached Max gingerly. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked, inspecting his expression.
Max’s shoulders relaxed. He leaned down to her height, smiling devilishly, making Iris’s heart jump.
“Seeing you worry about me makes me feel more than okay,” he answered. Iris quickly inched away. “I’m okay now, at least,” he added quietly.
Iris stared between the two of them. A young boy struggling to live after being ripped from his father’s side. Another taken from his mother and his sister. And she an immortal tightrope dancer seeking the truth behind her existence—the web that weaved all of their destinies together.
“Sometimes you think too much, Iris.” Max patted her on the back. “Better to let yourself feel in the moment and then let it all go once it’s done.”
Jinn scoffed. “If anything, she doesn’t think enough. You’d be well aware of that if you’d known her for more than a few days.”
That childishness was back in full force. As Iris grimaced at her partner, Max wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing a squeak from her lips.
“I don’t know, mate, I think when it comes to some things, feeling should matter more than thinking, wouldn’t you say?”
As Jinn’s expression turn cold, a flustered Iris pushed Max away and stepped back from both of them. “Well, now that we’re all here, I think we should go over what happened in the first round,” she said. “And think about how we can make our teamwork stronger.”
“How about actual teamwork?” Jinn scoffed, and Max’s expression tightened.
“You sound motivated, Iris.” Max folded his arms. “After everything that happened…” He stopped to consider his words. “This tournament is a real bother, isn’t it? The reward may be high, but the price is—”
He stopped himself, turning from her slightly without saying another word.
Something had happened to him. But she knew he wouldn’t tell her if she asked.
Iris touched the lavender bow brushing her ear as the passing wind blew her hair. “We’re in it. We can’t escape, not without consequences. Besides…” Iris looked at John Temple’s book on the grass and remembered the photo she’d taken from the British Museum. “This isn’t just my fight. I want to know why we are who we are. Is this really about evolution? The end of the world? Or something else entirely? We deserve the truth. I don’t know if we’ll have another opportunity to get it. I can read all the books I please. But being involved in this tournament, surrounded by others like us… it’s given me more knowledge about myself—about us—than I’ve had in the past ten years.”
Max placed his hands on his hips. “The truth wouldn’t be so bad, I guess. Just have to make sure we don’t die before getting it.”
“Did you forget?” Iris winked. “I can’t die.”
“So you’ll leave the rest of us to the wolves?” Max laughed. “My kind of woman.”
Jinn cleared his throat rather conspicuously. “At any rate, for now let’s just do as Iris says. Go over the last round, figure out what we can do better. And then…”
“And then.” Iris looked at Max.
Then they had to survive the second round.
30
THE NEW SHOW AT WILTON’S began seven days after the first, and somehow it was even worse, with more terrible actors to recount, with ridiculous fanfare, the battles of the first round.
Two women with black makeup painted all over their faces squared off among the trees. Iris exchanged a glance with Rin, who’d taken her spot against the left wall. She knew what Rin was thinking because she was thinking it too: these actors looked positively idiotic. Exaggerated cartoons with terrible wigs and big red lips. And the script.
Actually, the script was curious. Many of the important details of their conversation had been left out—everything surrounding Iris in particular. Did Fool not hear them? Or was he instructed to leave it out? How could Fool have all these accounts in the first place?
“I think they could have chosen a better actor to play me,” Max said, watching himself battle Rin’s former grave-robbing teammates.
Then came a paralyzing shriek. The lights dimmed. And suddenly there was red paint on the ground and two men covered in it. The vampiric man and the priest, chanting his prayers.
“For the sake of His sorrowful passion…”
Iris looked at them now. Gram, the sallow-skinned man, smoking his cigarette. And Jacques sitting a few seats away, his head down as if he was sleeping, though Iris could still see the white collar around his neck. Iris had made sure to know them by name. She and Max exchanged wary glances while Jinn watched Gram, his eyes narrowed.
Apparently, this show had been playing for the past seven days, attended by members of Club Uriel. For them, it was more than just a bit of Sunday evening’s entertainment. It was a vicarious experience, a chance to live the battles themselves from the comfort of a theater seat. What the bored and wealthy wouldn’t do.
Jinn’s soft touch grounded her back in the present. And suddenly, she remembered simpler days. Their dancing, bickering over timing and precision while Granny tried to calm them both and Egg squawked in her arms. She wondered if those days would ever come back.
The play entered its final act, performed only for them. Alice, the blond protagonist who had willingly followed Fool down the rabbit hole of mayhem, had passed the first round. Now she needed to know the details of the second.
Fool appeared from the same trapdoor, his posture bent in a gentlemanly bow. The mysterious Fanciful Freak always made her shiver.
“The second round?” He tilted his head too far to the side. “Why, Alice, the second round will be a wondrous trip around London, a true test of wit: a treasure hunt.”
“A bloody treasure hunt?” said Cherice behind them.
Hawkins sighed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The mumblings of the other champions began to fill the hall. Elsewhere, Bately snorted, his arms folded against his chest. Max watched him out of the corner of his eye. Bately’s room was on the club’s fifth floor. Every so often, she or Max would cross paths with him in the halls. Bately was good at prodding Max, teasing him about the good old days, reminding him of Chadwick. One day, he mentioned Max’s sister and all hell broke loose. It was all Iris could do to keep her teammate from bashing his skull. After that they exchanged no words as they passed each other in Club Uriel. Just glances. And from Bately, a wicked grin promising revenge.
Fool pulled three long cards from underneath his black jacket sleeve. Tarot cards, each with figures drawn meticulously, the surfaces painted in black, violet, and gold. Henry, who sat at the very front with his team, leaned in closely.
“Hidden somewhere in London are three cards, only three, which look just like the replicas in my hand: The Sun. Judgment. The World. Three cards. Three locations. You are to bring as many of the three as you can back to Club Uriel undamaged. Find one card. Find two. Or, if you’re daring, find all three if you can. Those who bring a card will be considered a winner of this round. Remember,
the winners of each round will receive a mysterious advantage for the finale. But surely you don’t want that for your competitors, do you?” Fool laughed. “The more cards you collect, the greater chance you have at taking away that advantage from another team. Something for you to think about, no?”
He was banking on their desperation. And from the looks of the teams around the music hall, it was a safe enough bet to put money on. Only three cards in London. Not enough for all the teams here. And if a team found one card, they’d likely be attacked and challenged for it, even by another team with a card of their own.
“Oh, and please don’t try to create your own cards to fool the club,” Fool added, wagging his index finger. “Any attempt to turn one in will earn you a burial site. To find the real cards, listen well to our riddle. It is entitled ‘Twilight of the Gods.’ ”
While he paused for effect, Iris could have sworn he shifted his gaze toward her. Whatever expression he wore behind that mask of his was a mystery she didn’t need solved.
“Please do stay in your seats,” he warned.
Fool descended through the trapdoor and the curtains closed. After a time, murmurs filled the hall—teams thinking of their strategies perhaps. That is, until a blast of white smoke drew their attention to the stage once more. The smoke covered the entire stage. Then, with a kind of elegant grace, the curtains opened again to the sound of a harp gently plucking cryptic, mystical chords.
Firelight shone from the back of the stage, now showing a picturesque valley and three tall women, actresses who hadn’t yet appeared in this play, dressed in dark, shimmering drapery, their long hair covered in black veils. The first, who looked like the oldest, lay on the right under a fir tree. The second was stretched out on a rock in front of a cave. And the third, clearly the youngest of the three, sat in the center in front of the rock.
A beautiful song escaped their lips, alluring like the sirens, in a language Iris couldn’t understand, but from her travels with Coolie’s company, she suspected it was German. As they sang, one rope was passed between them, the thick cord the color of golden hay.
The Bones of Ruin Page 30
