Cold Dream Dawning

by A. R. Kahler

  “What’s this?” I ask. But I know what it is—it’s almost identical to the tickets I’d seen scattered throughout Faerie, inviting the denizens to live with the Pale Queen in the Wildness.

  “Kingston gave me a few. Said we might as well enjoy ourselves while we’re here.”

  “We won’t be here long,” I reply. “We need to leave.”

  She sighs. “And take her where? She can’t enter Winter, and anywhere else would leave her open to Oberon. I know you think you can take on his entire kingdom—and maybe on your own, you could—but I don’t think you’ve ever had to take care of someone like this before. She would weigh you down and get you both killed. I don’t want her here. But there’s nowhere else to go. Besides, Vivienne’s actually pretty excited about this. More than I’ve seen her before. It’s probably the last good thing that will happen in her life.”

  The unspoken words linger between us. Before your actions kill her.

  There are a few hours to kill before the show starts, and since I can’t leave and I can’t make time speed up, I wander. For a moment, I almost wish I weren’t such a loner—it would be nice to have someone to talk to, to at least make the time go by. Roxie’s face flickers through my mind, the thought of hanging on her couch with a bottle of wine, talking about music or lovers or . . . I shake my head and keep walking. Not a road worth going down.

  Music comes from the chapiteau. My natural instinct is to avoid it, because music means people, which means interacting. But boredom wins out, and I head over and stand in a side entry. I fully planned on just walking by. When I see who’s inside, I realize I can’t look away.

  My mother is hanging from a trapeze.

  Okay, she’s not dangling a dozen feet in the air, or swinging with the greatest of ease. Instead, she perches on a low trapeze slung maybe five feet from the ground, a thick mat right beneath her. Spotlights splay multicolored lights over her—somewhere along the way, she found some black spandex that, somehow, suits her—and the music pulses happily. And she’s laughing. She stands atop the bar with her hands high on the ropes, and the smile on her face is the first genuine thing I’ve seen all day.

  “That’s great!” someone calls, and I glance to the ring curb to see Melody sitting there. She’s smiling, too, but it’s different from Vivienne’s. Vivienne has that look of glee that children get when they’re not at all self-conscious and everything is wonderful and new. Melody looks like she’s happy . . . and that that happiness hurts her deeply. “Now, I want you to hold on tight and raise your left leg up with your knee bent.” Melody stands up and demonstrates the pose from the ground. “Like this. And then you’ll lean forward—just slightly!—and arch your back.”

  Vivienne does so. Her feet are pointed and her smile never leaves her face; it looks graceful, like she’s done this a hundred times before. And maybe she has.

  “Beautiful, Viv. Just beautiful. Okay, now pull yourself back up to standing, and we’re going to do a different trick.”

  My mother does so. And then, in the motion of pulling herself up, she glances over and catches sight of me. The smile widens.

  “Melody!” she calls out, and it takes me a second to realize she’s talking to me. I wonder what the real Melody is going as then. “Come in! You should try this!”

  The real Melody looks my way. The smile slips; it doesn’t return.

  “No, no, it’s okay. I wasn’t cut out for heights.”

  The lie comes easily. But Vivienne releases a hand to wave me in.

  “Oh come on. Live a little!”

  She laughs again. And I know that she’s supposed to just be another hit. I know she’s just a means to an end. In that moment, though, she looks so fucking happy. My heart aches. What sort of monster have I become?

  Despite my reservations, I step into the tent and take a seat on the bleachers near the front.

  “I thought you’d said you’ve never done this before,” I say. I glance to Melody, but she doesn’t acknowledge that I exist. Apparently threatening her earlier wasn’t the way to her heart. Women.

  “Sara’s a good teacher,” Viv replies.

  “Sara,” I mutter. Melody does look at me then, and her eyes are tight. I wonder if there’s a meaning behind the name. “Well, you’re definitely a natural.”

  “It just feels so good to be up here. I mean, I sit at a desk all day. This feels like flying.”

  The smile comes back to Melody’s face, just as pained as before, as she focuses on Viv.

  “Okay, next trick. We’re going to have you go upside down.”

  She steps forward and holds her hands under Viv. “First, slide down to a crouch.”

  Vivienne does so, and Melody guides her through the motions until Vivienne is hanging upside down from the trapeze by her knees. Vivienne can’t stop laughing.

  “Looking great, Viv,” Melody says.

  I start to clap.

  Then Vivienne’s laughter cuts off with a gasp, and before Melody or I can react, she drops from the trapeze with a scream.

  Melody’s spotting keeps Viv from hitting her head—my mother lands on her back on the mat—but the scream doesn’t cut off. It curdles my blood and shoots me to my feet; I’m at her side in an instant.

  “Mom, what’s—” I begin, before realizing my slip. But Vivienne doesn’t notice. Her screams cut through the tent like a banshee’s wail. I put a hand on her forehead. Her flesh is hot as melting iron.

  “Get Kingston,” Melody hisses, her words frantic.

  I bolt to my feet, but I’m not halfway out the tent when he runs in. He pushes past me, his eyes solely on Vivienne, and places his hands on her forehead. I follow and perch at his side as blue light spills from his fingertips, coalescing over her skin in waves as the feathered-serpent tattoo writhes around his forearm. Mom’s screaming stops, but the convulsions don’t. She claws at the air, and her mouth is open, the muscles of her jaw and neck tight.

  I want to scream. I want to help.

  “Get out,” he says. He doesn’t look at Melody or me, but I know whom he’s directing it toward.

  “I hope you’re happy, Claire,” Melody says. She does look at me. Her glare puts Lilith’s to shame. “We told you this would happen. I hope this is worth it.”

  I don’t respond. I push to my feet and head to the door. When I reach the exit, I don’t look back.

  “What did you say to him?” the changeling asks. We’re in the front row, my mother on her opposite side, and the show’s supposed to start any minute. Whatever Kingston did, it worked well—Viv acts completely normal, and if she remembers anything from this afternoon, she doesn’t show it. I also haven’t brought it up.

  “Who?” I ask.

  “The magician.”

  “Nothing,” I lie.

  “Then why has he been talking to her?”

  I glance over to Vivienne, who’s eating popcorn and watching the stage, completely oblivious to our conversation.

  “What’s he said?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” the changeling replies. “But he has always followed one rule: observe, don’t interact. Now he’s breaking it.”

  He was trying to keep her from clawing her face off.

  I don’t respond, and she doesn’t get a chance to say anything else, because the houselights dim and the music gets louder, and then there’s a flash of light on the stage and Kingston is standing there, dressed in a tight leather ringmaster’s outfit, a whip in hand and a studded top hat jauntily perched on his head. He doesn’t look like he just saved my mother from burning alive. He looks like he’s straight out of a housewife’s fantasy.

  “Welcome, loves,” he says, his voice carrying to all corners of the tent. “The wonders of the Cirque des Immortels await. Tonight, we have acts to ensnare and entwine, rare performances both hellish and divine. So tonight, relax, sit back, and let go. Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy our show.”

  He cracks his whip in time with a flash of lights and a puff of smoke, and when
the stage clears, he has vanished.

  But the stage doesn’t stay empty for long. A dozen performers cartwheel and flip into the ring as the live music picks up and a singer begins her scales. She doesn’t sound anything like Roxie, but it still makes a pang flash through my heart.

  The audience claps in time with the music as the performers create human pyramids, or do handstands on top of one another, or juggle clubs. It’s chaos, and for a brief moment my troubles actually begin to drift away. I feel the pull of it, the desire to dream of something colorful and beautiful. Then I blink and watch the haze of Dream filtering up through the tent like glittering smog. My job slams back into focus.

  A trapeze slowly descends from the ceiling, and when it is perhaps a dozen feet from the ground, one of the human pyramids moves beneath it, and an aerialist in a glittering purple leotard climbs to the top of the mound. She smiles to the audience, her head still a good five feet from the trapeze—way out of reaching distance. Then the man holding her up tosses her in the air as though she weighs nothing. She flies toward the trapeze and grabs it at the very last second.

  Even though I know she’s magical and immortal, I still feel my breath catch.

  It’s not the aerialist that I watch while she begins her act, however. It’s Viv. My mother doesn’t take her eyes off the aerialist. Maybe she does remember training with Melody this afternoon, or maybe there’s just a part of her that will always want to fly. As I watch her, I can’t stop the butterflies burning in my chest. She looks so happy. So enthralled. And yet, just a few hours ago, she was curled up in that very ring, screaming like the hordes of hell were trying to claw their way from her throat.

  This place is everything she’s ever dreamed of.

  It’s the life she had. The life that still haunts her. The life that will eventually undo her.

  Are you sure you can do this to her? a voice inside me asks. I know it’s just my inner dialogue, but damn if it doesn’t sound like the Pale Queen. Now that you’ve seen how happy you can make her, now that you know how good it feels to see her smile . . . can you really kill her? Can you really watch her slowly die?

  I don’t have an answer. All I can do is grip the knife in my pocket and try to stay present. Focused on the show. On the job at hand.

  An explosion outside the tent shatters my thoughts; the rumble makes our seats vibrate. The aerialist screams and tumbles from the trapeze, and the audience is too distracted from the explosion to notice that she lands perfectly, without the slightest hint of injury. The stage lights dim, and a second later Kingston is onstage, the spotlight making him look like a god.

  “Don’t worry, loves,” he says. “Someone has accidentally set off our fireworks. We’ll resume the show shortly.” His voice is soft and soothing, yet somehow fills the tent and makes the panic subside. I know the energy sliding over my skin—he’s using magic to subdue the crowd. Thankfully, my runes prevent it. I’m already pushing myself from the seat and heading toward the aisle. I know the scent of magic when I taste it, and this shit bears the unmistakable tang of Summer. Another explosion sends tremors throughout the tent, and if not for the magic lulling everyone into submission, I know there’d be an uproar. Instead, the music gets louder, and everyone settles in for the rest of the show as I burst from the tent and into the warm evening air.

  A crowd’s already gathered at the end of the promenade, right at the entrance. On one side of the fence is the tent crew, and on the other is a mob from Oberon’s kingdom.

  Everyone looks human, even the Fey, and I know it’s only because they run the risk of human observation, something that goes against the laws of Faerie. I can feel their essences, though—Oberon’s army is host to dryads and sylphs and a few woodland nymphs. Our team boasts a dozen or so Shifters, all dressed like they’re in a motorcycle gang and all clearly itching to change and rip the Summer crowd a new one. At the Shifters’ head is Melody, her hands balled into fists. She looks so out of place amidst the punked-out Shifters, as petite and cutesy as she is, and yet her expression is strong enough to give her weight.

  On the other team, the asshole who attacked me at my mother’s house stands at the forefront, hands in his pockets and an easy smile on his face.

  I push through the Shifters and stand beside Melody, our toes just touching the line separating Mab’s territory from the outside world.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I call out. I don’t ask the guy’s name. He won’t be alive long enough for me to care.

  “Oberon just wants what’s his,” he says.

  “She isn’t yours to have,” Melody responds. I look over at her, slightly miffed she stole my line, but there’s a fire in her eyes I can only admire. If she’s still pissed about this afternoon, she is focusing it on these guys and not me. I’m perfectly fine with that; this feels like a turf war I’m not privy to.

  “I think you’ll find you’re wrong,” he says. He looks to the Fey behind him. “We don’t want a fight. We just want her back. Send her over and no one gets hurt.”

  “No one’s going to get hurt,” Melody says. “Not so long as I’m here.”

  I glance at her. She admitted to me that she was somehow tied to the immortality clause in this show—so long as she was around, everyone within the tent would live forever, perpetually young and beautiful.

  “And how long will that be?” he asks. “Even I can see through you. You have, what? A few months left, max? I wouldn’t exert yourself too much, you know. Might make you croak sooner.”

  I’m not the only one casting curious looks at Melody; the other Shifters stare at her openly, clearly wondering if the guy’s telling the truth. The flush to her cheeks proves as much.

  “You need to leave,” I say. “You can’t be here.”

  “You’ll find that we can,” Summer boy replies. “We may not be able to enter your grounds, but we are patient. There’s nothing in the rules about waiting out here—we can easily blockade your show. Keep you from getting supplies. That sort of thing. We can wait forever, you know. But I don’t think you can. In a few weeks you’ll crumble, and then we’ll take her by force. Give us the Oracle and we’re gone—no one gets hurt, no lives lost.”

  “Over my dead body,” Melody says.

  The man just chuckles. “Exactly.”

  “What the fuck are we going to do?” she asks me.

  We’re back near the trailers, out of earshot of the performers and the Summer mob, who haven’t moved an inch. A few of the dryads turned into trees before we left, rooting themselves down in a rather pacifistic act of defiance.

  Melody’s clearly frightened, which is strange, because she seemed so fiery back there. Her eyes are wild, unable to focus on any one thing; she keeps looking back toward the promenade and the Summer Fey waiting there. I think I like the assured version of Melody better, even if it was a facade.

  “Mab won’t let them stay,” I tell her. “It has to be against the rules somehow. No meddling.”

  “It’s not Winter territory out there. She can’t do anything about it. The best she could do is try to convince Oberon to have them withdraw, but who knows how long that will take? If he’d even do it.”

  I have no doubt the Summer King would take his sweet time reining in his lackeys. I didn’t think he had it in him to directly approach the circus—there has always been a sort of mutual respect between Winter and Summer. Sure, they play at being at war, but I think they do it just to keep themselves from dying of boredom. Attacking Vivienne’s house was one thing. Being here . . . Mab would see it as an act worthy of revenge. If she weren’t preoccupied with the Pale Queen and the loss of her own subjects.

  “Was he telling the truth?” I ask.

  “What?”

  I look her up and down.

  “You,” I say. “Was he telling the truth about you?”

  She grimaces. Answer enough.

  “How long can you hold out?” I ask.

  “It depends on if they try to fight,” sh
e replies. “So long as I’m healthy, they can’t cross over or force their attacks through. But if I get sick, or the tents are jeopardized somehow, we’re screwed.”

  “What do you mean? How could the tents get jeopardized if they can’t get through?”

  She shrugs and looks away. “Inside job.”

  I stare. It’s against performers’ contracts to harm the show. Even I know that. So the magic should be solid—as long as Melody’s healthy, we’re safe. Why does she look so worried? Like it’s happened before.

  Suddenly, I wonder if I should try to get Vivienne to Winter anyway. First the Pale Queen, and now Oberon. I can only hope Melody’s powers hold out long enough for me to get to the bottom of this.

  “How long?”

  She looks at me. “Until I die?”

  I nod.

  “I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”

  “We all go at some point. How long.”

  She sighs. It sounds like she wants to cry, but she holds it together. I hate myself for how cold I am right now. Before this afternoon, she was the only one in this damned show who tried to be a friend. But that will all amount to nothing if we lose Vivienne.

  “A few weeks. Maybe more. Maybe less.”

  “Shit.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I don’t ask if there’s a replacement queued up; it seems in bad taste, even for me.

  “Can you keep her safe?” I ask.

  “I did before,” she replies sadly.

  “Then you’ll have to do it again.” I reach into my pocket and pull out some chalk. “It looks like I have a date with the Summer King.”

  Nine

  The warehouse looms up around me like the ribs of a dragon, all dusty and decayed in the moonlight. I should know. I’ve been in the ribs of dragons before.

  It’s not Summer territory. Far from it. I’m still in the mortal world, somewhere in southern Vermont. I come here not because of the mountains like a dark rip of paper on the horizon, or the sky studded with stars. I come here because this is where a few ley lines converge, which means more power, and an easier way to access the worlds between and beneath the ones I frequent.