by Jordan Bell
“Do you think that’s why he killed them? To force you out?”
The tempest in his eyes told me he hadn’t considered it before that moment. Eli ran his hand across his firm mouth.
“That is very likely.”
“Tell me about the key.”
He touched the shape of it beneath his shirt, then showed me the tattoo of the keyhole on his wrist. “This was Cora’s doing, actually. Between Olivia and the fire, I was a mess. Self-destructive and completely out of control. Before we fled the carnival, she gave me a way to lock our powers. Being twins, we pull from the same pool of magic, so by locking away my half, we were forced to share his. What we can do now are parlor tricks to what we could do then. He can’t be allowed access to that much power again. There’s no telling what damage he could do, forget the number of Imaginaire’s he’d kill all for the sake of his revenge.”
“Technically,” I said before taking a deep breath. “There’s only one Imaginaire he requires for that.”
Eli lifted his eyes, warring emotions darkening them. A warning, and also, a promise. “Don’t even think about it, Serafine. I mean it.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “I am not the self-sacrificing type. No hero halo here I promise. But if he gets in and he looks to do what he’s done before, you can’t let everyone else suffer because he’s a psychopath and you don’t want to see me hurt.”
“Not hurt, Sera. Dead. An eye for an eye.”
“He loved her, Eli.”
The Magician shot to his feet. “I don’t care! He’ll take you over my dead body, Sera, I swear on everything I have ever believed in. I won’t trade you to save myself. I have waited too long for you to lose it all now.”
His beautiful words made my hands shake. I could hardly look at him or away from him. He must have seen their effect in my eyes and his hard expression softened.
“You were going to do it before,” I murmured. “On the train. You gave me to him to protect the key.”
“I had no intention of allowing him to kill you. If I would have picked you, it would have made you a bigger target than you have been already.”
“Eli.” I held up a hand, thoughts occurring to me faster than I could place them on the game board. He stopped his pursuit and waited. “He didn’t make me a target that night. He made it today. Why today? And how did he get me the note to meet him if he couldn’t come through the gate?”
It took him a second to let my questions sink in, and then he released a volley of swears that ended with him throwing the Soul coin at the wall hard enough that it bounced and rolled back to me. I picked it up off the floor and pocketed it.
“Someone’s helping him. One of our people is helping him. I have to go talk to Rook right now. Where are you going to be? Somewhere safe. I don’t want you to be alone.”
He took my hands and pulled me off the floor. We stood close and I wanted to kiss him, wanted to bury myself in his arms until this was all over. But we didn’t have the luxury of time. Castel was coming.
“Micah wanted me to come to her show. I’m meeting Lily there. I won’t be alone.”
He nodded. “Stay with Micah and Lily. Artom is working their show tonight. If you feel like you’re in danger at any point, go to him. He hits like a stick of dynamite. He can protect you until I get there.”
My Magician kissed my forehead then, and the corner of my eye, and the tip of my nose, the curve of my mouth. “I’ll keep you safe, Sera. I will make Castel understand that there is nothing to be gained from sacrificing one love for another.”
“Be careful, Eli,” I whispered against his kiss. I clung to him, pressed my hand over the Page of Cups and buried the other into his soft, raven curls. “Castel’s coming for us. Please be careful.”
“Understand me. My brother left me the day that Olivia died. He was there and then he was gone. The man he is now is a stranger and a monster. I will not hesitate to end him if it comes to it. Olivia would not want this for him and he is a long time past saving.”
I kissed his cheek and inhaled the scent of him, the cloves and brandy of his skin. Somehow I found my way to his mouth and for a few precious moments we indulged in the one thing I didn’t think we’d ever get enough of. When he broke the kiss, I felt dizzy and weak.
“I’ll meet you right here after the aerial show.” Gently he tilted my chin up to meet his unwavering, hard gaze. “I won’t be parted from you. It’ll never come to that.”
27
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Lily met me at the entrance to the Galaxy tent wearing a floor length lace dress that looked like wet paint clinging to her skin. It revealed a crescent moon tattooed on the small of her back. She looked distracted and a little bored as guests filed in to see the big aerial show of the night.
“Ah, amour,” she purred when I got to her. “Couldn’t tear yourself away?”
“That’s never going to grow old,” I answered dryly. “And no. My ‘love letter’ was actually a creepy little stalker message from the other brother. Eli’s gone to talk to Rook about it. I have a bad feeling.”
Lily froze, her small mouth forming a silent O. “You talked to Castel?”
“The one and only.”
“He’s coming here?”
“Eli thinks so. And soon. We’re supposed to stay near Artom and collect Micah when we’re done. Apparently he thinks the buddy system is going to help, but I think that’s wishful thinking. My gut tells me there’s nothing we can do to prepare.”
She closed her mouth and nodded. “I believe you’re right. Maybe tonight’s a good night to stay in.”
“If you want to ditch me, I’ll understand.”
She scoffed and waved her gloved hand dismissively. “I’m not a coward and I’m not afraid of Castel. There are some things in this world that are scarier than magicians.” One perfect blond eyebrow arched over her blue eye.
“Like you?”
“Like me.”
“I feel better already. Let’s go. If I have to sit through a performance afraid that the place is going to burn to the ground while I’m in it, I’d rather at least get to see the show.”
We slipped in with the crowd and bypassed the ticket taker to find seats at center ring. Tonight the trapeze seemed so tall I could hardly make out the bars swinging faintly with the whistle of air coming in. Down the middle of the tent hung two twin white panels of fabric, but otherwise the stage was empty.
Lily looked at her watch and settled into her seat on the bleachers. Despite wearing a gown better suited for a black tie event, she looked perfectly happy on the wooden bench surrounded by fallen pieces of popcorn and children with sticky cotton candy fingers.
The crowd settled as music box music started to play, quick lilting flute notes that the sent the acrobats running and tumbling from all corners of the tent. They backflipped and cartwheeled to the ladders and then shimmied up them like little ants rushing to and fore. They flipped around onto the ladder so two climbed together, one on each side, and the ones to make it to the top first grabbed the trapeze bar and swung out, nearly missing the one on the other side, acting more like monkeys than acrobats until the music slowed back down and they slid into place crouched up on the platforms on either side of the tent.
The crowd applauded and the music became more fairy tale sweet and less wild rumpus. Micah strode out to the middle of the tent.
She had on a large silver coat with tails, a mimic of the traditional ringmaster garb. She wore a silver dusted top hat, her white hair in ringlets, two big white circles painted on either cheek like blush. She held up her hands in the air and the applauding became a furious crescendo.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Carnival Imaginaire! Let! The Show! Begin!”
The music explode and the trapeze artists leapt to their bars and flew through the air to each other, cartwheeling forward to catch the waiting hands only to be swung with such speed back back back towards the ceiling. They pendulumed back around where a third acrobat was wa
iting legs out, feet tucked in. The middle one spun in midair and at the very last second between flying and falling stretched out her arms and caught ankles.
While the three birds leapt and spun and flew free through the air without nets or wires, Micah tossed off her top hat, stepped out of her silver boots and unfastened her coat. It slid off to reveal white angel wings on her back and a cut away costume of white feathers falling diagonally across her chest to become her silver body suit.
She bowed to the crowd, then ran out to the white panels of fabric hung from the ceiling and began free climbing them to the top.
As she climbed, a fourth acrobat came running out dressed similarly to how Micah had been dressed, carrying one of the carnival’s snow globes.
The music cut off at the top of a note. The small acrobat spun the key on the base of the globe and then stepped back as it began to play.
The tent shimmered. Without thinking I reached for Lily’s hand and she let me take it. I’d only seen this moment once before, but still it amazed me as the floor of the Galaxy tent was one moment plain black tarp and the next it was covered in peaks of snow, tall pine trees rising up towards the trapeze girls, framing the two white panels Micah climbed. A pool of frozen water sat directly below Micah, mirroring her movements across the glimmering surface.
Gasps of surprise, distress, and awe rippled across the tent. Adults and children alike closed their eyes, pinched themselves as if to wake from dream, too astonished to believe that the winter wonderland they saw before them could be real.
It couldn’t be real, of course.
But it was.
The music box music continued to play as Micah took her position, wrapping a panel of fabric around each ankle. She slipped into the splits in midair, perched upon the knots she’d made. She turned and twisted herself inside the fabric, climbed and dropped as it unwound her towards the waiting ice.
Before striking it she let loose one of the panels and swung free, stretching her arms and legs in a midair pirouette. Watching her, it all looked so breathtaking and easy, though I knew it was anything but. The crowd gasped and ahhed every time she swung towards them, every time she let herself fall upside down, suspended only by her ankle or wrist. Every time she did something that seemed impossible and magical.
Watching her dance through the air, I almost forgot about Castel.
Then Lily squeezed my hand, leaned into me and whispered, “It’s show time,” as the trapeze bar snapped.
For a moment the two acrobats flew towards the one that should have been there to catch them, but wasn’t.
The audience held their breath. So did I.
And then they were falling.
And colliding with Micah.
Who lost her grip.
And all three tumbled headlong into the mirror of ice.
28
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The sound of breaking bones was no sound at all. It was felt, snapsnapsnap inside my chest. I started screaming until I’d gone hoarse, until there was no air left in my lungs and it was just me clutching my chest, snapsnapsnap, trying to hold it all inside.
They lay perfectly still on the ice, surrounded by snow, angel wings fluttering broken at wrong angles, indistinguishable from the arms at wrong angles.
And legs.
And necks.
The crowd went ballistic, bodies stampeding for the door, not wanting to help, just wanting to get away as fast as possible. All the bodies going one way and only a few going against the tide. Artom. Addy.
Me.
Only I made it just a few steps down the bleachers before Lily yanked me backwards, pulled along by the force of the people spreading around us.
“You!” I screamed and shoved the blonde beauty backwards into the bleachers. She stumbled in surprise, caught by the snugness of her dress. “Paramour!” I yelled, “Inamorato! Amour! Those were Castel’s words you traitorous, lying, bitch!”
When Lily struggled to get on her feet, swearing and stumbling over her words, I hauled off and punched her in the mouth.
Addy knelt beside the tangle of angels as Artom unknotted them. Big, burly Artom, all shoulders and arms, handling delicate bones and hearts.
“I…I think she’s alive.”
His voice rumbled as he lifted a single body into his arms, a single bird more feathers than girl.
Micah.
“Get her out of her Artom! Go! Both of you get to Mama George! Castel’s coming! Go now!”
The strongman and the tiny acrobat didn’t hesitate to heed my words. They ran for the back exit in time for me to turn back to deal with my traitorous Courtesan.
I squared my fist and prepared to knock her out, but it was too late.
“That’ll do, Serafine.”
Castel filled the doorway, bigger than I remembered him, larger than life, flames dancing in one open palm. He wore his grey coat again, his head bent so I couldn’t see his eyes.
I realized what I’d known since the night on the subway. Why he looked so familiar.
The man I’d seen walk into my mother’s tent hadn’t been wearing a grey suit.
He’d been wearing a grey coat.
“You.” I stumbled down a step, feeling the weight of it sink through me. “You killed my mother. It was you.”
It was Castel who’d come to my mother’s tent. It was Castel who’d placed the coin in her hand after he’d strangled her. It was Castel who’d vanished into thin air.
Like magic.
“Ah, the fortune teller? I thought you looked familiar. I never forget a set of pretty eyes.” He shook his head. “She was impossible to kill. Always saw me coming. Always one step ahead of me. I couldn’t get to Eli as long as she was around telling him when to run. She was the first I went after.”
“She always saw you coming.” I shook my head, all the answers and all the puzzle pieces falling into place. All the running, the crappy motels, the shady apartments. Never staying long enough to meet people, to be found out. Running not because she was plagued by wanderlust.
Running because we were hunted. Running to keep us safe.
I stared at Lily, a perfect gloved hand clutching her bleeding mouth and staring at me with such poison in her eyes. I shook my head. Everything fit. I had been so wrong for so long.
“I see you’re already acquainted with my new assistant. Good. Now it’s time for the second act.”
Before I could react, Lily shoved me away from her.
I tripped back, fell an impossibly long time before striking the bleacher beneath us, first across the shoulders, then across the back of my head.
All the nerves across the back of my neck fired painfully, bright shocks of pinched electricity stunning me for too many seconds. When I reached to steady myself, to get off my back, Castel’s shadow fell across me and it was too late.
* * *
Eli
Galaxy was on fire.
He heard the screaming first, the panic he remembered viscerally from years ago when he’d seen innocents running for their lives. Now there were children. Now there were families.
Eli and Alistair ran out of his wagon to see the smoke in the sky, caught beneath the canopy of trees, bringing early night to the day. He could smell the smoke. Could taste the ash of burned canvas and wood.
Sera.
He got halfway to the fairgrounds when one of the acrobats, the smallest of the troupe, a girl named Addy with wild stricken eyes, came running for him as fast as her little legs could carry her. She didn’t seem to see anything and nearly crashed into him when he went to stop her.
“They’re dead,” she cried. “The trapeze broke. Micah and Tamor and Io. They fell. They fell. They all fell!”
Alistair grabbed the hysterical girl by the hand. “Go,” he said. “Go find her. Stop Castel before he burns the whole place to the ground.”
The Magician wanted to grieve. He didn’t know any of them well but Micah was Sera’s. She was her shadow, her twin, her friend
. He wanted to grieve but there wasn’t time. They were out of time.
Castel had come.
The Galaxy burned steadily, the heavy, fire retardant canvas burning slower than the main stage tent had the first time Castel had come. He knew, though, that he would not find them in the Galaxy. That wasn’t Castel’s style. He knew where they’d be waiting. Castel wanted to make it a show and there was only one stage for a magician.
The lights were on inside the magician’s theater, the lanterns leading up to the door crackling ominously. The tent flaps blew open as he approached and he walked inside without fear. He would not fear his brother.
Castel leapt to his feet on the edge of the stage, delight mingling with the crazy streak he’d nurtured all these years. “I do love a good entrance, brother.”
“You called, I answered.” Eli opened his arms. “Let’s trade.”
At center stage Castel had placed a long, narrow platform chest high. He’d covered it with a black sheet used in illusion quick changes. And on top of the sheet he’d posed Sera on her back, her head canted to the side to suggest he’d knocked her out. Her head was bleeding, though he couldn’t tell from the back of the theater how bad it was.
Her hands were bound.
And sitting in the front row, legs crossed beneath her expensive satin gown, looking positively bored to tears, was Lily.
“Why am I not surprised to find you here?” he asked as he approached the stage where Castel waited.
Lily leaned her head back and smiled lazily up at him. “I like bad boys. What can I say.”
Castel clapped his hands together and paced the front of the stage. “Now that you’re here, we can get on with the show. Here’s the trade - you unlock our power, and she dies quickly and we’re even. No more tricks. If you don’t remove the lock you put on us, then I’ll make her suffer.” Castel shrugged easily. “She’s really a decent girl. I like her. She’s sharp. I don’t want to torture her.”
“You won’t torture her and you won’t hurt her. You and me and no one else. You want someone to pay.” Eli put his hands on the edge of the stage and hoisted himself up. “Then I’ll be paying that debt.”
