Chapter 51
He’s right where Peter said he would be.
The ringmaster is dead, slain and laid out on the floor of his own tent, where, according to Peter, he slept with a tapestry.
One Peter had stolen from the Middle Sister’s lair long ago.
It had been her favorite, her most prized of her creations.
When she discovered it was missing, she had assumed her Eldest Sister was to blame.
Free of suspicion, Peter had hidden away in a bank in Estelle, then bartered with the ringmaster in exchange for someone who could make him a new wing.
I don’t know how the Nomad came to know the tapestry’s whereabouts, but my mind has constructed a story.
The Nomad hears rumors—in my head it is a loose-lipped banker—that the Shadow Keeper stores a Fated tapestry at the bank.
He knows this tapestry is his way back home, to his own realm.
To the woman Peter mentioned. The Nomad knows he cannot risk infiltrating the bank, so instead, he decides he needs the tapestry transported.
Then Peter shows up on the Nomad’s ship, and the Nomad devises a plan.
He cannot enact it himself. It would be ill-advised to maim a servant of the Sister.
So the Nomad waits.
Knows of my vendetta against Peter.
Waits for the perfect moment.
Hands me a blade.
A few hacks later, and Peter is maimed—useless to the Sister and in need of a new wing, but without means to pay.
So Peter moves the tapestry from the bank. Barters it to the ringmaster—a much easier target than the bank.
Best of all, the Nomad already has a story laid out, inspired by Peter’s story about the Eldest Sister stealing the tapestry. All the Nomad has to do is substitute my voice for the tapestry, and the lie is reusable.
The only part I can’t figure out is why he ever needed me at all.
He’s on his knees, a tapestry spread out before him, a wooden pan flute pressed to his lips. The tune is a somber one, one that sounds of a love lost. In fact, the Nomad himself is lost, so lost to the music that he doesn’t hear me entering.
As he plays, the threads rearrange themselves. Faintly, I glimpse dark smudges that look to be finger-painted over certain parts of the tapestry. Vaguely, I remember Lars stoppering some of my blood after examining my wings.
I guess I have my answer.
That’s not even what I’m concerned with at the moment.
It’s the woman at the center of the tapestry that catches my attention. I can’t see her face, not at this angle, but I can see that she’s spread out upon a dais, dressed in a gown that vacillates between pink and blue. Her hair cascades from the dais, pooling onto the floor below her.
And as the Nomad plays, the woman’s fingers begin to twitch.
If I were someone else, I would whisper a question into the night. Reveal my presence with a quiet but bold, “Who is she?”
But I am me, and I have no such option. I could kick him or throw something at him to get his attention, but that would feel petulant. So as it is, I stand and wait for the man I love to notice that I’m even in the room.
In the end, it’s not me who gets his attention.
A second round of alarms sounds outside the tent, and the music stops short, and the Nomad whirls around, and when he sees me, he opens his mouth.
But before he gets the chance to explain, rather, before he is forced to come up with yet another lie, I shake my head.
I’m so tired of hearing lies.
I don’t whirl around. Any threat to my well-being out there is nothing compared to the man before me.
The Nomad’s gaze darts behind me, to the closed tent flap.
A guard outside yells, “Escaped performer on the loose! Golden-haired faerie.”
Oh, great.
The Nomad’s face holds a question, but another guard answers it soon enough. “Ringmaster said she escaped years ago from the competition, but she was spotted tonight in the crowd.”
The Nomad’s attention snaps back to me. “You went to see him, didn’t you?”
If I could let out a wry laugh, I would. Not to see him, I sign. To find you.
Guilt washes over the Nomad’s face. Guilt for accusing me of sneaking away to see my ex-abuser, or guilt for what I found when I arrived, I can’t be sure.
You lied, I sign.
The Nomad shakes his head. “Tink, I can explain later. But right now, we have no time. You and I have to…”
There is no you and I, I sign, my fingers writhing in the closest thing to a scream I can imitate. You lied to me. My voice…
I place my hand on my throat, and the touch of skin there isn’t as comforting as it once was.
The Nomad stands to his feet, takes a step forward. “Please. Please, just trust me.”
I take a step back.
“You know me,” he whispers.
I roll my eyes and turn to leave, but the tent flap rears back, and before I can respond, a guard appears before me.
He must only be sixteen, wide-eyed and human and terrified of a winged faerie, my face wrenched into an awful expression from my fight with the Nomad. I suppose he’s scared of me, like John once was.
Except this boy isn’t methodical like John. Except this boy doesn’t think before he acts.
Instead, he thrusts his sword into my gut.
I don’t feel it at first. It doesn’t register, not until behind me, the Nomad lets out a roar that practically shakes the tent.
The guard boy has the good sense to run, but he drops the hilt of his sword, the weight of which pulls me off of my balance and onto my knees.
The Nomad is by my side in an instant, gazing into my eyes, then down at the wound in my side, the sword still protruding out, then back at me.
There’s a buzzing in my ears that matches the commotion outside the tent as I wait for the pain to commence, but my body must still be in shock, because I feel nothing, not even the Nomad’s hand on my chin as he turns my face to look at him.
I’m not sure what I’m expecting in my last moments. For him to shed a tear for me? For him to at least put on his affectionate act that I’ve come to love so well?
Instead, he just looks angry. He stares at me a moment, and then something in him changes, and his face goes cold.
I’d say it’s the first time I’d seen the coldness in his eyes, but that would be lying.
These are the eyes that haunt my nightmares.
“I’m glad you’re still alive,” whispers the Nomad, stroking my chin. “Otherwise I’d have to waste time hunting down that boy for getting to you first.”
My heart would stop in my chest, if it wasn’t already pumping ferociously in panic.
Sweat breaks out on my forehead, fear right behind it, as the Nomad of my nightmares stares back at me.
“What? Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming. Isn’t this what your dreams have been telling you would happen all along? Did one kiss erase what your mind has been warning you of since childhood? Stupid woman, always falling for men who so clearly want to use her to get to someone else.”
A single tear falls from my cheek, and the Nomad has the audacity to laugh. “Goodbye, Wanderer,” he says, unsheathing his dagger and pressing it to my throat. Then, leaning in close, so that I can feel his hot breath against my cheek, he whispers, “I look forward to doing this again one day.”
But whatever he’s about to do, he doesn’t get the chance. There’s a grunt, and the dagger in the Nomad’s hand clatters to the floor.
The one in my hand doesn’t.
It stays lodged, right where I left it, between the Nomad’s ribs.
He staggers forward, catching himself with his palm on the floor, the other hand running to his side, where the hilt now protrudes.
I’m not sure what I expect to see in his face. Anger, defeat, fear of death.
But when the Nomad glances up at me, the only thing beaming on his face is pride, and a bit of relief.
“Goodbye, Wanderer,” he whispers before he falls.
The Nomad doesn’t close his eyes in death. And for a split second, the moment I realize I’ve watched him take his last breath, my heart wilts.
It’s only then that I can feel the pain of the sword in my side.
Moments later, Acel rushes into the tent.
“Tink,” yells Acel, running toward me.
But Acel never gets to me.
Because a bright light flashes before my eyes, and there’s the sound of something ripping, and then I am gone.