by Jordan Bell
Katya wrinkled her little nose and tossed the dress she’d been holding onto the chair where the discard pile was growing. “If you like the look of a girl who has had one too many desserts, I guess.”
“Hey.” Micah peeked out of the tulle and satin heaven she’d fallen into. “We all agreed to be nice. Truce while we pick through Lily’s clothes like thieves.”
“Besides which,” Lily tickled her cheek with the length of feather she plucked from one of her Victorian hats. “There’s no such thing as too many desserts.”
“It’s fine. I am not ashamed of my desserts or my chest. So, now that that’s settled. Do you want this one?” I held up a pink and blue corset for Lily to consider. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
“I’m over pastels.”
“No pastels. Got it.”
“And Eli clearly has no problem with your desserts.” I shot Micah a look to kill and she shrugged innocently. “What? It’s not like we’re not all thinking it right now.”
Lily and Katya exchanged glances, then shrugged and nodded.
“Everyone saw you leave with him last night after he got all jealous and growly. The rumors, sweetheart, they are a-flying.”
“I didn’t see anything.” Katya pouted again and then settled her eyes on me where I knelt in the pile of clothes. She looked hurt, sincerely hurt. “Why you? I don’t get it.”
Frustrated, I threw down the dress I was holding. “I don’t know, Katya. He and I…fit. End of discussion. We fit.”
“Everyone put your claws away.” Lily frowned at us, then reached behind her to take a small white square of paper from her vanity. “I almost forgot, your inamorato had this delivered for you. A love letter. If I were any less of a lady, I’d gag.”
Katya stuck her finger into her mouth and mimed the act for her. “I’m over it. I like them masculine, thanks.”
I snatched it from her and moved into the corner out of the way of the piles. A love letter. It seemed completely ridiculous and out of character for him.
Like a teenage girl, my heart pounded as I broke the seal.
Meet me by the west gate.
Right now.
Come alone.
“What’s it say?” Micah peeked out of the closet on her knees. I glanced at her, grinned and went for the door.
“I have to go.”
“Hey we’re not done!” Lily yelled.
“Don’t wait up.” I waved and ducked out before anyone could physically restrain me since that was what it would take to keep me from getting to him.
I didn’t know how long ago the note had been delivered, but I prayed he would still be there.
The main grounds were saturated in guests, children and families moving in and out of the more popular tents. I slipped through the line at the Hall of Mirrors where people could see themselves as they wanted to be seen, a particularly addictive illusion that kept some vain guests at the same mirror until closing only to have them return the next day and the next. The applause rolling out of the Galaxy told me that Annabelle’s main crew were on the trapeze, a favorite for children when the angels took to the skies.
I ran through the tents, took the long way around the food court to avoid the crowds and ended up out of reach of the main fair grounds, near Eli’s tent. I slowed to catch my breath, still clutching his note. We were to meet later, but perhaps he couldn’t wait, though this seemed like an odd place to sneak away. It was quiet here, the fair ground noise behind a solid row of tents, but it was still very public. Anyone could find us out here and I didn’t fancy the idea of being found by a family of four kissing the stage magician like my life depended on the magic of that kiss.
No one manned the west gate. It was small and unadorned. If anyone didn’t know it was there, they’d walk right out past it, but I could find the break in the pattern of iron trees and the small lock set in the knot of a tree trunk.
I did not, however, see my Magician.
Without knowing what else to do, I lingered in the area, searching the trees for a sign that he’d been here or that he was coming back. I touched the lock, the perfect shape of a large, old fashioned key. I paced.
“So you’re the paramour.”
I spun around towards the thick, British accent. So familiar, but so different. He stepped out of the trees wearing a long grey trench coat, hands in his pockets, looking as calm and non-threatening as any other visitor to the carnival.
“You!” I stumbled back away from the fence, slipped, and caught myself against a tree to break my fall. I clung to it, panic making my breath come in pants.
“Me!” Castel mimicked me with a breathy squeal. He laughed and hugged himself inside his coat. “I love it when girls fall all over themselves for me.”
“You can’t cross the fence,” I warned him, as if saying so made it so. He shrugged, stepped right up to it and wrapped his hands around the bars.
“That’s not actually accurate. I could walk right in if I wanted to, but my brother would know instantly where I was and I’m not ready for another family reunion since the last one went so well.” He narrowed his eyes. “Although that’s as much your fault as ours.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“You pushed me from a speeding train. We’re even.”
“We’re not even! There’s no breaking even when you try to strangle someone to death.”
“Oh, do relax love. I’m only here to talk. Honest.” He held up his hands. I have nothing up my sleeves. “I wanted to meet you. You know who I am.” He flashed his canines. “And you’re Serafine.”
“I really don’t think that’s necessary.”
Castel crooked a finger. “Come here. Let me see your head. How is it? It looks like it’s healing. I had no idea how important you were to my brother or I would have played nicer with his toys.”
“Wow, that’s not going to happen. I’m going to stay right here until you look away or my knees stop shaking, whichever comes first, then I’m going to run screaming that way.” I slid my hands back against the bark of the tree for support, wishing to god my knees really weren’t shaking as hard as they were.
He fairly bristled with energy. Not like Eli. There was something electric about the other brother, something that made his black hair almost blue and his irises spark randomly as if he had exposed wiring behind them.
Castel’s face changed, the crazy grin fell and he looked suddenly tired, like Eli most days. He leaned forward and rested his forehead between bars and stared at me, searched my face silently for a long time.
Then, “You remind me of her. You use sarcasm to deal with your fear and anxiety. She did that too. She had a filthy mouth when she got really nervous. Before the curtains would go up she’d say something like, God I hope they are all buck ass naked, every last one of them.”
“Who’s that?” I swallowed. “Katya?”
Castel balked. “Hell, are you kidding? Of course not her. She’s a poor replacement. No.” he rested his forehead against the bars again. “I mean Olivia.”
He said her name so that it took a long time to cross his tongue. He said it with a sigh.
“I don’t know who she is. I haven’t met her.”
“No,” he snarled. “You wouldn’t have because she died before you were even born.” His angry face disappeared as quickly as it had come. “He hasn’t told you, I see.”
The accident.
“Told me what?”
“About why Imaginaire went dark, of course.” Castel pushed away from the fence and started pacing back and forth past the gate. “Why don’t you come out here and I’ll tell you?”
My nerves frayed and I laughed, an inappropriate, humorless sound. “I don’t think so.”
“It was worth a try. Sometimes girls in amour are stupid.” Castel pulled at his collar and slipped the long grey coat from his shoulders and hung it from an iron branch. “Do you mind? Of course you don’t. Now, where to begin?”
He rolled his sleeves as he p
aced, talking with his hands and smiling every few seconds. In that moment, on stage with an audience of just one, he looked frighteningly like Eli. They had the same sharp way of rolling their sleeves up, the same way of pacing instead of standing still where the audience could analyze their every twitch. For a moment he didn’t look like the psychopath on the train. He looked…
Normal.
And the effect worked. I relaxed without realizing it until later.
“Olivia. She was our assistant and she wasn’t just a pretty face and a great pair of legs. She performed with us, doing the daredevil acts that required certain peril to pull off the magic. She lived for the show, the lights, the applause. She and Eli were both such attention seekers. And she was beautiful. Caramel skin and oh, eyes that could hypnotize.”
He mmmed and closed his eyes for a moment to revel in the memory of his dark skinned goddess, and then the moment was over and he went back to pacing. “But more importantly than all that, she was mine. All mine. We were going to be married in the summer, the first carnival wedding in years. She was my paramour. I had stars in my eyes and little fucking animated birds singing where ever I went. That was love.”
Something in the pit of my stomach wakened and crawled sickly up into my throat. I didn’t need to hear the rest of the story, didn’t want to know the rest of the story, to understand how it was all going to fit together. Castel was crazy, certifiable lunacy. But if the story went the way I feared it would go, then his mental state was worse than just crazy. It was justifiable.
“She sounds lovely,” I murmured.
He nodded, stopped, and leaned against the gate. “She was. Rook brought in special guests one night, investors he was hoping would let us expand. He wanted a full night time revue, not just the one burlesque tent. I was to stay on the magician’s stage while Eli and Olivia had main stage to …” he gestured for a word, “impress. The trick was, my brother would drop Olivia into a giant fish bowl, bound. She’d perform this underwater dance, very beautiful and very dangerous. While she twisted around and showed off her beautiful body, Eli would change her hair color, her skin, her costume. She’d become a mermaid before everyone’s eyes. For the finale as soon as she freed herself, she’d be swept up in a whirlpool and he’d make her disappear.”
Castel turned so that I could see his face, the honest, sincere grief that had transposed him into something else. “He wasn’t watching her, he was watching the audience. Performing to them, expecting her to do the act as we’d done it a hundred times before. But something went wrong. She didn’t get out of her bindings or she ran out of air too soon. I’m not sure. He didn’t realize she was in distress when he made her disappear. And the girl who was supposed to show up with towels backstage where she reappeared was running behind. By the time anyone found her, she was already gone.”
I closed my eyes. It was dumb to lower my guard in front of him, but I couldn’t help myself. She deserved a moment of silence.
When I opened them again, he was watching me unblinking, his arms slung through the bars.
“It was an accident.”
He scowled. “It was negligence, which is worse. If he hadn’t been playing the showman, seeking for his applause, she wouldn’t have died.”
“Castel, it was an accident. You said it yourself, you’d done the trick a hundred times. He must have trusted her to do it the same way one more time.”
He jerked back, shock overwhelming his features. “So it was her fault?”
“No!” I pushed off the tree and came halfway to the fence before I realized what I was doing and stopped short. “I’m saying it was no one’s fault. They closed down the carnival for her. That has to mean something.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” He came back to the fence line and snaked his hand through to hug himself to the gate. “If only that were true. Oh no. They opened the gates a few days later. Within a couple of weeks, Eli was back on stage.” His canines flashed again and the devil filled his eyes once more. “They didn’t close the carnival down until I set the big top on fire and burnt it to the ground.”
I took a step back. “What?”
“One death was enough for a couple of days off. But twelve deep pocketed investors was enough to ruin them. Before Olivia and Eli took the stage, Rook gave them a gift each, for good luck. A carnival boon.” Castel gestured and produced a small gold coin between his fingers.
My mouth fell open and all I could see was that coin. I knew it immediately, recognized its grooves and shapes and bright yellow gleam. It was not worn down like mine and I could see that what I’d mistaken for a C was actually a crescent moon with a raven perched on its bottom curve. I moved a little closer and he held it out to me.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A Soul. Carnival money.” He turned it so the sunlight drifting through the canopy could catch the gold and wink at me. “Very hard to come by. Very rare prizes. Someone gifted with a Soul is offered a single boon from the carnival. A small wish. Not riches or immortality - a peek into the future, an unanswerable question answered, a moment of pure joy, a single memory forgotten. Such a gift so that Rook could secure more money.” He softened as he gazed at the coin. “It didn’t help her when she needed it. I realized when I found it tied in her braids that I was so tired of carnival magic. It’s selfish magic. And I wanted to destroy it.”
He lifted his eyes to mine, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the coin. The Soul.
“Would you like it?” he asked quietly.
I wasn’t thinking, lulled by his quiet, sad story, his voice so much like Eli’s. And the coin, the coin that tied the carnival to my mother’s death there in his outstretched palm. I reached for it.
As my fingers closed around the metal, warm from his hand, he snatched a handful of my hair and yanked me hard into the fence.
I cried out and squirmed but he laced his fingers into my thick hair and held on tight. His face leaned in intimately close to mine and for a moment all I could think about what the reptilian way his mouth had pressed to mine.
“Let me go, Castel. You don’t want to do this.” I braced myself against the iron to relieve some of the pressure. The hair ripped in his hands, brought tears to my eyes. After a moment, he softened his grip but didn’t let go.
“On the contrary. Now that I’ve told you my story, I need you to relay a message for me to my brother.”
“Fine,” I gulped and flailed for his hand, found it in my hair and wrapped my hand around his wrist. “Let go please, you’re hurting me.”
He was quiet for a moment, staring where my hand touched his. “You’re brave. I like that about you, Serafine. It’ll be very difficult for me to take your life eventually, but even is even. If he cares about you, though I hear he may love you, oddly enough. If he does, then we’ll be square. I won’t have to kill my brother and between you and me, that would be a relief. I don’t want to lose the only other person in the world I ever cared about. You’d be giving us a gift, really. Saving his life by offering yours.”
“You’re crazy,” I whispered and he tightened his grip until I cried out.
“Maybe. Having your heart shattered will do that to a man. I need you to take a message to my brother. I want you to tell him that if he unlocks our power, I’ll be merciful. If he refuses, I will make it last for days and there will be nothing left of this beautiful mind of yours when I am done. Now, go.”
Castel released me with a shove and when I spun around to face him, he was gone, leaving his grey coat blowing in the wind.
24
__________________
Eli
He had to tell her about Castel.
She deserved to know. Being with him meant becoming Castel’s target, the one thing that could make him and his brother even. If Castel took Sera the way he’d accidentally taken Olivia, it would destroy him. He’d never understood how losing her had unmade Castel, but now the damage was so obvious, so catastrophic. There was an inevitability to it that made his
chest constrict painfully. If Castel knew, he’d never rest until they were even, until they’d both gone mad with grief.
Eli rubbed the keyhole on his wrist and settled back into the blue couch on his stage and waited for her to come to him. One more perfect night. That’s all he asked. One more.
Castel was coming. He could feel him gathering all their shared power to him.
Just one more perfect night. That was all he asked.
He closed his eyes and imagined her the way she looked the night she slipped soundlessly into his wagon to find out the secret of his tricks. The way she’d looked kneeling on his bed, the moonlight coming in to strike silver across her pale skin. She had no idea how she’d looked to him then, how otherworldly and extraordinary. He’d known as he watched her that there was something there, something in her blood that spoke to him, that made her undeniably one of the Imaginaire, even if it his theory was untenable. With her long hair spilling down her shoulders, her soft, ample body pressing against her t-shirt, tight in the most delicious places, she’d beguiled him into believing that she wielded more power in one captivating look than he’d ever had at his fingertips.
He did not deserve her.
As if summoned by his thoughts he heard her footsteps and opened his eyes to find her at the top of the theater, the late afternoon sun striking her in golden light. She smiled eagerly when she had his attention. She slowed her steps and he stood to meet her, loving the way she gazed up at him. He wished he really could read her thoughts, all of them, so he wouldn’t have to worry about her so much.
“What, no flowers? Or chocolates? Or diamonds? Perhaps I have the wrong tent.”
The Magician reached down for her and pulled her up onto his stage, holding on longer than necessary.
“One night and already so demanding.”
“Have we met? Because I’m pretty sure I’ve always been demanding.”
“Don’t I know it. Fine.” He gestured and pulled petals one at a time from the air, blue and purple like stars that floated between them. She watched him magic them into existence just for her, a smile built on child-like wonder shaping her mouth into a perfect peach bow. With the last one conjured, he blew them into his outstretched hand where they put themselves back together to form one of the carnival’s orchids, blue and white and purple.
