The Immortal Circus (Cirque des Immortels)

I duck and weave against the throng of Summer Fey that surround the tent, trying to make my way toward Penelope. Lilith is walking calmly at her side, Poe right behind them. It’s almost like watching it in slow motion, the way they just keep getting farther away, the way everything moves like a dream. Then something clubs me over the back of the head and I yell out, stars bursting across my vision as I drop to my knees. Penelope doesn’t hear it, doesn’t stop. The cat does.

I can’t move, can’t bring myself to my knees as I call out for Lilith to come back, to fight. Another hit, to the side of my head this time, and I sprawl sideways across the ground. Warmth trickles from my skull. I taste blood. I watch them get farther away, watch Poe sit there and look between me and his master. They’re getting away. Penelope’s going to win. Something grinds into my ribs.

Then I see the Summer Faerie — an elf in leaflike armor with a giant sword — run past Poe. The elf stops, looks down, and with a sneer that makes my world go still, lops the cat’s head off.

Everything goes silent. All sound sucks from the world; a great void that hangs on one improbably long gasp. Rather than blood, rather than death, the cat just disintegrates in a cloud of red and grey ash. The only noise in the deafening quiet is the sound of burning.

Lilith drops to her knees.

Penelope stares at Lilith, then back. Her eyes lock on the elven knight, whose expression is slipping quickly from victorious to confused. She sees the puff of cinders, sees me on the ground. All this in a heartbeat. Then she screams.

That one noise seems to jump-start everything back into motion. I watch in horrid fascination as the ash that was once Poe flutters over to Lilith, swarming around her like moths. The dust settles on her skin, coats her entirely. Penelope backs away, but Lilith is quicker. Her hand darts out and latches on to Penelope’s ankle. Penelope screams again at the touch, screams like hell is trying to pull itself from her lips. Her ankle smokes, her jeans sear away under Lilith’s hand. The dust motes sink into Lilith’s skin, turn her even more pallid.

“I know what you would have done, Penelope McAllister.”

At first, I don’t register who’s speaking. The voice seems to come from everywhere. It burns inside my head, a simmering fire that heats my blood. It’s ancient. Powerful. Pissed.

Penelope’s still screaming, struggling, trying to get away, but Lilith’s grip doesn’t waver; her arm is still as stone.

“You would have had me killed.” Then I realize it’s Lilith. The memory of her prior outburst burns through my mind, the fire and chaos, and it all makes sense. Poe had been injured then, and Lilith went berserk. Now, Poe was dead. I didn’t need to know what was going on to know one very simple fact: whatever power Lilith had been hiding was now set free. Now, there would be nowhere on earth to hide from that hell.

Lilith’s hand twitches and Penelope’s ankle snaps. She jerks, nearly collapses, but before she can hit the ground her screams turn to gagging, and it’s not blood pouring from her mouth, but lava. It burns down her lips and shreds down her shirt, the scent of burning clothes and flesh heavier in the air than I’d ever thought possible. She stiffens, seizes. The gagging cuts short. Flames lick across her body as every inch of her incinerates. The process is fast and efficient, as though she’s made of oil-stained paper. Lilith slowly moves her hand away and stands, Penelope’s burning corpse casting her body in an eerie glow.

She turns.

Slowly.

So slowly.

And then she is facing me. She looks above me, past me, raises her arms to the sides as fire lances around her, flickering from the naked air in tongues and tendrils. Her next words echo in my head, make me wince with pain.

“I know what all fey would have done.”

Lilith goes insane.

The air around her turns white and red, flames billowing up in curtains that stretch toward the heavens. I can see her, barely, within the whorl of heat. She rises into the air like a fiery goddess. And when she reaches the peak of the chapiteau, she unleashes her chaos.

Flames lance down from her, spearing into the horizon, igniting the cornfield, filling the sky with heat and hungry fire. One pierces down toward me and I don’t even have time to shield my eyes as my world explodes in heat and light and then…silence. A quick glance around and I realize I’m still alive, completely untouched. All that’s left of the fey who attacked me is ash. I look up at Lilith and she catches my stare, nods slowly, then dips her head back to the heavens as the flames around her grow brighter. I don't know if she saved me because, as she said, we're on the same team or because she wants to kill me herself. I don't want to find out.

The fields alight. There’s no more room for sound beyond the crackle and roar of fire, not even the dying screams of the fey. I push myself to standing and see the chapiteau curling in on itself, peeling off in long ribbons of burning fabric that float away, like burial shrouds dissolving into the sky.

Lilith’s reign doesn’t go unchallenged for long. Arrows fly toward her, along with sparks and magical missiles and bolts of lightning, but they all vanish, all become nothing the moment they hit her cocoon of fire. And every shot at her receives a counterattack, a lance of flame that folds back to the assailant. I watch in horror as elves and fey burst into flame, some alive just long enough to scream and try to beat out the flames, others disintegrating on impact. Then another light fills the sky, a pure golden counter to Lilith’s fire. Oberos.

The two meet, brilliant sun and burning dark star, and the words of Oberos ring through the air.

“So, it is true. Kassia the daemon has been kept in hiding by the Winter Court.”

For a moment, I wonder if Oberos had killed Mab, but then she appears at my side in a swirl of shadow. Not a feature of hers is out of place — no sweat, no blood, not a stray hair. She could have stepped straight off the runway. Only her eyes are wild. She puts a finger to her lips and pulls me back, hides me against the wall of a trailer. Together we stand and watch in silence.

Oberos raises his scimitars out to the sides; they glow bright, like horns of sunlight. Lilith just laughs.

“You think you can take me, son of Oberon? I, who made rivers bleed and heaven weep with faerie blood?”

Oberos glows brighter. I wince, but keep my eyes open. I won’t miss this, even if it kills me. I doubt I’ll be making it out of here alive anyway.

“I will avenge the deaths of my kin,” he says. Is it my imagination, or did his voice falter?

“When I am finished,” Lilith says. “None will be left to avenge yours.”

Lilith attacks. In the blink of an eye she’s on top of Oberos, hands reaching around the Summer prince’s neck as flames leap about both of them. I can barely see them in their halo, can only make out the faintest blur as flame meets sunlight. The sky roils, the fields burn. No one else moves.

“When Oberos is dead,” Mab whispers to me, “we will have very little time. Kassia will come after me next. When she does, you will have to stop her.”

I pry my stare from the battle above and look at her, my eyes wide.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

She looks at me with those blazing green eyes, her hair a wild nest of black. She actually, amazingly, looks frightened.

“There isn’t time to explain,” she says. “Just be prepared.”

“I can’t fight that,” I say, looking back up to the sky. The ball of flame surrounding them is alive, twisting and writhing with their struggle. It doesn’t take an expert to realize that Oberos is losing: his light is dying, and the red flames grow brighter.

“You have, and you will.” Her words are dark as prophecy.

I don’t have time to ask what the hell she’s talking about. With a roar that shakes the trailers and makes the sky fall, Lilith’s red flames completely consume Oberos. The Summer prince screams and struggles, but he’s locked tight in Lilith’s grasp. Arrows once more fly from the fields as the Summer Fey try to rescue their prince, but it’s too late. I watch in horror as Oberos’s bright body burns from the inside out, sinister black and red flames spilling from his sapphire eyes, snaking from his lips. Lilith doesn’t let go, not until Oberos lets out a final scream and explodes in a flurry of sparks and burning butterflies.

Silence.

Then I feel the heat of Lilith’s gaze as she finds us.