by Dyan Chick
I tried to keep my face defiant as I stared at him. I knew he couldn't be trusted. Whatever he was, I didn't need Brenon to tell me he was powerful. His arrival in a cloud of birds had been enough of a warning.
Tristan's expression softened, then he narrowed his eyes. "What is your mother's name?"
Before I could answer him, Brenon charged Tristan, knocking him to the ground. They were both up to standing almost immediately and Tristan punched Brenon in the face.
Brenon laughed. "Not so powerful when you can't use your magic, are you? That bird trick is all you have here."
Tristan swung at Brenon again, making contact with the other side of his face.
Brenon ducked and punched Tristan in the gut, causing Tristan to double over. Before he regained his stance, Brenon kicked him, knocking him to the ground again.
Tristan swept his legs under Brenon, causing him to stumble, then jumped to his feet. Brenon's back was to Tristan and as soon as he turned to face him, Tristan's fist made contact with Brenon's cheek.
Brenon hit him back just as Tristan kneed Brenon in the chest. Brenon went down. Tristan kicked him in the side of the head and I screamed. "Stop it!"
"Stay here." Jasper let go of his grasp on me. Then he ran right into Tristan, slamming him to the ground.
I looked over at Brenon who was still laying on the ground. I wanted to go to him, see if he was still breathing but I didn't want to get in the way. I couldn't move as quickly as usual with my injuries and Tristan scared me. I worried that if I got too close to him, he'd grab me and take off with me. Could those birds swallow both of us up and take us to Terra?
When I looked back over to the fight, I saw Tristan on the ground, with a huge wolf on top of him. The wolf growled, teeth bared then snapped at Tristan's face.
Tristan covered his face with his hands, then rolled away, throwing the wolf from him. The wolf had him pinned to the ground again in seconds.
Brenon was up now and walked over to where Tristan was pinned to the ground. "You don't belong here."
Tristan put his hands up in mock surrender. "Alright, I get it. I'm leaving. Have fun with your band of freaks."
Brenon nodded to the wolf and he got off of Tristan but stayed close as Tristan pushed himself to standing.
Tristan looked at me. "You won this round, but you should know, my sister doesn't take kindly to looking the fool. She'll come for you."
My hands trembled but I tried not to show fear as I made eye contact with Tristan. There was nothing I could say to him. His sister had me tortured and abused and I knew she was stronger than me. At this moment, I just wanted to focus on the fact that despite being covered in bruises, I was still alive. For now, that would have to be enough.
Tristan's body seemed to melt into the ground as a murder of crows swallowed him whole. The crows spiraled around us, cawing and flapping.
I couldn't see anything in the cloud of birds. A pair of arms pulled me in and I was drawn into Brenon's chest. I pressed my face against him and covered my ears with my hands. The birds circled us a few more times, their cries deafening. Then, it grew quiet.
Slowly, I moved my head back to look up at the sky. It looked so peaceful, I began to wonder if I imagined the whole thing.
Brenon still had his arms wrapped around me. His makeup was smudged and a trail of sweat left a line of flesh exposed on the right side of his face. He unclenched his jaw and let out a breath. Blood ran from his lip and it looked like a black eye was forming under the makeup. I guess even immortals can get bruises.
22
I glanced over at Brenon on the other side of the back seat of the car. His face showed the signs of the beating he'd just endured from Tristan and I had to hold back my instinct to reach out to him. I wanted to comfort him, tell him it was all going to be okay. Despite my attempts to avoid the Rose Circus, I kept getting pulled back in.
A few minutes ago, I had wanted nothing more than to leave this world and find a nice, quiet place to start my life over again. Now, I wasn't sure there was a place I could go to find quiet. If Terra was hunting for me, what did that mean? Just how powerful was she?
Brenon looked at me for the first time since getting into the car. "I shouldn't have involved you in all of this."
"I don't even know what is happening. There's a curse, and another realm, and apparently, I'm magical or something?" My head was spinning with unanswered questions. Since discovering the world of the Rose Circus, I'd thought of myself as an outsider. Now, there was talk of me being part of this craziness, even if it was only a small amount. If I was part Sayge, what did that mean?
Brenon sighed. "I could tell there was some magic to you that first night we met, but it felt different than anything I'd felt before. I wasn't sure if it was because my power has been weakened so much since the curse or if you were something I hadn't come across. When you didn't know anything about us, I figured you were probably mostly human and knew nothing of our world."
"You knew I wasn't fully human?" I narrowed my eyes at him. "Why didn't you tell your friends? It could have saved me some pain. They seemed to think I could break the curse."
"I don't know if you could or not. I don't know how much human one has to be to break it. And technically, Sayges are human. They just interact with the earth differently.“ He faced forward, seemingly lost in thought.
I slumped back against the seat. The longer I stayed here, the more confusing things got. "I can't go home, can I?"
He turned to me. "Not while Terra is looking for you. But you're welcome to stay with us. We can keep you safe."
I bit down on the inside of my lip. When I came to the circus, I'd planned to stay for a year. Just long enough to pay Ryder’s debt.
A flicker of fear rose inside me. Ryder. “What about my brother? Will she go after him?”
“He’ll be fine. He doesn’t have any magic. But to be safe, I’d wait a few days before you call him. I don’t think she’d do anything to hurt your brother, but she could have someone following him, waiting for you to contact him.”
“How is that fine?” I squeezed my hands into fists. “If she’s got someone following him, he could get hurt. I don’t want Ryder involved in this.”
“Give it a few days, let them think you two aren’t close. Don’t let them know they can get to you by going through him.”
His words rang through my head. It was true, Ryder was the way to get me to do just about anything. After all, if not for Ryder, I wouldn’t be here. And now I was looking at spending who knows how long with the Rose Circus. What would have happened if Ryder had never gone to the Rose Circus? Would Terra still come for me like Jasper had guessed?
The idea of being stuck here for the rest of my life was too depressing. I pushed the thought away and tried to think of something positive. Nothing came to mind.
Tristan and Terra's words kept filling my head. There were things about my past I didn't understand. My birth parents hadn't been who I thought they were. I wondered if there was any way I could get ahold of the paperwork that had their names on it. What if they were still alive? Maybe they could give me some answers.
Before I could formulate a plan or any ideas about how to process everything, the car slowed to a stop. We'd returned to the train station where I had left the train. I looked away from the window to see Brenon staring at me. "Did you come back?"
He shook his head. "We never left. Goldie told me what happened so we went looking for you. Never thought you'd end up with Terra."
A warmth spread through me. Goldie had been looking out for me, meaning that maybe I had a real friend on this train. And Brenon had stopped everything to find me. Flutters swam in my stomach and my eyes made contact with his for a moment. My breath caught in my chest and I looked away, startled. The back and forth sensations between myself and the Ringmaster scared me.
Evangeline met us outside the train. She frowned when she saw me, but she didn't say anything. Instead, she turned her attention from
me and focused on Brenon. She ran over to him, and with Jasper's help, they got Brenon inside. Nobody seemed to notice or care that I was there.
I knew I wasn't safe on the Rose Circus train, but I definitely wasn't safe outside of it, either. At this point, I had to hedge my bets, and take the lesser of two terrible options. I limped my way behind them, fighting against the urge to collapse where I stood. My mind was filled with unease as I climbed the stairs up into the railcar.
As soon as I stepped inside, I knew this was the car I had been trying to reach with Goldie. This was the Ringmaster's private car. At one point, this room had probably been grand. Now it looked like the remnants of long-gone happy memories.
Worn carpet covered the floor. A threadbare couch and ottomans occupied one side of the car. A small table covered with stacks of paper was pushed up against the other, a single chair next to it. On the other end, was a bed that looked like it belonged in a college dorm. Small, institutional, it screamed bachelor. Nothing about this room spoke of a man who had left behind a string of broken hearts.
"Help me get him on the couch," Evangeline said to Jasper.
"I'm fine," Brenon said. He looked over at me as if he suddenly remembered me, then he turned to Evangeline. "Check on Ara for me. I'll be okay."
"No, you were injured, let me look at you." Evangeline reached for his face.
Brenon grabbed her hand and lowered it. "I'm immortal. I'll heal. Check on her."
"No need," I said. The last thing I wanted was Evangeline poking and prodding at my injuries. "Just point me to a bathroom, some soap, and maybe some hydrogen peroxide and I'll be good."
She huffed, then walked over to me. "I don't know what he sees in you."
"I don't need your help," I said.
"Ara!" Brenon yelled and everybody in the room froze. "Go with Evangeline. Get cleaned up. Evangeline, remember your place."
The cat-eared woman lowered her slitted, yellow eyes, ears pressed flat against her head. She looked like a small child who had been punished by an angry parent, ashamed for disappointing them. "Come on, this way."
She grabbed a bottle of vodka off of a bar cart, then walked through a doorway.
I followed her into the small bathroom inside the car. It was a tight fit, but both of us got inside. Evangeline pointed to the bathtub that took up the length of the room. "Sit."
I sat on the edge of the tub and watched her turn on the water and dig around the cabinets. "Why do you hate me so much?"
She rang out a washcloth and sat across from me on top of the toilet seat. "You already know the answer to that. For some reason, Brenon seems to be interested in you and you're human. Which means you could break the curse."
She dabbed the cloth on my face and I winced. "You're trying to stay cursed and Terra is trying to break it. I don't understand."
Evangeline stopped, washcloth hovering in the air. "Terra is trying to break it?"
I nodded.
She took a deep breath and returned to wiping the blood and dirt from my face. "That makes things more complicated."
"What happens if it's broken?" I asked.
"Then we all return to our original forms. We regain our old appearance and possibly, our magic," she said.
"Why wouldn't you want that?" I asked.
"Because if we get back our magic, Terra can find us, and take it from us." She turned and grabbed the bottle of vodka. "This is going to hurt."
She poured the liquid on to the cloth and went back to work on my face. I clenched my teeth against the pain and tried to think of something happy. Anything to distract from what I was feeling.
"That should keep it from getting infected," she said, dropping the cloth in the sink.
"Thank you," I said.
She reached behind me and started the water to fill the tub. "You can take care of the scrapes and bruises yourself."
Evangeline paused in front of the door. "I'll see if I can find you a change of clothes."
"I didn't come here to break the curse, you know," I said.
She didn't respond as she closed the door behind her.
I took my clothes off and stepped into the warm water. As I washed the blood away, I started to feel a little better. Maybe I could convince the members of the circus I wasn't here to change things. Maybe I could stay hidden with them away from Terra's reach. It wasn't how I planned to live my life, but it was better than dying.
The door swung open and I pulled my knees to my chest, trying to cover myself.
"I've seen it all before, princess," Evangeline said, holding up a pile of clothes. "Found some things for you." She set them on the toilet seat, then left again.
The interruption was enough to make me want out of the tub and back in clothes as quickly as possible. Who would be barging in next? I dried off and threw on the sweat pants and baggy tee-shirt she'd found for me to wear. The clothes were clean and comfortable. More than I could have hoped for. With Evangeline, I almost expected a ridiculous costume again.
When I stepped out of the bathroom, I was surprised to find that Brenon was alone in the room. He was still on the couch, a glass of clear liquid in his hand. I had a feeling it wasn't water. His makeup was smeared and blotchy. He hadn't reapplied it or washed it off. I wasn't sure what that meant. So far, he'd never let me see him without it. I wondered what he looked like under the white paint.
The clothes I was wearing covered more than any of the outfits he'd seen me in, yet I felt vulnerable for the first time. I crossed my arms over my chest, overly aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra.
Brenon stood and walked over to the bar and poured another glass of the clear liquid then held it up toward me. I reached out and took the glass.
"Please," he gestured to the couch, "have a seat."
Glass in hand, I followed him to the couch and sat on the opposite end from him. He took a drink from his glass. I lifted mine to my mouth and caught the familiar scent of Vodka before I took a sip. It was strong and burned my throat on the way down. I coughed.
A smile crossed Brenon's face and he quickly covered it by taking another drink. When he did, I noticed the blood from his injury had dried near his mouth. Before I could talk myself out of it, I set down the glass and went over to the bathroom.
I rinsed out the washcloth, but it still smelled of Vodka when I returned to the couch. I knelt down in front of him and lifted the cloth to his face.
He pulled his head back. "What are you doing?"
"Taking care of you," I said. "You were hurt."
"You don't have to do that." He lifted his hand in front of his face.
Gently, I lowered his hand. "I want to. Please, let me help."
He stared at me while I cleaned off the blood next to his lip. The white paint came off, revealing scarred pink flesh beneath. I wasn't sure how much he'd let me wipe away, but I figured I'd keep going until he stopped me. Soon, his cheek was completely free of paint. I paused for a moment, and when he didn't say anything, I continued, wiping off all of the paint until his face was bare.
His face told a painful story. A map of physical pain in the form of crisscrossing scars that covered his flesh in raised, red lines. My heart ached as I traced my fingers over the exposed markings. It was clear that he'd suffered, he knew pain. Though I couldn't explain why, I knew I wanted to help make that pain go away. "Why do you cover your face?"
"Most people can't handle seeing the scars. They treat me differently, like I'm fragile," he said. "I don't need anyone's pity."
"Why a Ringmaster?" I asked.
"Terra kept calling us freaks. Sometime in the nineteenth century, we decided to form our own circus. It seemed to fit." He shrugged. "I never really thought it would go on this long."
"Where does that leave me? I'm not like the rest of you. And Tara's looking for me." Was the rest of my life going to be spent running and hiding from a sadistic Fae that wanted the magic I didn't have?
"You're safe while you're with us. As long as the
curse holds, she can't trace us." He took the washcloth from my hands and walked over to the bathroom.
I realized I was still kneeling on the ground, so I moved to the couch. "I don't know if I'm exactly safe with your friends."
He walked out of the bathroom and grabbed the bottle on his way over to the couch. Glass already empty, he refilled it then held up the bottle to me. "Need a refill?"
"No, thanks," I said. "You didn't respond to my statement about your friends."
Brenon sat down and took a long drink. "They won't hurt you if we stay away from each other."
"I don't understand," I said.
"They're worried about you breaking the curse," he said. "The only way it can be broken is if I choose a human girl as my only companion. I'm pretty sure the Sayge connected the curse to sex."
I spit out the drink I had just taken. "Excuse me?"
"Well, technically, I'm supposed to be in love with the girl, that's the real kicker. The Sayge who created the curse wanted us to have a way out but she knew my history. It's punishment for how I treated human girls before the curse. She made it so the only way I could break it was if I was willing to commit to just one for the rest of my life." He took another drink. "It's actually kind of funny."
"They think I'm going to have sex with you?" I said.
He shrugged. "They're worried you will but after you spend the night in my room tonight, and we are all still cursed in the morning, it should prove to them you aren't trying to seduce me."
I blinked a few times. I was the furthest thing from a seductress. Most of my experience with sex had been clumsy and awkward. I looked down at the glass, contemplating how strange my life had become.
Did he actually expect me to stay the night in his room, just the two of us? In one stupid decision, I knocked the whole glass back at once, then looked back at Brenon. My throat burned as the vodka made its way down. Within moments, I felt a warm flush rise to my face. The liquor was already getting to me. "I'm not having sex with you.”
"I know," he said.
“So, you sleep over there, in your bed.” I pointed across the room. “I sleep here. Then in the morning, when they see that everything’s the same, they won’t try to kill me anymore?”
