“Not as often as I’d like. Whenever it is near London, of course. I try to reach it elsewhere in Europe if I can escape from Chandresh for sufficient periods of time. I sometimes feel like I have one foot on both sides. I am intimately familiar with so much of it, and yet it is always surprising.”
“Which is your favorite tent?”
“Truthfully? Yours.”
“Why?” she asks, turning to look at him.
“It appeals to my personal taste, I suppose. You do in public things I have been taught in secret. Perhaps I appreciate it on a different level than most. I also very much enjoy the Labyrinth. I had been unsure whether or not you would be willing to collaborate on it.”
“I got quite the lecture about that particular collaboration,” Celia says. “My father called it debauched juxtaposition, he must have worked for days to come up with a worthy insult. He sees something tawdry in the combining of skills, I have never understood why. I adore the Labyrinth, I have had far too much fun adding rooms. I particularly love that hallway you made where it snows, so you can see the footprints left by other people navigating their way around.”
“I had not thought of it in such a lascivious manner before,” Marco says. “I look forward to visiting it again with that in mind. Though I had been under the impression that your father was not in the position to be commenting on such matters.”
“He’s not dead,” Celia says, turning back to the ceiling. “It is rather difficult to explain.”
Marco decides against asking her to try, returning to the subject of the circus instead.
“Which tent is your favorite?” he asks.
“The Ice Garden,” Celia answers, without even pausing to consider.
“Why is that?” Marco asks.
“Because of the way it
Marco reflects on the process, as he has never been asked to explain the origin of his ideas before.
“I thought it might be interesting to have a conservatory, but of course it necessitated a lack of color,” he says. “I pondered a great many options before settling on fabricating everything from ice. I am pleased that you think it like a dream, as that is where the core of the idea came from.”
“It’s the reason I made the Wishing Tree,” Celia says. “I thought a tree covered in fire would make for a proper complement to ones made from ice.”
Marco replays in his mind his first encounter with the Wishing Tree. A mixture of annoyance and amazement and wistfulness that seems different in retrospect. He was uncertain he would even be able to light his own candle, his own wish, wondering if it was somehow against the rules.
“Do all of those wishes come true?” he asks.
“I’m not sure,” Celia says. “I’ve not been able to follow up with every person who has wished on it. Have you?”
“Perhaps.”
“Did your wish come true?”
“I am not entirely certain yet.”
“You shall have to let me know,” Celia says. “I hope it does. I suppose in a way, I made the Wishing Tree for you.”
“You didn’t know who I was then,” Marco says, turning to look at her. Her attention remains focused on the chandelier, but that alluring, secret-keeping smile has returned.
“I didn’t know your identity, but I had an impression of who my opponent was, being surrounded by things you made. I had thought you might like it.”
“I do like it,” Marco says.
The silence that falls between them is a comfortable one. He longs to reach over and touch her, but he resists, fearful of destroying the delicate camaraderie they are building. He steals glances instead, watching the way the light falls over her skin. Several times he catches her regarding him in a similar manner, and the moments when she holds his eyes with hers are sublime.
“How are you managing to keep everyone from aging?” Celia asks after a while.
“Very carefully,” Marco answers. “And they are aging, albeit extremely slowly. How are you moving the circus?”
“On a train.”
“A train?” Marco asks, incredulous. “The entire circus moved by a single train?”
“It’s a large train,” Celia says. “And it’s magic,” she adds, making Marco laugh.
“I confess, Miss Bowen, you are not what I had expected.”
“I assure you that feeling is mutual.”
Marco stands, stepping back up to the ledge by the door.
Celia reaches out her hand to him and he takes it to help her up. It is the first time he has touched her bare skin.
The reaction in the air is immediate. A sudden charge ripples through the room, crisp and bright. The chandelier begins to shake.
The feeling rushing over Marco’s skin is intense and intimate, beginning where his palm meets hers but spreading beyond that, farther and deeper.
Celia pulls her hand away after she catches her balance, stepping back and leaning against the wall. The feeling begins to subside as soon as she lets him go.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, clearly out of breath. “You caught me by surprise.”
“My apologies,” Marco says, his heartbeat pounding so loudly in his ears that he can barely hear her. “Though I cannot say I’m entirely sure what happened.”
“I tend to be particularly sensitive to energy,” Celia says. “People who do the sort of things you and I do carry a very palpable type of energy, and I … I am not accustomed to yours just yet.”
“I only hope that was as pleasurable a sensation for you as it was for me.”
Celia does not reply, and to keep himself from reaching for her hand again, he opens the door instead, leading her back up the twisting stairway.
THEY WALK THROUGH the moonlit ballroom, their steps echoing together.
“How is Chandresh?” Celia asks, attempting to find a subject to fill the silence, anything to distract herself from her still-shaking hands, and remembering the fallen glass at dinner.
“He wavers,” Marco says with a sigh. “Ever since the circus opened, he has been increasingly unfocused. I … I do what I can to keep him steady, though I fear it has an adverse effect on his memory. I had not intended to, but after what happened with the late Miss Burgess I thought it the wisest course of action.”
“She was in the peculiar position of being involved in all this but not within the circus itself,” Celia says. “I am sure it is not the easiest perspective to manage. At least you can observe Chandresh.”
“Indeed,” Marco says. “I do wish there was a way to protect those outside the circus the way the bonfire protects those within it.”
“The bonfire?” Celia asks.
“It serves several purposes. Primarily, it is my connection to the circus, but it also functions as a safeguard of a sort. I neglected the fact that it does not cover those outside the fence.”
“I neglected even considering safeguards,” Celia says. “I do not think I understood at first how many other people would become involved in our challenge.” She stops walking, standing in the middle of the ballroom.
Marco stops as well but says nothing, waiting for her to speak.
“It was not your fault,” she says quietly. “What happened to Tara. The circumstances may have played out the same way regardless of anything you or I did. You cannot take away anyone’s own free will, that was one of my very first lessons.”
Marco nods, and then he takes a step closer to her. He reaches out to take her hand, slowly brushing his fingers against hers.
The feeling is as strong as it had been when he touched her before, but something is different. The air
