“Hello, Alexander,” she says, dipping her head in acknowledgment to the man who has appeared behind them without a sound, not even disturbing the rose petals strewn across the floor.
The man in the grey suit greets her with a polite nod. “Miss Bowen, I would like to speak with your companion privately for a moment, if you do not mind.”
“Of course,” Celia says. She leaves without even glancing at Marco, her gown shifting from grey dawn to violet sunset as she walks down the hall to where the Murray twins are tempting their marmalade kittens with shiny silver coffee spoons.
“I cannot say I find this behavior appropriate,” the man in the grey suit says to Marco.
“You know her,” Marco says quietly, his eyes still on Celia as she stops at the entrance to the ballroom, where her gown is cloaked in crimson as Herr Thiessen offers her a glass of champagne.
“I have
“You knew exactly who she was before any of this started and you never thought to tell me?”
“I did not think it necessary.”
A bevy of guests wanders into the hall from the dining room, sending the cascade of rose petals adrift once more. Marco escorts the man in the grey suit through the library, sliding the stained glass open to access the empty game room and continue their conversation.
“Thirteen years with barely a word and now you wish to speak with me?” Marco asks.
“I did not have anything in particular to speak to you about. I simply wished to interrupt your … conversation with Miss Bowen.”
“She knows your name.”
“She clearly has a very good memory. What is it you would like to discuss?”
“I would like to know if I am doing well,” Marco says, his voice low and cold.
“Your progress has been sufficient,” his instructor says. “Your employment here is steady, you have a suitable position to work from.”
“And yet I cannot be myself. You teach me all these things and then you put me here to pretend to be something I am not, while she is center stage, doing exactly what she does.”
“But no one in that room believes it. They think she is deceiving them. They do not see what she is any more than they see what you are, she is simply more noticeable. This is not about having an
“I’m in love with her.”
Never before has anything Marco said or did elicited a visible response from the man in the grey suit, not even when he once accidentally set a table aflame during his lessons, but the expression that crosses the man’s face now is unmistakably sad.
“I am sorry to hear that,” he says. “It will make the challenge a great deal more difficult for you.”
“We have been playing at this for more than a decade, when does it end?”
“It ends when there is a victor.”
“And how long does that take?” Marco asks.
“It is difficult to say. The most recent previous challenge lasted thirty-seven years.”
“We cannot keep this circus running for thirty-seven years.”
“Then you will not have as long a time to wait. You were a fine student, you are a fine competitor.”
“How can you know?” Marco asks, his voice rising. “You have not even seen fit to speak to me for years. I have done nothing for you. Everything I have done, every change I have made to that circus, every impossible feat and astounding sight, I have done for her.”
“Your motives do not impact the game.”
“I am done with playing your game,” Marco says. “I quit.”
“You cannot quit,” his instructor replies. “You are bound to this. To her. The challenge will continue. One of you will lose. You have no choice in the matter.”
Marco picks up a ball from the billiard table and hurls it at the man in the grey suit. He steps out of its path easily and it crashes instead into the sunset of stained glass.
Without a word, Marco turns his back on his instructor. He walks out the door at the back of the room, not even noticing Isobel as he passes her in the hall, where she has been close enough to hear the argument.
He goes directly to the ballroom, making his way to the center of the dance floor. He takes Celia’s arm, spinning her away from Herr Thiessen.
Marco pulls her to him in an emerald embrace, so close that no distinction remains between where his suit ends and her gown begins.
To Celia, there is suddenly no one else in the room as he holds her in his arms.
But before she can vocalize her surprise, his lips close over hers and she is lost in wordless bliss.
Marco kisses her as though they are the only two people in the world.
The air swirls in a tempest around them, blowing open the glass doors to the garden with a tangle of billowing curtains.
Every eye in the crowded ballroom turns in their direction.
And then he releases her and walks away.
By the time Marco leaves the room, almost everyone has forgotten the incident entirely. It is replaced by a momentary confusion that is blamed on the heat or the excessive amounts of champagne.
Herr Thiessen cannot recall why Celia has suddenly stopped dancing, or when her gown shifted to its current deep green.
“Is something wrong?” he asks, when he realizes that she is trembling.
MR. A. H— STORMS THROUGH THE FRONT HALL, somehow avoiding tripping over Poppet and Widget, who are sprawled on the floor teaching Bootes and Pavo how to turn circles on their hind legs.
Widget hands Bootes (or Pavo) to Poppet and follows the man in the grey suit. He watches as he crosses into the foyer, retrieves his grey top hat and silver cane from the butler, and leaves by the front door. After he exits, Widget presses his nose to the nearest window, watching him as he passes beneath the streetlamps before disappearing into the darkness.
Poppet catches up with him then, the kittens perched on her shoulders purring happily. Chandresh follows close behind her, making his way through the crowd in the hall.
“What is it?” Poppet asks. “What’s the matter?” Widget turns away from the glass.
“That man has no shadow,” he says, as Chandresh leans over the twins to peer out the window at the empty street.
“What did you say?” Chandresh asks, but Poppet and Widget and the orange kittens have already run off down the hall, lost in the colorful crowd.
Bedtime Stories
CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER 1902
Bailey spends much of the early part of this evening with Poppet and Widget exploring the Labyrinth. A dizzying network of chambers, interspersed with hallways containing mismatched doors. Rooms that spin and rooms with glowing chessboard floors. One hall is stacked high with suitcases. In another it is snowing.
“How is this possible?” Bailey asks, melting flakes of snow sticking to his coat.
In response, Poppet throws a snowball at him, and Widget only laughs.
While they traverse the Labyrinth, Widget tells the story of the Minotaur in such detail that Bailey keeps expecting to encounter the monster around every turn.
They reach a room resembling a large metal birdcage, with only darkness visible through the bars. The
