by Kim Smejkal
The curtain above Kitty Kay fluttered, and Celia found the spot Anya was spying from.
Deftly she plucked a black feather from the back of the plague doctor’s costume for Zuni—who’d get quite a collection if Celia ever saw her again—and bowed out of the dance.
“We need a truce,” the plague doctor said as she walked away. Unlike the whisper of before, he was back to being the plague doctor, booming his words out, his smile a giant, tantalizing invitation. His new partner was practically drooling on his shoulder. “There’s something about you—” He paused. Mask, darkness, judgment, the end of everything. Why did she have such trouble looking away? “I never realized how easy it is for Death to recognize one of his own.”
Her first reaction: unmentionably embarrassing. Her second was much more reasonable. Oh, puh-lease.
His laugh followed her as she wove through dancing bodies, off the stage, down into the field, and around the back. Anya had climbed the catwalk and was precariously perched right above the conversation Kitty Kay was having with the mistico. “I can’t hear a thing,” she hissed when Celia joined her. Over the dense music and laughter, there was no way to separate out their words.
The mistico’s arms gestured broadly as he spoke, his mouth a blur, with no trace of the composure he’d had with Celia. Kitty Kay waited calmly for a space, then delivered a short response. Beside her, Vincent the Palidon mimed a skit unrelated to the conversation: something about climbing a mountain? But Kitty Kay appeared to be winning the argument, shaking her head and shifting forward with flinty eyes, as if trying to push the mistico off her stage with only her body language.
The mistico, his face flushing red and his sparse hair standing at attention, bowed and excused himself. Vincent pantomimed throwing invisible knives into his back. Only then did Kitty Kay shake out her shoulders, inhale deeply, and resume watching her troupe.
“Interesting,” Anya whispered. “That kind of animosity has history.”
Yes. Wouldn’t most Rovers want to make their lives easier by staying on Profeta’s good side?
“Go, go,” Anya said, practically pushing Celia down the ladder. “Let’s go.”
By the time the devil and the angel casually sidled up to Kitty Kay and Vincent, the mistico had multiplied. Now three of them stood glaring from across the stage, no doubt discussing how to best manage the situation from there. Their body language said the conversation wasn’t over.
“What do they want?” Anya asked. A pair of dancers bumped Kitty Kay, and she smiled, shooing them toward center stage with a hearty laugh.
Celia swallowed. Because of the checkpoint, the wanted posters, and their friendship with Lupita, there was no way their connection to the temple remained a secret, but so far, no one had outright broached the subject, only danced around it, as was their way.
“Oh, my dears,” Kitty Kay said with her usual theatrical trill. “There’s nothing I hate more than the sight of a robe. So stuffed and pompous. A vile stain on the shimmer of the world.” Her tone was light, but her words raged as fierce as fire. Celia thought perhaps she was being loud on purpose. Goading, taunting. Stop it!
Vincent nodded as she spoke.
“They demand that the troupe return to Asura. That there’d been some ‘public concerns about our message.’” The smile stayed on Kitty Kay’s face, but, like her words, it burned hot as she looked at Celia and Anya. “They’ve tried something like this before, years ago. Profeta is water seeking out cracks.”
Vincent nodded again. Celia hadn’t realized that she was toying with Salome’s leather bracelet under her gloves until Anya took her hands to quiet them.
At the look on their faces, Kitty Kay’s lips appeared again as she smiled. “As much as they like to think they own the world, Profeta has no authority over Rovers. Barring an order from Ruler Vacilando herself, there’s nothing they can do. We’re headed west, and we’ll shake off any residual stench of this country soon enough. As long as you two keep your masks on when you’re around the public, you’re safe here. You two are bright stars in the Rabble Mob, and the Rabble Mob is family.”
We’re family. The words sounded like a sweetness, a vow, a comfort. But Celia and Anya had known family before, and their only understanding of the word included the knowledge that it could change. Abruptly. Unexpectedly. You could be wrapped in the soft arms of your mothers one moment and pushed away the next because of a tattoo on your ankle. The only consistent family in their lives was each other.
The two bracelets around Celia’s small wrist competed for her very soul: a colorful purple and blue braid that linked her to these strangers and to a wide world she didn’t know, and the broken, worn-down leather one from Salome just before she’d been ripped from life on a cruel whim. Which one represented the truth of the world? Which one should she believe?
Perhaps some in-between place existed for people like her. Like the plague doctor. Her eyes found him among the remaining guests, everyone still so eager to press close. He’d seen the afterlife and returned. He said he recognized the scent of death surrounding her.
And then the plague doctor’s ridiculous words turned prophetic, for as soon as Celia again locked eyes with the mistico from Asura, he fell to his knees and clutched his head, screaming with the wailing torture of the Touch.
Chapter 13
The sound lasted only a moment. One of the other mistico pulled the screaming one behind the curtain as the third poured chloroform on their handy rag. The plague doctor laughed as he herded the remaining guests offstage, staunchly pretending that everything was fine, fine, fine. He must have marveled at the mistico’s efficiency. Everyone must have.
Dominic. Long after his screams had quieted and his colleagues removed him from the Rover field, Celia had finally remembered the mistico’s name.
Dominic would be the newest entry on the Roll of Saints, forever a part of Profetan history, and with that honor came a final resting place at the temple in Asura.
They’d have to get his body to Zuni so his skull could be added to the crypts. Surely they would have had to deal with this before, a Touched away from the temple, but Celia couldn’t imagine the logistics. Wouldn’t the body rot? Would they take only his head? Sick to her stomach thinking about it, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She thought she’d seen all the horrors of temple life, yet here was a brand-new one. Would she ever be free of that place?
The gates had closed. Most of the Mob had fallen asleep without too much trouble. It was rattling, Kitty Kay had acknowledged, but it really didn’t have anything to do with them. The show would go on. “If anything,” she’d said, “let’s be grateful that the temple now has something better to do with their time than harass us.”
No love lost there.
Outside the temple walls, the Touch was rare, but everyone knew what it meant. And witnessing it was no small thing; the plague doctor had had to call scary Ravino over to help him when one couple refused to get up from their prone positions. The people had left with wide eyes and trembles and questions on their lips.
It was hard for anyone to miss Kitty Kay’s obvious glee that her problem had taken care of itself and given them free publicity.
All night, Celia tried to harness a shred of relief. She and Anya were still well hidden. The mistico had come for a completely different reason than to retrieve rogue inklings. That much was clear from the conversations with Dominic before he’d started screaming.
Anya had called it a “shitty coincidence.” But as much as Celia wanted to believe her, it didn’t feel like a shitty coincidence. Not at all.
* * *
All the next day, Celia tried to embrace Anya’s reasoning.
“The Mob knows where we came from, Cece, they aren’t stupid. But they aren’t concerned.” Anya reached out and adjusted Celia’s lizardlike dress. “Let’s follow Kitty Kay’s lead, get through this last show, and get the hell out of Illinia.”
Celia pulled her mask off and let it dan
gle around her neck, feeling claustrophobic under it. “Can you finish setting up?” She tossed a small handful of glitter, coating the top of Anya’s head in sparkles. “I need to do some pacing before the crowd comes in.”
Anya huffed, brushing the glitter out so it peppered her lace dress, and smiled. “Fine, but pace enough for both of us.”
Celia dashed away, high-fiving Ravino as she passed because they’d somehow gotten into that habit, and swerved away from the main stage to make a round of the Rover field. The knot in her gut stayed tight despite Anya’s logic, despite Kitty Kay’s reassurances.
All she wanted was a little solitude for her bees to calm down, but someone followed her.
“Walk with me?” Vincent held out his arm, and Celia laced hers through it, snuggling into his side without shame.
As her thoughts roiled, Vincent filled the silence. In his whisper-quiet voice he told her about Tanith’s cold (with a surly disposition even new fire sticks couldn’t tame). He asked about Lupita and whether she’d sent any pigeons (maybe, but none had made it to them). He joked about Chef Foureta’s culinary disasters (Seer’s food is so much better, you have no idea). He wondered whether Celia missed Asura (hell no, except for Zuni and Wallis, and maybe a tiny bit, she hated to admit, Dante).
He didn’t mention the mistico, the temple’s concern about the Mob’s show, or the Touch. Just as with the rest of the Mob, it was as if it hadn’t even happened.
A seamless, soothing conversation—the white noise of a river or the wind—so it was only after making a full round of the field that Celia sensed the offness hidden inside.
“How do you know about Chef Foureta?” she asked, a wave of goose bumps erupting across her skin. She shivered. She gripped his arm a little harder, as if a good hold would equal a simple explanation. He’d overhead her and Anya talking about them. Not a big deal.
Vincent sighed. “I should be happy right now, but . . .” His hand moved down her arm and lightly stroked her fingertips.
“Hey, what’s going on?” She stopped walking, seeking his familiar features under his face paint: hardly there eyebrows, pale blue eyes, sharp cheekbones. Her quiet Palidon, whether in costume or not.
He shrugged, a small, sad smile on his rosebud lips. Celia had the sudden urge to run, but his gloved fingers continued dancing with hers, twining, untwining. “Is this bothering you?”
She was about to say no, thinking he meant the caress, when he added, “I hope so.”
He laced his fingers through hers, his grip no longer tender. Her shiver turned into a shudder. He pulled their linked hands up between them, as if to bring her bare fingers to his lips. “Such tiny things, to cause me so much trouble.”
Vincent said this in the same steady way he said everything.
But with those words they stepped over a line drawn in mud and swept aside a door made of silken fabric; even as everything looked the same, the barrier was breached.
She felt it then: a chill in her bones, shivering its way through the depths of her insides.
Celia’s fingers flexed and extended in Vincent’s hand, and he examined each one. He met her gaze as he kissed four fingertips in turn, and, as if they didn’t belong to her at all, her fingers stopped moving to receive his lips.
She could have asked How do they cause you trouble? What are you telling me? But instead she asked the obvious. “Where’s Vincent?” Because whoever stood in front of her wore Vincent’s face, used his body and his voice, but her Palidon had vanished. This wasn’t the friend who’d wrapped her wrist in a bracelet, who’d stolen a sweet bun for her, who’d peacefully walked with her so many mornings.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t say, What are you talking about? Vincent’s right here, holding your hand like a vice, whispering hisses into your ear.
He smiled at her instead, slow and steady.
And behind that smile lurked menace.
Celia heard herself whisper, “I don’t mean to cause you trouble.” She didn’t pull away, despite the painful grip. Her lungs breathed in a steady cadence, her heartbeat slowed, her mind closed to everything except that moment.
Her body understood that it was time to lie like she’d never lied before.
Celia and not-Vincent stood together as the heavy clouds wet them with droplets as warm as blood. She took a step toward him at the same time that his free hand moved to cup her cheek. From afar, their meeting would appear tender, like tentative new lovers. Reaching toward want. Struggling against it.
His movements so gentle, his intent so clearly the opposite. “And yet you have. You’ve caused me trouble at every turn, Inkling.”
“Inkling?” Celia’s slow heartbeat pounded like dull footsteps. The impossible conversation continued, deceptively calm and reasonable. “I’m the devil of the bell jar. A bright new star in the Rabble Mob.”
He shook his head, his black teardrop melting down his face from the rain. “No. I bargained with a true devil once, and you’re nothing like him.”
Ridiculous words—I bargained with a devil—but no part of Celia doubted them. “Only the damned speak with devils.”
“Well, you served me for ten years, so I suppose you would know better than most.” He sounded faintly amused at her words. “Despite my different skins, I know you recognize me. Let’s not play this game.”
The image of the Divine’s marble statue rose up in Celia’s mind. Seeing in all directions, able to watch the world from any angle . . .
From behind anyone’s eyes.
And the trickster peeking out from underneath the robes, seemingly bested by the noble force above, but—perhaps—that false image was her biggest trick of all.
Celia had never believed in a benevolent deity, but the trickster Diavala . . .
Diavala.
The name caressed its way into Celia and wormed its way through her like the ink in her bloodstream. The name of whispered screams. Deee-aaah-vaaah-laaaaah.
And as it pumped slowly through her veins, she felt it. Diavala. Not a question, not a statement.
A truth.
A greeting.
Celia’s teeth began slamming together in a furious chatter when she realized that nothing about Vincent’s flickering tenor had changed. Inside him, making use of his body, was something that didn’t even have a soul of its own. How many other people had this monstrous thing possessed over the centuries? And—Celia’s throat closed—why didn’t anyone speak of it afterward?
Diavala.
Celia crunched her hand into a fist, squeezing Vincent’s fingers between hers until each of them paled, trying to pull him out, find him, bring him back so they could continue their calm walk and return to a world that made sense.
Not-Vincent’s gaze lifted from their clasped hands, searching for something in the distance. She watched her friend that wasn’t her friend blink away the fresh rain, frown as if weighing his next words, and exhale another sigh.
A slightly crooked grin lit Vincent’s face. He wasn’t made for smiling so. Diavala. “It took centuries to build up my power just so—from creating the stage to managing the puppets—but there’s little challenge in it anymore. You sparked my interest, Inkling, that day you signed your initials to a tattoo as if it were art instead of instruction. And you thought you’d gotten away with one . . . and then another, and then another. The ink is mine, I saw them all.” A terrible pause as she assessed Celia. “I suppose I was careless. I watched you too long, intrigued by your defiance when I should have doused it. I still cannot believe you managed to escape, for however brief a moment. If it hadn’t been for that last Asuran show causing such a stir, you might have actually made it farther.” She shook her head, falsely chastising herself. “But now, here we are.”
The crisp understanding that Celia had brought her here—with those initials she’d thought were so clever, her apologetic kisses to those she inked—stole Celia’s breath.
“The thief—and the deity sh
e stole from. I felt it was time we met, Inkling.”
Celia’s panic found words. “I’ll go back to Asura.” She could hire a coach in Sabazio. No, she didn’t have any money. The horses. She didn’t know how to ride one, but she’d bonded with a silver dapple on the road. How hard could it be if the horse was on your side? “You’ll have your inkling back. You’ll get your justice.”
Diavala stared at her, nodding slightly. “The noble sacrifice. But no, I don’t work in the currency of mercy. If it was that easy for you to put things right, I would have simply allowed Profeta to dole out justice for me.” She clicked her tongue, as if scolding a child. “I followed you personally, Inkling.”
Celia shook her head slowly. Denying the truth, the danger, the threat. If this thing inside Vincent was truly Diavala, Celia had not only brought the force of the temple—zealots in robes, guards and rules and death—down on the Mob, but also brought the mastermind behind it all.
“You’ve been . . . inside Vincent . . . this whole time?” Celia could barely utter the question. It made such little sense, seemed so ridiculous to put those words together.
“No. I was using Dominic until last night.”
Last night, when Mistico Dominic had fallen screaming to the stage, unable to handle the contents of his own mind. Celia stifled the absurd urge to giggle. All this time spent thinking the Touch was a byproduct of years of fanaticism, too much contact with ink, or one of a dozen other theories, only to find out that the Touch was literal.
The names logged on the Roll of Saints were Diavala’s trail, the rows of skulls in the crypts her mementos.
Diavala saw her connecting the dots. “Madness is an unfortunate side effect of my transfer, but I saw an opportunity to attach more publicity to the Mob, and I took it.” She said this with a casual dismissal, but there was calculation there. To what end?
Celia’s words were clipped, stuttering their way out of her throat. “What do you want from me?”
