The Immortal Circus: Act Two Read Free Page A

the wine, and we settle back in the grass. We watch
the Shifters tear down and don’t talk about anything serious for the rest of
the wine. We chat until the bottle is empty and the night gets colder than is
comfortable. Then we meander back down to the trailers and say goodnight. The
tent’s still not entirely packed away, and it probably won’t be until just
before sunrise. I do not envy the tent crew.
    Kingston’s not inside my room when I get there. There’s a good chance he
won’t be back tonight, especially not if Mab’s having him act as watchdog or
asking him to twist the rules and use his magic to help the Shifters work. I
strip off my clothes and settle into my tiny twin bed. My bunk in the
double-wide trailer isn’t the most luxurious of lodgings, but it’s starting to
feel like home. Granted, because I don’t really remember having a home, that’s
not saying too much.
    I lie back and stare at the light slashed across the ceiling. The warmth
of the wine is fading, and in the back of my mind I wonder if this is how
undercover agents feel. I know that we’re on the verge of war, yet
everyone else is oblivious. I want to scream the truth in their faces, but
instead I just grin and bear it and wait for hellfire to rain down. When I
close my eyes, all I can see is Mab’s burning effigy, the flames looking
remarkably similar to the fires from my vision on the hill. As sleep drifts
over me, Mab’s body becomes Kassia, and she’s no longer burning, but dancing in
the flames. The last thing I see before darkness closes in is Kassia holding
out her hand and asking me to play.
* * *
    You’re
not supposed to know when you’re dreaming; that’s sort of the first rule.
    So the moment I realize I’m standing in the old tent, the moment I
know I’m fast asleep, I’m already wishing I’d wake up. Not because the sun is
streaming through the blue and black canvas and the air is heavy with heat; not
because I look down and find myself standing in a pool of blue ink; I want out
because in front of me, dead center, is our once star contortionist, Sabina,
arched back on her pedestal with a vacant grin plastered on her face. The
puddle at my feet drips from a slash in her neck, the neon-blue blood dripping
slowly down the velvet and steel of her stand. Sabina, whose death spelled the
beginning of the end for so many others. Sabina, whose murderer was never
actually found.
    I take a step back and nearly trip over something that clatters at my
feet. I turn.
    The shock of seeing Roman impaled on his six swords, his body
supported on their points like some bloody bridge, is muted. I’m transfixed by
the blood dripping blue rivulets down his splayed arms, at the look of surprise
on his face. But the disgust I’d felt when we found him like this barely three
months ago is missing. I feel like I’m floating. Floating in blue light and
blood.
    “I told you,” Mab says. Her deep, dusty voice anchors me back to the
ground. I turn and she’s standing there, the third point in this grisly
triangle, wearing smoky glass stilettos and a glittering blue ringmaster coat.
Her hair flows over her shoulders in waves of black, and her eyes glint green.
“I told you your powers would blossom in time.”
    “My …?” I begin, but before I complete the sentence, there’s a noise
beside me, and I look over to see Lilith standing there with her tabby cat,
Poe, clutched in her arms. Lilith’s in a blue baby-doll dress, her black hair
tied back in blue ribbons. She looks like she should be sitting on some little
kid’s nightstand, not standing in the dust of the ring.
    “Silly Vivienne,” Lilith says, her cherubic head cocked to the side
like a broken sparrow. “Thinking she can get away.”
    “Get away?”
    Lilith’s grin widens. Her skin cracks like broken concrete, faint
lines of red light spilling from the fissures that rip across her cheeks. Her
eyes flush fire.
    “You cannot run away from your own past, stupid girl,”