Shadowplay (2 page)

The metal Vestige disc I had stolen from the ringmaster’s safe burned in my coat pocket.

Unseen hands tugged my torn dress and snarled hair. A cold fingertip danced across my cheekbone. Spots flashed across my vision. My breath caught. I could not have moved for the world. Maske fell back into his chair, his head falling to his chest as if a puppeteer had cut the strings.

My body tilted. The Vestige disc fell from my pocket onto the floor. Swirling smoke rose and I stared in fear at the face of the Phantom Damselfly. I had seen her countless times by now. On the first night in the haunted tent of R.H. Ragona’s Circus of Magic, when she frightened me half to death. I had seen her every night for weeks in the pantomime of
Leander & Iona
, where she had played one of the monsters the Prince fought to win his fair lady’s hand – me, for I had played the Princess Iona – and each night, the damselfly had looked over her shoulder at me before she disappeared. She leaned over me now, spreading her transparent dragonfly wings wide.
She’s not a ghost
, I tried to comfort myself.
She’s an ancient Vestige apparition. An illusion. Nothing more
.

“The spirits are wise, little Kedi,” she whispered before she disappeared.

I blinked and the blue light faded. The room was lit only by candles. The raps and wailing faded. The disc was still in my coat pocket.

“Thank you for your time and your wisdom, spirits from beyond the veil,” Maske said, as if nothing had happened. “As ever, we are humbled by your wisdom.” He took his hands away, and it felt as though a current of energy had broken.

I rubbed my nose with my good hand, shaking. My eyes fell on the clock on the wall. I thought the séance had only been ten minutes. But unless the clock was wrong, half an hour had passed.

I wanted to leave this place, and as soon as possible.

“Thank you, Maske,” Drystan said. “Enlightening, as ever.”

“Drystan, a moment please,” I said, terse.

Drystan raised an eyebrow, unfazed. How could he be so calm, after all that had happened to us? How was either of us able to function at all? Shock, perhaps. “Of course,” Drystan murmured.

I nearly dragged him back to the empty theatre. I did not like the darkness surrounding us. Anything could be lurking in the corners.

“You were quiet in the séance,” he said. “I almost thought you had fallen asleep. It was all up to me to tell Maske what he wanted to know.”

I shook my head at that. I didn’t remember him uttering a word. What had he said? My head hurt.

“I think it was a mistake to come,” I said.

“Why? Did he scare you with the tapping and that balderdash about tendrils and roots? The woman’s sobs were a nice touch.”

“It was spirits,” I whispered, hating how my voice quavered.

He chuckled. My unbroken arm’s hand tightened into a fist as well as it could with my injured thumb.

“It was all trickery, Micah. None of it was real.”

I shook my head.

Drystan smiled wearily. “He scared the Styx out of me when I saw my first séance as well, Micah. He’s good. But none of it is real. The taps are nothing more than him crackling his toe knuckles, and there’s an apparatus that lifts and shakes the table.”

“What about the blue light of the crystal ball? And the three-toned voice? And the wind?”

Drystan pulled back from me, peering into my face. “Blue light? Wind? What are you talking about?”

He had not seen it, nor had he heard what Maske said. I crossed my good arm over my stomach, feeling sick. It was like the Clockwork Woman. And the Phantom Damselfly.

“Micah? What is it? Are you alright?”

“Nothing,” I said, and just like that, I was lying again, though lies had brought me so much grief. “It’s nothing. But I don’t think we should stay here. Are you sure there’s nobody else we could stay with? Anywhere else we could go? Anywhere at all?”

Drystan did not believe me, but he let it pass. “We don’t even know if
he’ll
let us stay,” Drystan said, his voice low. “But I still mean to ask him. Like I said, we can trust him, and there are not many in Imachara I would. Especially now. This is the safest place.”

I knew no one in Imachara I could trust.

Drystan looked so tired. I rested my head on his shoulder. His world had collapsed around him just as thoroughly as mine. All of my muscles shook, and I clenched my teeth hard so they would not rattle.

“Alright,” I whispered. “I’ll stay if the magician lets us. At least for a few days.”

“Thank you, Micah.” And he pulled away.

 

“Thank you for the séance, Maske, and for seeing us,” Drystan said when we re-entered the room. Maske gave me a small smile, and though it did not put me at ease, he was not so frightening in the bright gaslight, when he did not speak with the voice of spirits.

I tried to pretend that it had all been from a lack of sleep and from the stress and terror of the night. But I knew, deep down, the séance had not been normal. My fingernails dug half-moons into the skin of my palm.

“Apologies, young… man,” he said, the hint of an inflection on the last word. I did not acknowledge whether he was correct or incorrect. “I do realize my séances can be unsettling.”

“I wasn’t unsettled,” I denied, rather unconvincingly.

“Of course not,” he said. He steepled his fingers together. His face was calm. I wondered what he had decided about us from the séance.

“Now, why have an old friend and his companion appeared on my doorstep in the middle of the night, in quite the state of disarray, demanding a séance? I know you were fond of them, Drystan, but it is rather an imposition.” A faint smile curled about his lips.

He had not been to bed when we had knocked, despite the late hour. His eyes held the puffy look of a man who did not sleep, contrasting against his crisp suit and neat hair.

“We need a place to stay for a time. A place with someone who does not ask questions,” Drystan replied.

Maske’s lips tightened. “Fallen into a speck of trouble, have you, Drystan?”

“You could say that.”

Maske folded his arms, formless thoughts flitting behind his eyes.

Drystan’s half-dried hair stuck up around his head in a blonde corona. “You once offered anything you could provide to me, Jasper. A life debt. I am collecting on the favor.”

He held up his hand. “I did, yes. But I do believe that I am entitled to know why. It does not take a mind reader to see how much you need my help.” His eyes flicked over to my battered face and my broken arm. I studied the lace of the tablecloth, noting a small burn in the fabric.

“It is a long tale for another time,” Drystan said.

Maske stared at Drystan for a long moment. “Very well,” he said, brisk. “I’ll ready the loft for you. You can move to other bedrooms later on if you like, though most of them have mildew.”

Drystan smiled, relieved. “The loft will be fine. My old room.”

Old room?

Maske poured three glasses of whisky, not asking us what we wanted. I put my hand over my mouth, fighting the urge to retch. The ringmaster had stunk of whisky. I would never be able to drink it again.

“Is something the matter, Micah of-no-last-name?” he asked me, his voice cool.

I shook my head, the smell of the whisky and fear still in my nostrils. Maske cocked his head and turned away. Drystan understood and took my glass, downing first his, and then mine.

I wished that Maske had refused to keep us, so that I did not have to stay here. I knew I did not have to, and that Drystan might even come with me if I stood and walked out. But this was the only safe place in the city that Drystan knew.

We had nowhere else to go but this old theatre, with the somber man who raised ghosts.

 

 

3

A SCREAM IN THE DARK

Elladan Proverb

 

The rain drummed on the skylight of Drystan’s and my new room. Maske asked us if we needed to see a doctor, but when we shook our heads – quicker than we should have – he passed us the bedrolls and a medic bag, complete with bandages and painkillers, and left us. The loft above the theatre was musty with dust and disuse, but the roof was sound. The long, narrow room was cluttered with several old apparatuses of wires and springs. There was a round porthole of stained glass, but it was too dark to discern its pattern.

Twin beds were on either side of the room.

“Why are there beds up here?” I asked.

“Maske had twin sons. They slept here when they were small.”

“In the loft? But this place is huge.”

“Probably farther away from the noise of the performances.”

Behind the grime and the clutter were the remains of bright blue paint, and paler squares where pictures had hung. It must have been a cheery room, once.

“Where are they now?”

He shrugged. “Far away.”

Drystan unrolled his blankets, moving mechanically. As soon as the bed was made, he crawled in and faced the wall. I wanted to say something to him, but the words would not come. His flaxen hair fell across the pillow, the muscles of his shoulders straining against the seams of his clown’s motley. We needed new clothes, and desperately, but not yet and not with so many policiers after us for what we had done and what they thought we had done. Not to mention the Shadow, the man my parents had hired to find me.

I could not undo the buttons of the ruined dress with my broken arm, and so I ripped it from me, throwing it in a heap into the corner. After a long hesitation, I decided to sleep without the Lindean corset that bound my breasts.

A glance at my body showed my injuries and I fought down a pained gasp. I was mottled with bruising. My chest had been protected from the worst of the blows due to the corset, but most everywhere else was already turning purple. A long, shallow cut slashed across my lower ribs from the carved ram’s head on the ringmaster’s cane. I ran my hand along the ridged muscles of my torso. For all my body’s strength from being an aerialist, I had not been able to free myself from Bil’s grasp.

I adjusted the arm sling. In the darkness, the events of the night flooded back: the cheery bells of the circus music, the laughter of the crowd that warred with the feel of the strong hand on my shoulder, and the sickly sweet smell of chemicals. Waking up tied and gagged, the drunken ringmaster looming over me, his fingers working their way down my top to prove to himself that I was the missing noble girl he planned to turn in. But what the ringmaster did not realize until later was that he was not quite correct.

I did not want to think what might have happened, if Drystan and Aenea – my brave Aenea – had not saved me. I had escaped my bonds, but Bil was too strong. The blows of his cane had rained harder and faster, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he killed me. But then Aenea and Drystan had come. Aenea had thrown herself upon the ringmaster. And in half a moment, he had killed her. Drystan had taken up the ringmaster’s discarded cane and brought it down for the killing blow.

I closed my eyes against the memories, but they lingered. The fading rage in the ringmaster’s eyes, the way the blood flowed from his neck. Drystan splattered in blood. The feel of Aenea’s slack neck beneath my frantic fingers and the absence of a pulse. My breath hitched in my throat, my eyes burning.

I couldn’t cry. If I did, I wouldn’t stop.

To distract myself, I disinfected the worst of the cuts with the unguent in the medic bag, but it did nothing to dampen the pain. I dug about in my pack and found a sleeveless undershirt. Working my way into it, I stifled more hisses of pain.

“Here,” a voice said, and I jumped. Drystan’s eyes were open and he stared at me from the bed, holding something out in his hand. I was only wearing my drawers and undershirt, which left little enough to the imagination. I turned away from him in embarrassment.

“Apologies,” Drystan said, his voice closer, though he did not sound apologetic, only tired. He placed a small tin in my hand and made his way back to bed. When I looked over my shoulder, he was again facing the wall. How long had he been watching me? The blush stayed in my cheeks, though he had already seen everything under my clothes when I showed him and Aenea what I was.

It was a tin of pungent salve for wounds. It took a few fumbling tries to open it, but I nearly moaned in relief when I spread the unguent on my cuts and bruises. I set the near-empty tin on the small table by Drystan’s bed, worried that he would turn around again. But he stayed facing the wall.

When the salve had dried, I put on bandages and crawled onto the pallet. Guilt pulsed through me in waves, tears choking my throat. I balled my hands into the thin coverlet. If only, if only, if only…

If only I had told Aenea the truth sooner, before the last night of the circus. We were going to go away to Linde over the winter holiday and I did not want there to be any lies. But I had told too many – too many for her to forgive. Still, she had come to find Bil when I went missing. She tried to save me. I failed her.

I lay in the dark for what felt like hours, my mind spinning over the same thoughts. If I had only done one thing differently, what would my life look like now? I had no answers – only fear both for the future and my past. Closer to dawn than not, my eyelids finally grew heavy.

A shout tore through the air.

I sat straight up in bed.

Drystan.

His face contorted as he thrashed against the covers.