Chapter 49
M assive iron gates squeal on their hinges as we’re let into the carnival by a carny dressed in scarlet red robes that drip toward the ground, pooling at his feet, reminding me of puddles of blood.
“Welcome to the Carnival of Souls,” he says.
A shudder runs through me. I’m not sure whether this is the carnival that captured Tink—the one that imprisoned her for so many years as she was hiding from the Nomad—but it possesses the aura of a prison all the same.
It took a week for Nolan to hunt down a past informant who had heard rumors of a carnival boasting of its prized winged fae.
It had taken another week for us to sail here.
I should count myself fortunate that it’s only taken us that long, but every day away from my son is another I’ll never get back, never be able to give back to him.
It’s as if the silent clock in my head is constantly accelerating, and though we’ve finally arrived, I can’t help but feel as if we’re too late.
The carnival itself is not the traveling sort.
Instead, it’s hidden behind its own walled fortress, the gates allowing us in only because we have our paper stub tickets.
As we enter through the gates, a pebbled pathway leads through a dark courtyard.
Fog hovers over the carnival grounds, though outside in the city there’s none to be found.
I glance around and find evidence of metallic boxes poking out from the tops of the carnival walls, plumes of fog spraying out of them. Even knowing the fog is fabricated, it’s still just as eerie.
Ahead in the courtyard rises a massive tent, striped red and white, matching the carny up front and the several hooded carnies walking around, their faces obscured by either shadows or masks.
Guests—mostly nobility, but some peasants—walk arm in arm around the carnival, shuddering next to each other, whispering excitedly. There’s a buzz in the air, one that is more dreadful than inviting.
Behind the massive tent is an even more massive wheel.
It stretches out into the heavens, casting a shadow over the rest of the carnival.
Tiny box cars hang from the wheel as it spins, and from up above I hear people from within the cars screaming, their voices a harmonization between terror and delight.
“I don’t like this place,” I say to Nolan. My own words strike me as strange. I used to be the girl drawn to the shadows. Now I know what the shadows can hide, and I’ve no interest in indulging in these.
“I don’t like it much either,” says Nolan.
He, Maddox, and I venture forward, our feet tapping against the cobblestone pathway that leads to the tent.
“Next show in five minutes!” yells a carny from the entrance.
We go to walk inside, and he holds up a white-gloved hand to stop us. Nolan produces our tickets from his pocket, but the carny shakes his head.
“The show’s extra,” he explains.
Nolan glares at him but takes some coins out of his pocket and places them in the carny’s grubby palm. The carny smiles, revealing several missing teeth—some, while technically still in his mouth, not long for this world.
“Enjoy the show,” he practically hisses.
The three of us walk down the first great hall of the tent. When we get to the end of it, we find a large circular room that seems oversized for even how the massive tent appeared from the outside.
In the center of the room is a ring, empty of people, but already sporting a variety of set pieces. Among them are a pair of cages, a high wire, and a few trapeze beams.
It’s all fairly standard as far as carnivals are concerned, or at least what I’ve read of them.
Nolan, Maddox, and I stride over to the stands and situate ourselves behind a group of rather rowdy men. Thankfully the men are tall, and this section of the stands is crowded, so we are able to slip in behind them easily.
“Are we sure he’s here?” asks Maddox.
“As sure as we can be when our information is based on rumors,” I say.
We hadn’t told the messenger Peter’s exact details. Just that we were looking for a male winged fae. The messenger himself—for substantial coin, of course—had informed us that there was a man fitting that description at this particular carnival. Except the male was missing one of his wings.
The memory of Tink hacking away at Peter’s wing still chills my bones. The Nomad had trapped Peter’s shadows in a pocket watch of adamant Charlie had designed. He’d done it before Peter had had the chance to make his wings dissipate, leaving them just as much flesh as the rest of his limbs.
Tink had sought to take her revenge, but when she had come down upon the second wing, she had hesitated, then relented altogether. A cruelty that I am sure Peter has realized by now.
After about five minutes, the lights dim, and a spotlight swivels across the ring before landing upon a man in a bowler hat who seems to have just appeared.
“Welcome, ye all,” he says, “to the Carnival of Souls. Where the lost wander, where magic lives on, never to be doused by a society who prefers to forget it. Here, you will find yourself caressing the edge of the realms, escaping through the very fabric itself, glimpsing into the world beyond. Welcome, ye all,” he repeats, “to the Carnival of Souls.”
The crowd erupts in cheers.
The man bows, tipping his hat to the stands. Then, whirling, he sends it flying through the air.
It’s just then that the light hits it just right, and I realize that the circumference of the bowler hat is glinting, as if it’s made of—it sinks into a wooden target—razors.
I shudder. Then watch as a woman with legs that seem too long for her torso steps out from behind the target.
She plucks the hat from the target, places it upon her head, and stalks toward the center of the ring.
Then flings the hat toward the audience.
One of the audience members, an elderly woman with a wrinkled face, gasps and keels over.
The crowd gasps as she stumbles off of the first row.
I clench Nolan’s hand, fear for the woman racing through me as I watch her take her hand to her abdomen, where the hat has sunk and is now protruding.
She tears it away, only to reveal an expanding red stain on her shirt.
“We have to do something,” I whisper, but Nolan just shakes his head, beckoning for me to watch further.
I do, shocked when the elderly woman’s face cracks in a cruel smile. With wrinkled, shaking fingers, she unbuttons the bottom buttons of her blouse, revealing the flesh of her abdomen.
The crowd watches in awe as the patch of bleeding flesh knits itself together.
The woman smiles, then flings that razored hat back at the young woman. It speeds toward her gut, but the woman’s waist twists like a gnarled tree trunk out of the way, and the hat passes through her, spinning as it comes to rest on the ground behind her.
The cheering that breaks forth from the crowd is so loud, it almost drowns out the ringmaster’s voice as he booms, “Let us begin.”