The Immortal Circus (Cirque des Immortels) (21 page)

Then, before I can ask what she’s talking about, she places the book on the table. It’s open to my name.

“You see?” she says, and points to the very bottom line. “Section 72A: The duration of this contract is valid indefinitely, or until Vivienne is deemed to have served her purpose, whichever transpires first.” She looks at me with true sadness in her eyes. “Your contract has no end. I didn’t believe it at first, couldn’t imagine Mab would try the same trick on you as she had on me. But she did. You’re in this forever.”

Her words send my mind into a haze, a heaviness I can’t shake. I expect the memory to crash back upon seeing the evidence before me, but it doesn’t. No remembering signing my life away, no reason to have done such a thing. I glance at my hands. The light, the power, the visions…whatever it was, that was what I was running from. Whatever it was, it was bad enough to want it locked away for eternity.

“At first,” she says, her words barely above a whisper, “it sounds like an okay fate. But that’s now. That’s only after a few weeks. Imagine how it will feel when you watch a hundred years pass you by, a thousand. The world changes, empires crumble. Friends die. And you know that every day you will wake up and see the sun rise, and you will put on a show, and then you will go to sleep without even a dream to help you escape. Never aging, never dying. Oh, yes, it sounds okay now, but when you are as old as I, the torment is unbearable.”

I close my eyes and force myself to stay standing. What she’s saying is impossible to fathom, but the idea of it is trying to sink in. I keep seeing the print,
this contract is valid indefinitely.
I had wanted to run away, but had I really wanted to run away forever?

“There is only one way for this madness to end,” Penelope whispers. “If the show is over, our contracts are moot. If the Dream Trade stops, she has no more use for us. We will be free.”

I take a deep, staggering breath and open my eyes.

“What about her?” I ask, pointing to the girl.

“Lilith?”

I nod and look at her. If she’s paying us any attention, it doesn’t show. She’s nuzzling her cheek against Poe’s face.

“I needed a reason for the Summer Court to intervene. She was the perfect ploy. Once they have her, Mab’s reign is over for good.”

“But why?”

She just smiles. “I’m afraid I can’t say. Quite literally.” She taps the book in front of her, then closes it and begins to walk around the desk. “You should be thanking me,” she says. “I’ve done all I can to keep your friends safe from harm — even that
witch
of yours. When this is all over, you three will be free to come and go as you please.”

She walks by me, right within arm’s reach. I should grab her, should stop her. But her words have a weight. Sure, the circus is fun now; performing every day, seeing Kingston and Melody. An eternity of evenings under the stars and circus lights, endless nights of applause. But what happens a few years from now? Twenty? Fifty? What happens when Kingston and Melody’s contracts are up and I’m left here alone, day after day, without even Kingston’s magic to help me forget the years that edge by? Kingston’s image fills me with regret; I can’t even tell if he’s worth staying for. I’ve been living off lies the entire time I’ve been here. What Penelope’s saying sounds like the first bit of truth.

“Mab’s trailer is protected,” she says. “It leads straight into the heart of the Winter Court, which no Summer Fey can enter. Stay in here until this little war is over and you will have your whole life ahead of you. A normal life. One worth living.” She puts a hand on my arm. I don’t flinch. I can’t make myself move. Endless nights, endless lies… “I’m on your side. Really.”

The trouble is, I believe her.

“Come on, Lilith,” she says, holding out a hand. Lilith takes it without a pause. “It’s time to go meet your new friends.”

“Friends?” she asks.

“Yes,” she says. She opens the door; outside, all I can see is a silvery haze. “They’ve been waiting a very, very long time to meet you.”

They step out and disappear in the fog. The door shuts.

I don’t move.

There’s a war going on outside the trailer and I don’t move a muscle. The adrenaline is gone, the incredible power has faded. I stand in Mab’s trailer, alone, the silence deafening. I don’t even feel like a coward. I just feel helpless.

The book of contracts sits before me. Just looking at it makes me feel naked, vulnerable. I know without a doubt that if I were to take a few more steps, I’d have my entire life laid out before me. I’d know why I came here in the first place. I’d know more about these powers and visions. But as I look at it, I can’t bring myself to move closer. Somewhere, there’s a small voice in the back of my brain that doesn’t want to know. Knowing hurts too much.

I could stay here.

I could wait out the battle and let Penelope hand over Lilith. Then we’d be free. Tomorrow would come and Kingston and Mel and I would be together and we could head off and make a new life. No circus, no contracts. Freedom. We’d age together, live normal lives, get an apartment, and get real jobs. We’d laugh and fight and flirt and everything would be like in here, but more real. It wouldn’t all feel like some grand illusion just waiting for the final curtain to fall.

I could stay here.

I could wait.

But then I imagine their faces when I tell them what happened, when Kingston pulls out the truth and learns I let Penelope win, when he realizes it’s my fault that Lilith was lost and everyone’s death was in vain, and no one was avenged. He would hate me. They both would. The scorn nearly tears me apart. I stare at the book on the table and feel the weight of this press on me with its terrible burden. If I do the
right thing
, I’ll save the circus but eventually lose everyone I care about. I’ll be stuck in here forever, or until I’ve served whatever purpose Mab has for me.

If I let this happen, if I let Penelope win, I’d lose everyone a hell of a lot sooner.

It’s not even a decision.

I turn and run from the trailer, hoping I catch Penelope before she reaches Oberos.

T
he world explodes into focus the moment I leave the trailer.

Flames leap across the sky and turn the entire world a sickening mix of yellow and red. Bodies litter the ground, some in flames, some mangled. Humanoid or overtly fey, the carnage is the same. The silence of the trailer gives way to the sounds of roars and screams. Even the earth heaves with tremors as the colossal Shifters and shadowy Night Terrors make battle with the Summer Fey. I look left and right and catch sight of Penelope as she drags Lilith to the edge of the cornfield. The battle rages around them, but their path is clear: no Summer Fey dares to attack them. I don’t have time to hesitate. I run.

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.

“Auntie Mab,” she calls out, a mocking imitation of her usual childlike tone, “It’s time we talked.”

In the blink of an eye she’s there, standing right in front of us. The flames around her are gone, but she still radiates heat. Inside the shell of flickering heat waves, Lilith floats, somehow transformed. Her skin is grey, her eyes are red, her ripped dress hovers over her body like a cloud. When she smiles, it cracks her skin like fissures on pavement, small lines of red light streaming out.

“You thought you could hold me,” she says. “You thought I’d be your prisoner.”

Mab stands her ground.

“I protected you,” she says. “You would have been killed.”

“No,” Lilith hisses, the grass under her feet igniting. “I cannot be killed. Not until every faerie has died for what they did.”

“I will give you one more chance,” Mab says, her voice calm. “Relinquish this battle and serve me, and you may live.”

“Never.”

“Then you leave me no choice.” Mab takes a deep breath. “Vivienne,” she says, and I jerk my glance back to her.
No, no, I don’t know what you —
“Line 13.”

Light fills me. Brilliant, shimmering white light that makes my skin dance. I can’t see, can only feel the blaze of radiance that pulses in my blood, the light that is blood. My hands are fire, celestial fire, and all I hear is a single word, Lilith’s word — Kassia’s word — and that is
no.

Kassia screams and is on me, her hands burning, reaching toward my throat. Deep in her eyes, I see hell blazing, feel its heat digging into my bones as she screams and tries to burn me, tries to tear me apart. But the light inside is brighter, brighter, and that’s when I realize my hands are on Kassia, too. My hands are locked on her shoulders, and I’m flipping her over, pinning her to the ground, the grass below her burning and flickering in our combined light, and she’s screaming, struggling as the light grows brighter, as it burns us both. And then I’m screaming, too. I can’t stop it, can’t stop the pulse and flare of the stars that rush through my veins, out from my fingers and into her skin. The world goes bright, bright, whiter than light.

White, white, then black.