Chapter Sixteen
The carnival remained closed for a couple of days, and since then, it only opened its doors during daylight hours. Mistress Eliza was in a foul mood about it, but they couldn’t arrive at the next town too soon. The authorities patrolled the streets, questioning everyone with any connection to the victims, yet were no closer to discovering the killer. One body being found near the road of the carnival and another inside hadn’t kept the crowd from venturing to it, but the same could be said for the earlier victims whose bodies had been found in front of a pub, library, and church. At night, more torches were lit throughout the carnival in an attempt to keep the shadows at bay.
Cricket stood behind the tent, practicing her routine while Juniper watched. She wore the chestnut wig as Mistress Eliza had suggested, only she pinned it up in a plaited crown to keep the locks from overheating her. The necromancer had released Cricket from backstage duties and allowed her to resume her practice. But Mistress Eliza still didn’t know about the letter she’d given to Bram. He’d visited once and taken her to see Anika for tea, yet there hadn’t been any leads on the murderer. Just because they had a sample of the bastard’s penmanship didn’t mean he would be easy to find in a city of thousands.
Lifting a hand toward the cloudy sky, Cricket brought her right leg back, then twirled. Even though she and Zephyr temporarily shared a caravan, they hadn’t spent much time together since Mistress Eliza ran him ragged with constant demands that he do her errands and complete endless chores. Their bedtime arrangements stayed the same—her on the bed and him on the floor. He remained gentlemanly enough at night, not asking if he could slip beneath the covers with her. If he did, she might be tempted enough to allow it.
A hammer striking metal sounded, and Cricket peeked inside the tent. She found Zephyr still helping Kyrie build a guillotine for his act.
“Focus, Cricket,” Juniper said with a smile. “Ignore them.”
She released the fabric and held her hands out in front of her while Juniper stayed silent. Her friend promised not to intervene unless she deemed it necessary. Over the past few days, nothing had changed. No dahlias or roses, only her flesh becoming translucent when practicing.
Cricket’s heart hammered in sync with Zephyr pounding away behind the fabric of the tent. The easy part came, the unveiling of her bones beneath her skin as the colored layers of her flesh faded. She brought her arms up toward the sky, then stood on her toes and slowly spun. Unlike the other days, the scratching inside her muscles stirred. She took even breaths, praying the red roses would unfurl at the surface.
However, dark marks freckled her flesh, and she continued to inhale gently while her heart raced. This time pain didn’t accompany it. Red. Become red . As the flowers sprouted, they weren’t roses but the same damn dahlias. Her veins thrummed violently while she attempted to tuck the nuisances back in, yet they wouldn’t listen. They didn’t try to consume her though, only lingered as a reminder of the victims’ deaths.
“Focus, Cricket,” Juniper repeated.
Cricket couldn’t try any longer, for fear someone would see them. She stopped spinning to take a petal from the locket, then placed it on her tongue. The dahlias drew back in as she chewed, her chest heaving, the rose flavor sliding down her throat.
“They didn’t seem to want to devour you this time.” Juniper clapped, a bright smile tugging at her pinkened cheeks.
“Besides them not being roses, I still couldn’t get the blasted things to go away on their own.” Cricket tightened her fists, letting her nails dig half-moons into her palms. “It would be fine if they were black roses, but they aren’t.”
Juniper stood from the grass and patted Cricket’s shoulder. “My theory is that you were asleep for over a year. In that time, you couldn’t work on your curiosity the way the rest of us were able to right away. Instead of within a week, perhaps it could take as long as when you were asleep to work properly.”
Cricket’s heart lodged in her throat. “Mistress Eliza won’t give me that long. I’m lucky she’s given me this much time.” If Cricket’s curiosity didn’t match the necromancer’s original vision, she was tainted no matter where they traveled. She would have no use for Cricket.
“Just keep practicing and having the petals ready if necessary. I’m here to help any way I can if you need someone to watch you.”
“Juniper!” Mistress Eliza shouted, startling them both as she rounded the tent. “You’re about to be up and should’ve already been backstage.”
“Oh dear, I lost track of time.” Juniper blew Cricket a kiss before darting off to her performance tent.
Mistress Eliza placed her hands on her hips and limped toward Cricket. “You’ve been practicing back here for days. Have you managed to bloom any roses yet?”
Cricket bit her lip and shook her head. “I haven’t, but I can make my bones be seen at will, and just now, I was able to bring the flowers forward, and they didn’t attempt to consume me.”
Mistress Eliza rubbed at her chin. “If it wasn’t for those deceitful flowers, I might allow you to show your curiosity. But we just can’t risk the dahlias being seen. After the spectacle with the grave, I’ll only allow you on stage once you hone in on your gift.” She paused and tilted her head while tapping her fingers against her thigh. “Perhaps you need to relax your muscles more. Give into a little pleasure with someone. That can always help feed your curiosity.”
Cricket’s eyes widened, and she choked, coughing. “I’m fine,” she croaked.
“For now, see if anyone needs help.”
“All right, I’ll do that.”
“I’ll be in my tent with my tarot cards if you need me,” Mistress Eliza said, then spun on her heel and limped away.
Couldn’t the woman see that Cricket was trying? Even when her mind focused on the murders, she continued to practice day in and day out so she wouldn’t have these monstrous flowers spontaneously come out of her.
She pulled back the tent’s fabric and watched Zephyr as he sawed across a plank of wood, his taut muscles flexing. He moved with grace, even when not performing and just working.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and grinned when he looked up at her. “If you want, you can test the guillotine on me once I’m done.”
“Ah, I just might.”
“Without the blade, of course.” He winked.
“Damn,” she teased.
As Cricket studied him, her heart beat faster, and for the life of her, she couldn’t fathom why. But she knew why—she was finding herself attracted to the one man who would break her heart, the one man who wouldn’t want more than a tumble and perhaps friendship. She needed to get her head on straight.
Without a goodbye, she grabbed one of the burlap sacks and left the tent to pick up rubbish around the carnival grounds. Several apple cores were tossed on the grass, and she put them in the sack as she passed through the crowd. Buckets were set everywhere for customers to place their rubbish, but it made no difference.
Up ahead, farther away from the crowd, a flicker caught her attention. The glistening object became brighter beneath the sun’s rays as she approached. Pearls?
Cricket smiled as she plucked up what was indeed a white pearl necklace. She tucked the beads into her satchel and would later gift the trinket to Juniper.
Near the cemetery’s woods were torn and crumpled sheets of paper that she shoved into the sack. A trail of orange peels and rotted fruit littered the ground, and she wrinkled her nose while dropping them into the open bag. When she turned in the direction of the carnival, a strong hand gripped her by the arm, fingers digging in, and yanked her back to a hard chest. The sack fell from her grasp as her body jolted forward. The person’s other hand clamped around her mouth, muffling Cricket’s screams before they could drift to the carnival and be heard.
“Abomination,” a deep man’s voice rumbled in her ear, his hot breath sticky on her neck as she was dragged into the woods. “You should’ve stayed dead.”
Cricket’s stomach coiled into tight knots—she desperately wanted to get a look at the man’s face and wriggle out from his firm hold. Her body writhed, allowing her room to elbow him in his ribs. The man groaned, his grip slackening enough for her to break free. Cricket whirled around to kick him between the thighs so she could get her knife and flee. But his face was familiar, and she froze, knowing him. Charles. He took her slip-up as an advantage and rammed her into a tree, the wig falling from her head. His hand covered her mouth once more, and her gaze latched onto hateful brown eyes, his peppered mustache lifting as his lips curled into a sneer.
“Why are you doing this?” she tried to ask when his hand left her mouth and wrapped around her throat, squeezing. But her words were as muffled as when she’d tried to scream.
He didn’t say anything, only dug his fingers in harder. She grappled with her skirts, attempting to get to her knife as her breaths were cut off. Her fingers brushed the handle, and she finally curled her hand around it. With her remaining energy, she brought it up and thrust it as hard as she could into Charles’s chest. A low inhale of breath escaped his mouth while he stumbled back. Cricket no longer clutched the knife in her shaking hand, and speckles of blood coated her fingers.
“Abomination,” he rasped again when he slumped to the ground and released ragged breaths until his eyes stared blankly toward the sky.
Cricket stood there, trembling as she peered at the authority’s dead body. Not once had she ever come close to hurting anyone, yet she’d just killed a man who’d been trying to end her life.
She needed to tell someone, so she ran to the first person who wouldn’t look at her in horror at what she’d done. As she pulled back the entrance to the tent, her gaze found Zephyr, who was chipping away at the wood. Autumn laughed alongside Wilder when Zephyr glanced up.
“Zephyr, I need to talk to you,” she said, her voice cracking. Autumn and Wilder stopped laughing and looked at her with worried expressions. “Just you.”
“Of course.” He set his tools down and came toward her. She brought her hand up from behind her back to show him. “Is that blood?”
She nodded, tears pricking her eyes. “I … killed someone. Not just anyone, though. An authority. Charles . He attacked me.”
“Show me where,” he whispered, his voice calm.
Cricket led him through the crowd, not looking at anyone directly, too fearful that they would know what she’d done if they could see her glistening eyes. Twigs snapped below their feet as they reached Charles’s dead body. Blood stained his white shirt a bright shade of ruby, the knife still protruding from his chest.
“Charles called me an abomination, then started choking me. I had no other choice. Or I did—I could’ve died, but...” she trailed off, taking deep breaths of fresh air.
Zephyr clenched his jaw. “I should’ve been with you.” He knelt, pressed his hand into one of Charles’s pockets, and pulled out a gold watch, the others empty. Lifting the authority’s satchel, he opened it and let out a string of curses. He showed her the contents resting inside—a knife and at least ten black dahlias.
“That bastard,” Cricket gasped, covering her mouth and dropping to her knees beside Zephyr. “Charles did it. He’s the one murdering these innocent women. And what he wanted was for me to die again.”
“We need to let Mistress Eliza know, but I don’t know if I trust the other authorities after this.” Zephyr’s expression hardened, his knuckles turning white around the satchel.
Charles had always been a stuffy man, yet she never would’ve thought he could do something heinous like this. But there was one authority she would always trust. “We can trust Bram. I need to speak with him.”
“We’ll get one of the performers to bring him here while you wash the blood from your hands.” Zephyr closed the satchel and held onto it tightly. “If I’d been with you, the bastard would’ve gotten worse than a stab to the chest. I would’ve ripped off his damn head.”