Then she noticed the encantado standing behind me, still nude, because every piece of clothing we’d offered her had irritated her smooth, sensitive skin.
Alyrose made an inarticulate sound and tried to slam the door in my face. I stuck my foot in the jam, and when she backed farther into her trailer, I led Renata inside.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” I said, but Aly couldn’t tear her gaze from the encantado. Renata looked around the trailer with wide eyes, taking in the furniture, and costumes, and makeup, and I wondered if that was the first time she’d ever physically existed in the kind of setting she’d been re-creating for her victims for the past couple of hours.
Alyrose shifted nervously, reclaiming my attention. “We’re taking the menagerie, and I’m offering you a choice few of the other staff members are getting. Because I think you’re a decent person.”
“You’re taking the menagerie?” Her eyes swam in fear; she still thought we’d come to kill her.
“Yes. Total mutiny. In fact, we’re almost done. Do you know what Renata is?” I asked, and when her gaze strayed to the encantado again, as Renata ran her fingers over a feather boa hanging from a full clothing rack, I stepped between them to regain her focus. “Aly. Do you understand what she and her brother can do?”
The costume mistress nodded, and her focus shifted back and forth between us. “They can alter memory and perception.”
“Exactly. Renata and Raul are helping us send the staff away peacefully. There hasn’t been a single injury so far. If you want, we can do that for you. You wouldn’t remember any of this. You’d just believe you decided to move on from the carnival lifestyle. Or...you can stay. We’d love to have you, and we could really use your help.”
“With what?” Finally, she looked more curious than scared.
“We’re going to run the menagerie ourselves. For ourselves. The only way we can stay free in the U.S. is to maintain the illusion of the traveling menagerie, as if nothing’s changed. And we could use a good costume mistress. But you need to understand up front that it won’t be like it was before. Sentient, nonviolent cryptids will only be in cages for performances.”
“The adlet?” Fear lined Aly’s forehead.
“We can’t set him free. He’s a predator through and through. But he’ll have decent facilities and food. We’ll do what we can for him, and for anyone who’s truly a threat to others, within those limitations. You’ll be safe here with us if you stay, but if we get caught, you’ll get caught with us.” I wanted to be up-front about that, too. “So...what do you say?”
Her eyes were painfully wide, and her fingers were curling and uncurling at her sides, as if she didn’t know what to do with them. “Do I have to decide now?”
“Five minutes ago would have been good. If you choose to stay and later decide you don’t like it, you can leave then, under the same terms.”
Alyrose looked from me to Renata, as if to confirm what I’d promised. Or maybe to make sure this whole conversation wasn’t really just an enchantment.
“If I were enchanting you, you wouldn’t see me,” Renata said, as she thumbed through a book of fabric samples, but her reassurance sounded more like a threat.
Alyrose took a deep breath, and finally she nodded. “Okay. I’m in.”
On our way out of Alyrose’s trailer, I stopped and turned back to her. “Hey, do you have anything Renata could wear while she’s out of the water? Everything we’ve given her irritates her skin.”
When Aly pulled off her own satin robe and gave it to the encantato, I knew that I’d been right to trust my gut. Regardless of her species, Alyrose was one of us.
* * *
We passed wagon row on the way back to the hybrid tent, and halfway down, I put one hand on Renata’s satin-clad shoulder to stop her. Something was wrong. Turning, I studied the wagons. Everyone was awake, and many of them were still slowly nibbling the snacks I’d brought, obviously worried that my plan would fail and it might be a long time before they were fed again.
I could understand that fear.
But one of the cages looked...
I let go of Renata and marched toward the siren cage—where Finola sat alone. “Where’s Lenore?” I demanded, panic painting my voice in shrill tones.
“Kevin came for her, but—”
I took off running with Renata on my heels, and behind me Finola was still shouting, “Delilah, wait...!”
Kevin
Kevin was already awake when Gallagher knocked on the door of the camper next door. He was already dressed, and had brushed his teeth and combed his hair nearly an hour before. Holding one boot, he peeked between the dusty metal blinds, as paranoid men were apt to do, and saw Gallagher lead Hallie and Farah—the human contortionists—toward the fairground. At two in the morning.
And they weren’t the first to go.
Kevin’s hands shook as he pulled his last boot on, listening carefully for more footsteps. More knocks on hollow metal doors.
Over the past half hour, he’d seen the boss of livestock come for two other staff members. Then Abraxas, that kid they’d picked up near Saint Louis a few months before, had pounded on Ruyle’s door across the way, spouting some story about a breakout. Kevin might have fallen for it, too, if anyone had sounded the alarm. And if he hadn’t already seen several other handlers lured quietly from their beds in the middle of the night.
Two of them had come back, climbed into their campers, and driven right off the lot. The others had yet to return.
Something very strange was going on. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe there was a perfectly good explanation. But a man with secrets like Kevin’s couldn’t afford to take that chance.
Kevin sneaked out of his camper the moment Gallagher and the acrobats disappeared around the corner, his keys jingling in his pocket, his left boot untied. He stuck to the shadows on his way toward wagon row, and ducked behind a portable toilet when he saw a dark-headed female employee jogging toward the fairgrounds as if her feet were on fire.
One glance at wagon row had confirmed that something was wrong. The cheetah shifter was cradling her cubs—in her cage! Several others were eating what looked like raw hot dogs, probably stolen from one of the vendor’s carts. And they all had bottles of water.
If this was a breakout, why were none of the exhibits loose? Who was feeding them? Why were the employees abandoning the menagerie one by one in the middle of the night?
Lenore sat up straight when she saw him, her eyes wide with obvious relief. “Kevin!” she whispered around a bit of... Was that a candy bar clutched in her right hand? No, a power bar. Who had given her a power bar?
“Come on. Something’s wrong, and this is our chance.” He unlocked her cage with practiced ease, then hauled her onto the ground with one arm around her waist.
“Wait, I have to tell—”
“Shh...” Kevin slid the cage door shut and locked it with a regretful glance at Finola, who stared at him in bewilderment. He felt bad about leaving her there, but he really had no other choice.
Kevin’s grip on Lenore’s hand tightened as he pulled her across the gravel lot toward his trailer. She stumbled and cried out for him to wait, but he kept running, hauling her along as fast as he could, his heart pounding against his sternum. Whatever was going on would soon attract the cops, and they’d have to be long gone by the time that happened.
“Kevin, wait!” Lenore’s voice flowed over him like water over a riverbed, eroding his willpower. Washing away his immediate haste, but leaving his deeper-rooted anxiety intact. It was a soft insertion of her will over his, and it was his irritation that stopped him, as much as it was the pull from her voice.
“You swore you’d never do that,” he snapped, skidding to a halt on the gravel beneath his boots.
“It’s an emergency,” she s
aid, by way of an apology. “It’s a coup, Kevin. A mutiny. The cryptids are taking over the menagerie.”
“So I see. We need to be at least sixty miles away before anyone else figures that out,” he insisted, tightening his grip on her hand when she tried to pull free. “This is our chance to get away.” He’d been waiting for an opportunity for years, biding his time in a red polo that bound him to the carnival as surely as her chains bound her. But he’d been expecting a simple distraction, like a tent fire, or an escaped centaur. He’d never dreamed of an opportunity like this.
“No,” Lenore said. “This is our chance to stay.”
“But when the cops get here—”
“The cops won’t get here. No one’s going to report this, Kevin. The employees don’t even know this is happening. They all think they’ve been fired, or that they quit. It’s really kind of funny. And pretty smart.”
“They think...?” Well, that would explain why they were all leaving, instead of sounding an alarm. “How?”
Lenore smiled, and her entire face lit up. “The encantados. Delilah woke them up.”
“Delilah?”
“Yes. I told you, she was sent to us. She did this for us, and we owe her.”
“We don’t owe anyone anything. Not after what you’ve been through.”
Kevin had ached to touch her since the moment he’d first seen her, so long ago, and no matter how many times his greedy hands fulfilled that wish, he couldn’t get enough of her.
He would never have enough of her. But this was his chance to try. “Come on. We’re leaving, and we’re going to put this all behind us.”
“No.” Lenore’s voice held no pull, but neither did it hold any doubt. She tugged her hand from his grip and stood firm. “You leave if you want. Maybe you should. If I come with you, we’ll always be on the run.”
“Lenore...” he said, but she shook her head.
“This wasn’t fair to you.” She spread her arms to indicate the entire menagerie. “But running won’t be either. Maybe you should go find someone whose most frequent accessory isn’t steel bracelets. Someone you can share a real life with.”
Anger flared deep in his chest. He pulled her close, and when she flinched, a pang of guilt rang through him, but he didn’t release her. He couldn’t. “Don’t ever say that again,” Kevin growled through clenched teeth. “I will never let you go, Lenore. You’re mine, and I don’t care what some scrap of paper in an old man’s filing cabinet says. I have a document that predates his.”
“Let her go.”
Kevin heard the words a split second before he was pulled off his feet. Lenore gasped, jerked forward by his desperate grip on her arm until his fingers loosened and she slid free.
Gallagher lifted the smaller handler until his boots barely dragged on the ground. Light from the parking lot shone on his bright red cap. His thick left hand curled into a fist, already drawn back for a blow that would surely shatter Kevin’s cheek.
“Wait!” Kevin’s focus slid from Gallagher’s face—half-shadowed from the light by the bill of his hat—to where the new exhibit stood behind him, unshackled and dressed in a Metzger’s polo. “This isn’t what you think.”
“I think you’re a predatory asshole who’s about to get a free makeover,” Gallagher growled.
“No!” Lenore stepped forward, pulling at Gallagher’s arm. “Leave him alone. Please.” Her wide violet eyes and furrowed forehead pled just as hard as her words, threaded through with a calming undertone. “You don’t understand.” She sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “He’s my husband.”
Delilah
“If I could have everyone’s attention, I think we’re ready to get started.” I cleared my throat and stepped up onto the center platform of the white three-tiered podium in the middle of the red ring. The circus wagons—holding all of the sentient cryptids, except for the adlet—were arranged around the outside of the ring in two rows, staggered so everyone could see. “And while we talk, Abraxas and Gallagher are coming around with more water.”
I nodded, and the kid began distributing bottles from the cooler full of ice Gallagher hauled behind him, as if it weighed nothing.
“When do we get out of these cages?” the berserker shouted, and both trolls echoed the sentiment in their slightly less articulate...style. “If this is a coup, why are we still locked up?”
“Why are they here?” Mirela, the oldest of the oracles asked, glaring at Alyrose and Kevin.
“Why are they already unlocked?” Adira demanded, eyeing Eryx, Claudio, and Lenore.
“You’re all going to be let out in a few minutes,” I assured them. “I just want a chance to explain what’s happening before any of you decide to wander off.”
“You’re going to let us go?” one of the succubi—Zarah? Or maybe Trista?—said, disbelief thick in her husky voice.
“Of course, if that’s what you want. But I’d like to invite you to stay and—”
“Why the hell should we stay?” one of the giants demanded in his booming voice, and that triggered another outbreak of questions. Which was when I remembered that crowd control was more of a problem in a democracy than in any other version of society.
“Be quiet and let her speak.” The voice was soft, yet it cut through the cacophony like an oar through water, and when I glanced to my right, I saw Lenore smiling at me, clutching her husband’s hand.
“Thank you,” I said, then I turned back to the wagons. “In case any of you haven’t figured it out yet, we’ve taken over the menagerie. Renata and Raul have helped us get rid of all the staff members except for Alyrose, Kevin, and Abraxas without spilling a single drop of blood.” Which I was proud of on a personal level—even though Gallagher was disappointed—because if we were caught, at least the headlines couldn’t read Savage Cryptids Slaughter Staff and Seize Circus. Not truthfully anyway.
Our actions would speak louder than our words ever could. People would know that we’d spared our human captors, though they had rarely spared us.
“Alyrose, Kevin, and Abraxas have agreed to stay and help us because they’re sympathetic to our cause. For those who don’t know, Kevin is Lenore’s husband. He took a job at Metzger’s years ago, to stay near her.”
“What about Gallagher?” someone shouted, but I couldn’t identify the speaker.
“He’s a redcap,” Adira said with a petulant pout, obviously irritated that she hadn’t been let in on our coup before the fact. Nalah was curled up in the opposite corner of their cage, her yellow-orange eyes burning brighter than ever.
“Yes,” I said. “Gallagher’s been working here on behalf of Adira’s father, in order to return her to her homeland. Which brings me to my next point. Adira’s father, Sultan Bruhier, has offered each of you full citizenship in the merid sultanate. Those of you who wish to accept can cross the border with Adira and Nalah tomorrow.
“However, those of us standing before you plan to keep the menagerie open and run it as a masquerade of sorts. We plan to use whatever money we earn to reunite whoever stays with us with their lost relatives. Those who choose to stay will still look like prisoners to the outside world, but in reality, we’ll all be living free behind the facade of captivity. We will continue to put on exhibitions and charge admission, but the money will go toward feeding us and freeing your children, parents, and siblings from whatever institutions they were sold into.”
A cautiously optimistic buzz rose from the cages, as my fellow former captives discussed my plan and questioned its chances of success. The conversation encouraged me. I’d been worried most of them would be too scared of reprisal to seize freedom when it was offered, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Will we still be in the ring?” Mahsa shouted, to be heard over the other voices.
“Yes, but the acts will be all
ours. We’ll redesign the show. You can wear whatever you want and perform whatever tricks you like, so long as they’ll impress a human audience and bring in cash without hurting anyone. You can show them whatever you want them to see of your culture and your abilities.”
“What about cages and chains?” Finola called, with her seductive siren voice.
“And sedatives?” That came from the back, maybe from one of the centaurs.
“No sedatives,” I said. “And we’ll only use chains and cages during exhibitions and inspections, to maintain the illusion that Metzger’s is still a real menagerie. You’ll all have a healthy diet and better facilities. And real clothes. And proper hygiene. You’ll have everything Metzger’s can possibly give you. Including autonomy. You’ll decide what you want to eat, and when. You’ll choose your clothes. You will raise your own children.”
Stunned reactions buzzed from the wagons, and I recognized both eager acceptance and disbelief. Fear, skepticism, and astonishment. Some of them were instantly won over, and even those who seemed convinced we were doomed to fail sounded inclined to at least give it a chance.
“Of course, all this comes with a risk,” I continued, from the top tier of the podium. “If we get caught, we’ll all be back where we were before, if not worse. That means more captivity and abuse for the cryptids, and jail time for human accessories. I need you all to understand that before you decide. Nothing is gained without risk.” I took Ruyle’s key ring from Gallagher when he held it up for me. “Now we’re going to come around and unlock everyone, and Alyrose has brought over a selection of clothing for you to look through—”
On the left edge of my vision, one of the tent panels rose, letting in the first rays of sunlight, and I turned toward the movement just as my mother stepped hesitantly into the hybrid tent.
I froze in midsentence, momentarily convinced that I was hallucinating. That Renata had been lying about her inability to enchant me, and now she was either trying to give me the gift of a reunion or throw me entirely off my game.
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