The Immortal Circus (Cirque des Immortels)

revenge and teach me how to use my powers. I accepted, of course. I mean, it wasn’t much of a choice: burn an agonizingly slow death, or get out of jail free. At the time, I thought I was just hallucinating because after I’d agreed, everything started back up again. People were yelling, the tomato missed me by an inch. Then I realized the ropes on my hands were gone, and the fire didn’t seem so hot. That’s when the fire turned blue.

“Everyone started screaming and trying to run away, but there were demon eyes in the flames and I heard Mab’s voice in my head. This is your power. Do with it as thou wilt.”

“And?” I ask.

“And I killed them,” he says, tossing the ball into the air. “All five hundred and forty-three of them. Men, women, children. All burned, just like they would have done to me.”

I stare at him. My mouth is open, I’m sure, but I can’t close it. If he notices, he doesn’t pause to point it out.

“It wasn’t until later, of course, that Mab set out the actual terms of my contract.”

“Which was?”

“One year for every life lost. So, yeah, I’ve killed before. And I’m paying dearly for it. Circus freak for life,” he says with a sigh.

“I don’t remember any of that in the history books,” I say. Here I was, freaking out because I might have killed three people, and he’s killed hundreds. He doesn’t look like the type who’d have blood on his hands. But then I remember the way his eyes flashed when doing some of his more dangerous tricks. Not everything is as it seems. His words. He was definitely talking about himself.

He just shrugs. “Mab’s good at misdirection.” The look he gives me is loaded, but I’m too wrapped up in the idea of him fricasseeing small babies to let it sink in.

“Do you regret it?” I ask, shaking off the image. “Joining? Your contract?” In other words, killing all those people.

“Hell, no,” he says, standing. “I’d do it again.”

He tosses the ball into the air. At the top of its arc, it explodes in a burst of sparks and flutters away as a pearl-white moth.

“You don’t fuck with a witch,” he says. “Ever.”

With that, he strolls out of the tent, a slight, cocky bounce to his gait. I know I should be looking at him differently. He’s a killer. He’s here because he murdered a town. But then, I can’t say I’d have done much differently if the roles were reversed. Kill or be killed. Wasn’t that the most basic human instinct? Besides, it’s not exactly like I could crucify him for his past when I couldn’t even remember mine. He’s still the guy who promised to keep Mab from kicking me out, the guy who takes it upon himself to make sure Melody and everyone else is safe and happy. He’s still the guy I fell for at the start. I pick up the balls and then realize one thing: he never answered whether or not he’d kill me for trying to kiss him.

* * *

A couple songs later, I stand up and leave the tent, dropping the juggling balls in a props basket backstage. There’s no one around — no one at the pie cart, no one in lawn chairs outside of their trailers. Everyone must either be inside their air-conditioned bunks or out at the watering hole. Hopefully, Mel found some of the eye candy she was after. I wasn’t kidding; one of us deserved some action, and since I clearly wasn’t going to be getting any from Kingston for quite some time, it might as well be her. Was there even anyone else in the troupe who was gay? Or was her only hope at getting laid outsourcing?

As I head to the pie cart for water, a shape dodges in front of me, then another shadow close behind. Poe chasing a mouse.

The cat pauses in front of me and turns its yellow eyes up to mine, the rodent forgotten. His front paw is still in a cast. Something in my memories shifts.

“You can’t have him.”

I spin around.

Lilith’s standing behind me. She’s in a lacy white floral dress that makes her look like a doll, her head tilted to the side in that lost-bird manner she often has. There’s even a pink ribbon tied in her hair. The sight of her makes the air feel warmer, makes me take a half step back.

“What?” I ask. Poe slinks around from behind me and curls around Lilith’s feet. She bends down and picks the cat up, then stands and looks at me dead-on.

“You can’t have Kingston. He is too good for you. He is mine.” There’s nothing vapid in her voice. The contrast between her words and her appearance chills me to the bone. Not everything is what it seems here. Then what the hell is Lilith hiding?

“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

Her eyes narrow.

“I won’t let you steal him away. I won’t let you do what the bad man did to him.”

“Bad man?”

“Bad man Senchan.”

Her words fill me with fire, and as her brown eyes turn red, my vision burns. Smoke fills my nostrils, screams and crackling as Lilith is there on the field, burning the man from the Summer Court. Burning the fields and the Summer Fey within. Lilith, flames looped around her in cords, flames of her fingers, fire and wrath, and Senchan burning and screaming and cracking apart with corn-husk skin. And then Mab’s there, covering Lilith in a hug, and the fires die down and she’s whispering. My baby, my baby, stop now, please.

I take a deep, shuddering breath. Bile rises in my gut. I drop to my knees and vomit, my hands clenching the ash-covered earth. Senchan, burning. Senchan, screaming. His ash is everywhere.

“What…what did you do?” I manage.

“Bad man,” Lilith says. There’s a smile in her words that twists my intestines. Pride. Sheer, contented pride. “Bad man gone.”

She kneels down at my side.

“You don’t look so well, Vivienne. You look weak. Kingston despises weak women. Which is why he will always choose me. Always.”

She puts Poe on the ground beside me, and together they run off, disappearing into the cornfield like the damned.

* * *

Mab opens her trailer door after the second pounding knock.

She’s in a black velvet-and-rhinestone blazer and velvet leggings. Her hair is bleached white today, and her green eyes spark at the sight of me. The air around her seems to shiver with shadows, but I stand my ground. Her trailer is completely dark; no candles, no walls, just shadow.

“Vivienne,” she says. “I thought I left you under Penelope’s watch?”

“I remember,” I say. The words come out as a croak. My throat is on fire and every breath is sandpaper and flame. There are two worlds battling in my head, and my body is splitting apart at the seams. “I know about Senchan. I remember.”

I don’t know how I expect her to react. Shock? Anger? Whatever it was, I wasn’t expecting her to smile and step back into the trailer.

“Come in,” she says. Her tone grows motherly in an instant. “Let’s talk.”

I step inside the trailer. The door closes behind me and all is black, black and empty, save for her hand on my back. Then a cool breeze blows past me, smelling of ice and dust, and a faint blue light flickers in the distance, then another. One by one, a host of candles blaze into life, their flames the blue of a summer sky. Her office materializes from the dark in tendrils of fog, wisps that solidify into an ancient wooden desk, four walls, two chairs, and a bookshelf that covers the entire back wall.

She guides me into the seat and settles herself in the plush velvet chair behind her desk. Memories of my first time in this very chair settle on my shoulders, but there’s no time to feel at home. Something is wrong, very wrong, and I’m not going to be kept in the dark any longer.

“So,” she says, leaning back to prop her stiletto boots on the desktop. “Talk.”

The words are tumbling around in my head but I can’t seem to pick one to start it all off.