ARC: Shadowplay

by Laura Lam

  “I wasn’t unsettled,” I denied, rather unconvincingly.

  “Of course not,” he said. He steepled his fingers together. His face was calm. I wondered what he had decided about us from the séance.

  “Now, why have an old friend and his companion appeared on my doorstep in the middle of the night, in quite the state of disarray, demanding a séance? I know you were fond of them, Drystan, but it is rather an imposition.” A faint smile curled about his lips.

  He had not been to bed when we had knocked, despite the late hour. His eyes held the puffy look of a man who did not sleep, contrasting against his crisp suit and neat hair.

  “We need a place to stay for a time. A place with someone who does not ask questions,” Drystan replied.

  Maske’s lips tightened. “Fallen into a speck of trouble, have you, Drystan?”

  “You could say that.”

  Maske folded his arms, formless thoughts flitting behind his eyes.

  Drystan’s half-dried hair stuck up around his head in a blonde corona. “You once offered anything you could provide to me, Jasper. A life debt. I am collecting on the favor.”

  He held up his hand. “I did, yes. But I do believe that I am entitled to know why. It does not take a mind reader to see how much you need my help.” His eyes flicked over to my battered face and my broken arm. I studied the lace of the tablecloth, noting a small burn in the fabric.

  “It is a long tale for another time,” Drystan said.

  Maske stared at Drystan for a long moment. “Very well,” he said, brisk. “I’ll ready the loft for you. You can move to other bedrooms later on if you like, though most of them have mildew.”

  Drystan smiled, relieved. “The loft will be fine. My old room.”

  Old room?

  Maske poured three glasses of whisky, not asking us what we wanted. I put my hand over my mouth, fighting the urge to retch. The ringmaster had stunk of whisky. I would never be able to drink it again.

  “Is something the matter, Micah of-no-last-name?” he asked me, his voice cool.

  I shook my head, the smell of the whisky and fear still in my nostrils. Maske cocked his head and turned away. Drystan understood and took my glass, downing first his, and then mine.

  I wished that Maske had refused to keep us, so that I did not have to stay here. I knew I did not have to, and that Drystan might even come with me if I stood and walked out. But this was the only safe place in the city that Drystan knew.

  We had nowhere else to go but this old theatre, with the somber man who raised ghosts.

  3

  A SCREAM IN THE DARK

  “Never are we as honest as at night, alone with thoughts and nightmares.”

  Elladan Proverb

  The rain drummed on the skylight of Drystan’s and my new room. Maske asked us if we needed to see a doctor, but when we shook our heads – quicker than we should have – he passed us the bedrolls and a medic bag, complete with bandages and painkillers, and left us. The loft above the theatre was musty with dust and disuse, but the roof was sound. The long, narrow room was cluttered with several old apparatuses of wires and springs. There was a round porthole of stained glass, but it was too dark to discern its pattern.

  Twin beds were on either side of the room.

  “Why are there beds up here?” I asked.

  “Maske had twin sons. They slept here when they were small.”

  “In the loft? But this place is huge.”

  “Probably farther away from the noise of the performances.”

  Behind the grime and the clutter were the remains of bright blue paint, and paler squares where pictures had hung. It must have been a cheery room, once.

  “Where are they now?”

  He shrugged. “Far away.”

  Drystan unrolled his blankets, moving mechanically. As soon as the bed was made, he crawled in and faced the wall. I wanted to say something to him, but the words would not come. His flaxen hair fell across the pillow, the muscles of his shoulders straining against the seams of his clown’s motley. We needed new clothes, and desperately, but not yet and not with so many policiers after us for what we had done and what they thought we had done. Not to mention the Shadow, the man my parents had hired to find me.

  I could not undo the buttons of the ruined dress with my broken arm, and so I ripped it from me, throwing it in a heap into the corner. After a long hesitation, I decided to sleep without the Lindean corset that bound my breasts.

  A glance at my body showed my injuries and I fought down a pained gasp. I was mottled with bruising. My chest had been protected from the worst of the blows due to the corset, but most everywhere else was already turning purple. A long, shallow cut slashed across my lower ribs from the carved ram’s head on the ringmaster’s cane. I ran my hand along the ridged muscles of my torso. For all my body’s strength from being an aerialist, I had not been able to free myself from Bil’s grasp.

  I adjusted the arm sling. In the darkness, the events of the night flooded back: the cheery bells of the circus music, the laughter of the crowd that warred with the feel of the strong hand on my shoulder, and the sickly sweet smell of chemicals. Waking up tied and gagged, the drunken ringmaster looming over me, his fingers working their way down my top to prove to himself that I was the missing noble girl he planned to turn in. But what the ringmaster did not realize until later was that he was not quite correct.

  I did not want to think what might have happened, if Drystan and Aenea – my brave Aenea – had not saved me. I had escaped my bonds, but Bil was too strong. The blows of his cane had rained harder and faster, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he killed me. But then Aenea and Drystan had come. Aenea had thrown herself upon the ringmaster. And in half a moment, he had killed her. Drystan had taken up the ringmaster’s discarded cane and brought it down for the killing blow.

  I closed my eyes against the memories, but they lingered. The fading rage in the ringmaster’s eyes, the way the blood flowed from his neck. Drystan splattered in blood. The feel of Aenea’s slack neck beneath my frantic fingers and the absence of a pulse. My breath hitched in my throat, my eyes burning.

  I couldn’t cry. If I did, I wouldn’t stop.

  To distract myself, I disinfected the worst of the cuts with the unguent in the medic bag, but it did nothing to dampen the pain. I dug about in my pack and found a sleeveless undershirt. Working my way into it, I stifled more hisses of pain.

  “Here,” a voice said, and I jumped. Drystan’s eyes were open and he stared at me from the bed, holding something out in his hand. I was only wearing my drawers and undershirt, which left little enough to the imagination. I turned away from him in embarrassment.

  “Apologies,” Drystan said, his voice closer, though he did not sound apologetic, only tired. He placed a small tin in my hand and made his way back to bed. When I looked over my shoulder, he was again facing the wall. How long had he been watching me? The blush stayed in my cheeks, though he had already seen everything under my clothes when I showed him and Aenea what I was.

  It was a tin of pungent salve for wounds. It took a few fumbling tries to open it, but I nearly moaned in relief when I spread the unguent on my cuts and bruises. I set the near-empty tin on the small table by Drystan’s bed, worried that he would turn around again. But he stayed facing the wall.

  When the salve had dried, I put on bandages and crawled onto the pallet. Guilt pulsed through me in waves, tears choking my throat. I balled my hands into the thin coverlet. If only, if only, if only…

  If only I had told Aenea the truth sooner, before the last night of the circus. We were going to go away to Linde over the winter holiday and I did not want there to be any lies. But I had told too many – too many for her to forgive. Still, she had come to find Bil when I went missing. She tried to save me. I failed her.

  I lay in the dark for what felt like hours, my mind spinning over the same thoughts. If I had only done one thing differently, what would my life look like now?
I had no answers – only fear both for the future and my past. Closer to dawn than not, my eyelids finally grew heavy.

  A shout tore through the air.

  I sat straight up in bed.

  Drystan.

  His face contorted as he thrashed against the covers.

  “Drystan?” I said, coming closer.

  He moaned, shaking his head from side to side.

  “Drystan? Are you alright?”

  I crouched next to the bed. He bolted upright and swung his fist, catching me on my injured arm. The pain seared through my arm, my vision tunneling. In reflex, I cried out and jabbed him in the jaw with my good arm, and then I crumpled.

  The punch woke him. He stared straight ahead, shivering, not quite awake. He drew in several ragged breaths before coming back to himself. “Micah?” he whispered, a hand on his jaw. He wiped his ashen face and looked down.

  “Yes?” I managed, pain coloring my world red and black.

  “Why are you on the floor?”

  “You punched me.” I hissed the breath through my teeth.

  “Did I?” He came down to help me up. “I’m sorry. I must have been dreaming.”

  “A nightmare, more like.” He had swiped at Bil with his own cane at just that angle.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said again, his voice still unsteady.

  The pain overwhelmed me. “You hit me in the arm,” I grated.

  “Styx, the broken one?”

  I nodded, a gasp of pain escaping from me.

  “We should really find a surgeon.”

  “No,” I gasped. “No doctors.”

  Drystan helped me from the floor and to the bed. A knock sounded at the door.

  Drystan opened it. Maske stood there, holding the glass globe, his face again half in shadow. He wore a striped nightgown and cap, incongruous with his neat beard.

  “I heard a scream,” he said.

  “I had a nightmare,” Drystan said, his voice flat to hide his embarrassment. “Micah came to check on me, and I’m afraid I have injured his arm further.”

  “Let me see,” Maske said.

  At least he was not a doctor. The magician came closer, setting down the globe and sitting next to me on the bed.

  My torso was hunched, but I took a deep breath and straightened. His eyes lingered on the bumps under my shirt, and then the bump between my legs.

  “It’s complicated,” I whispered.

  “You should probably see a doctor for your arm,” he said, as if I had not spoken. “Should I call for one?”

  I shook my head. “A doctor cannot see me. They cannot know.”

  He nodded, placing his hands gently on my arm. I closed my eyes. One less secret to hide.

  Maske’s magician’s fingers felt their way along my arm. I moaned, squeezing my eyes shut even tighter.

  “I have had my share of accidents throughout the years, and I have set a bone or two. This is a simple fracture. I can re-splint it, and it should heal cleanly. But there are no guarantees.”

  I hesitated, and then I nodded.

  Drystan brought Maske the medic bag. Maske continued his investigation of my arm.

  He said nothing, but waited for me to speak.

  There was no point pretending. I felt obligated to try and explain. “I was born different from most,” I muttered, the mumbled explanation distracting me from my pain. “I was raised as a girl, but now live as a boy. But I am both.”

  “I see,” he said, his eyes only on the bruises of my broken arm.

  But he still didn’t know anywhere near the full story. Truth be told, after the response of the Penglass to my touch, I still wasn’t entirely sure what I was. I had been Iphigenia Laurus, the daughter of a noble family in Sicion, a society debutante. I transformed into Micah Grey, runaway on the streets turned aerialist and pantomime actor. I didn’t know who I would be now.

  This stranger now held more leverage against me, should he choose to use it. I had no such leverage in return.

  Perhaps Drystan did.

  Jasper took out a roll of plaster bandages from the medic bag and a new arm sling. He told Drystan to fetch the washbasin from the chest of drawers.

  He held my arm firmly. Maske wrapped the damp bandages around my injury. I struggled not to move, stars of pain dancing in my eyes. The bandages dried, and the pain lessened to where I felt coherent again.

  “This will take about six weeks to heal, and will be weak for a time,” Maske said. “But you should regain full use of your arm.”

  Should.

  A shiver ran through me. I could not imagine having a weak arm. Not being able to climb or tumble, always having to be mindful of how I moved. Such a possibility at sixteen was frightening.

  “Here,” Maske said, measuring a spoon of laudanum and passing it to me. “This should dull the pain and help you to sleep.”

  I gulped, grimacing at the overwhelming bitterness that all the honey and herbs could not hide. Maske patted me on the shoulder.

  “I have a feeling you two are going to make my life decidedly more interesting,” he said.

  “I imagine you’ll like that, Maske,” Drystan said with a small smile. “Considering how interesting your life was when I knew you last.”

  “Perhaps, Drystan,” he said. “Though I wouldn’t want my life to be quite so… animated as it was when we last parted. I’m no longer that foolhardy man. Things have been far too quiet for far too long, but life is safer that way.” He stared at us, and in the dimmer light his eyes were wide and dark again, and my skin pricked into gooseflesh.

  “I shall see you two in the morning. I hope neither of you have any more nightmares.”

  “Me, too,” Drystan said softly as Maske closed the door behind him.

  “How long are we staying here, Drystan?” I asked into the darkness after we climbed back into bed.

  “I hadn’t thought much beyond this point, truth be told. At least until the trail runs cold.”

  “We need to leave Ellada, don’t we?”

  “It’s probably our best chance. I know people in Byssia. But it’ll cost more than we kept from... from the safe.”

  We lapsed back into silence.

  “Do you trust Maske, Drystan?” I asked. “With no reservations?”

  “I trust him. But I trust no one without reservation.”

  That did not comfort me.

  And a small corner of my mind wanted to ask: not even me?

  4

  PENGLASS PERIL

  “Most Elladans have not travelled beyond the island. Some may have gone to Girit to visit family, but very few have been to the Temnes, Linde, Kymri, or Byssia. Thus, the Archipelago must come to them in the form of entertainment – circuses or magic shows, theatre or vaudeville. Of course, by nature of this entertainment, many Elladans still know very little about the native culture of each island, no matter how much they think otherwise.”

  Modern Ellada, Professor Caed Cedar, Royal Snakewood University

  The next morning, Drystan’s bed was empty when I awoke to a rainbow falling across my face. The stained-glass window showed a dragonfly, which startled me. I’d dreamt of dragonflies the previous night, weighing the darkness of my soul. I couldn’t remember if the dragonflies decided whether my soul would stay in gentle waters or sink into the dark current of the River Styx.

  After my first hot, proper bath in six months, I felt like a new person in my clean, if patched, clothing, even if I limped down the stairs. The Kymri Theatre was full of strange alcoves. The skirting boards and moldings were all carved with animals or glyphs, and walls painted shades of blue and terracotta; the floors dotted with colored mosaics.

  Eventually, I found the kitchen, a cozy room at the back of the building, full of tiles of blue and green, warm varnished wood cabinets inset with blue and yellow glass, and shining copper appliances. The air smelled of coal smoke and coffee. At the worn kitchen table, Maske read the newspaper and Drystan stared at his hands, his drink growing cold. He wore a
spare pair of Maske’s trousers and a patched shirt. Dark circles ringed his eyes.

  “Coffee,” Maske said, his face still behind the newspaper.

  “Thank you,” I said, though I was not too excited by the prospect. The last time I tasted coffee was when I spent some brief time with a spice merchant, Mister Illari, before I joined the circus. It had been strong and just as bitter as the laudanum.

  I sat at the table with them and took a sip, and found to my surprise that it was far milder than the stuff Mister Illari had made. With four lumps of sugar and a huge dollop of cream, it was actually quite nice.

  A scrawny little calico with a torn ear sauntered into the kitchen and mewled, demanding food.

  “Hey, hey, Ricket,” Maske said, getting up and taking a plate of meat scraps from the chiller. He patted the top of the cat’s head.

  The cat contented himself with gulping the food, purring all the while.

  It was so strange to be back among civilization. To not find granules of sand in each seam of my clothing, to have stone walls between me and the outside, not thin wood or the canvas of a tent. I was no longer surrounded by dozens of people. At the same time, the quiet was unnerving; the only sound the rustle of the newspaper and the ticking of the old clock on the wall. It was a domestic scene, except that the magician was a stranger and we were fugitives wanted for murder.

  After a moment, Maske looked up from his newspaper. “As you’re both here, I believe I may as well tell you that we have a problem.”

  I set down my coffee with a clatter. “Pardon?”

  Wordlessly, Maske slid the newspaper across the table between Drystan and me.

  The City Searcher was an Imacharan rag, and they would print even the most outlandish rumor. Unfortunately for us, those were the ones most likely to be true. Above a story about the rising ire of the Forester political party was an article about us:

  Tears of Blood: Penglass Peril

  Correspondence by Elena Gillen

  The manhunt begins for the two fugitives from the terrible tragedy of R.H. Ragona’s Circus of Magic. The circus is now dead and gone, never to camp on the beach again.