CHAPTER EIGHT
An ear-splitting scream welcomes us back to the fair.
“RYKA!”
I scramble to my feet, unbalanced, scanning wildly for the source of the commotion.
We’ve landed right on the edge of the carousel in the early evening, but we’re surrounded by far more motion than is normal.
Ghosts swirl around us, chittering with anxiety, moving so quickly I can’t make out who they are.
Everest, Valentin, Beam, and Ender all lie in various configurations of discomfit, but they’re not the ones shouting for help; the cries come from a flickering group of ghosts a few feet from the edge of the carousel.
My limbs are weary, begging for rest after our trip, but I push past the fatigue and rush towards the distressed fair occupants, making out Keshav, Boyshev, and Geneva, who swerves in front of me.
“What is it?” I ask, panting.
Geneva’s lips purse, and it’s the brittle, worried quality of her voice that fills me with dread. “It’s Iris. She keeps disappearing.”
Sure enough, Iris is between Keshav and the carousel, her body flashing in and out of existence, so her pissed-off expression glowers at me every few seconds. This can’t be a coincidence. The carousel’s energy roars, anxious and pained, a reminder of the havoc we just wreaked on it.
We failed – that was a failed trip, the first of its kind, and this is the price we’re to pay.
I move closer to Iris. “When did this start?”
“A–” Iris says before vanishing. She flickers back, “–ago.”
“A few minutes ago,” Keshav translates, drifting to my side. “We were in the main tent, and then her arm vanished. Completely gone.”
Right about when we failed to fix the rot. My extremities turn clammy.
“Told–” Iris snarls, “–so.”
“Told you so,” Keshav says nervously.
“I got that, thank you,” I say, attempting to keep sheer panic from taking my body hostage.
Everyone is looking at me like I have a magical cure, some sort of technique to pull Iris back into existence, but even breathing is a chore right now.
My mind is in a full-fledged battle against post-trip exhaustion.
Next to Iris, wrapped around the carousel, is a rotted grey thread that looks like it’s withering away. In the middle of it is a fray, like the string is on the verge of snapping apart. The one we were unable to fix.
But a disappearing timeline? Could it be true?
And if it disappears and takes Iris with it, will the same happen for the rest of us, too?
Not on my watch.
I reach for the grey string, half-scared it’ll split apart in my hand.
I can’t jump back into the carousel, but I remember what Everest did at the Mughal court, swapping timelines.
I’m no god, but I am keeper, and maybe all I need is a little time to hold this thing together.
I pinch the fray in between my fingers and pull it outwards.
“What are–” Iris barks, “–doing?!”
“Be quiet, I’m testing something.” I move my jittering fingers down until intact parts of the line touch each other. Sure enough, Iris flashes back into existence. I keep my hand in place, and we all wait for her to disappear.
She doesn’t.
“How did you do that?” Iris asks.
My fingers sweat on the timeline as I tie a loop knot with unsteady fingers. Weariness bears down on me, demanding I submit.
“Your timeline is coming apart,” I tell her, unwilling to confess that it’s entirely my fault.
“There’s a tear here that’s being strained, and I imagine that’s why your existence has been coming and going.
It’s kind of like a split electric cable, and it’s losing important points of contact.
I’m tying it together to reduce pressure on the line. ”
They watch quietly as I finish the job, then step back and look at my handiwork.
“Thank you,” Iris says, and it’s the most demure I’ve ever heard her. I don’t like it.
“Do you…” Beam whispers. “Do you think it’s because of…”
“Yes,” I answer curtly, but my head is an egg being cracked open, and I’m angry and worn out and upset.
Finding a Band-Aid solution to the Iris problem has sapped me of the little energy I had left, and I can’t entertain further conversation right now.
The ghosts blink as I give the knot a firm tug, then take deft, long strides towards my tent. “I’m going to go rest.”
“Ryka, wait!” Everest calls behind me. I keep walking.
Hot tears burn my eyes; my mouth is parched as a desert strip.
I need water, but I’m too anxious to pick up a glass.
I swear my skin ripples beneath my touch, adrenaline threatening to rip a hole through my chest, along with the bile that churns in my belly, creeping up my throat.
Now that I’m no longer being scrutinized by everyone, the path beneath me rises, crushing me against the sky.
The extensive rot is one issue; we could continue to throw ourselves into the carousel, trust it to guide us to where we need to go.
But withering timelines? Disappearing ghosts?
Our whole existence has never felt so fragile, and the terror from Iris’s near complete erasure has sunk into my bones.
And this is all without even taking Valentin into consideration.
While we’ve had to rescue people from time knots before, we’ve never had to return one altogether.
The rules have shifted, and I’m peering at a familiar picture through marbled glass.
We failed, a ghost is on the verge of disappearing, and I don’t know what to do.
Footsteps grow louder as Everest catches up to me. “Are you okay?”
“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I ask, teeth chattering against a searing pain that lances my head.
“You can talk to me if you want,” he says, keeping pace. “That was terrifying back there, and I worry when I see you like…like this.”
“What do you mean like this?” I come to a stop. A familiar, unwanted anger roils beneath my skin. “This entire day has been terrifying, and I’m upset, Everest. People get upset.”
I don’t want to yell at him. I don’t want to lose it. I just want space.
“Yes, but it’s worse for you,” he says, and his even tone makes me see red.
“You take on so much responsibility for everything and everyone here. And when things don’t go the way you planned, you have trouble moving past it.
Like when you got here. You were so depressed, so unwilling to let go of what’s gone–”
“Are you seriously bringing that up right now?” Was he not just there for our trip?
Did he miss Iris nearly fading into oblivion?
“We’ve been over this a million times! Not everyone thinks like you.
Just because you don’t understand why I want to go home, why I’m sad, doesn’t mean my feelings shouldn’t exist.”
I’m a pot that’s boiling over and the lid’s flown across the room, letting all my burned and rotten bits dribble out the sides. It’s dead quiet around us, no ghosts. Even the wind has fallen silent.
“I wasn’t going to say that,” he says, clearly frustrated. His mouth moves like he’s trying to find the right words but can’t. “I just meant that you get in your own head sometimes. And I know you’re going to blame yourself for what happened to Iris and get fixated on how the trip went.”
“Because it is my fault!” The carousel is thrumming with discomfort, and it’s seeping into me, shooting my already volatile emotions into the stratosphere.
“Our fault, actually. I told you I had a plan – a process, when it comes to this. You didn’t listen to any of that.
You took over, started pulling out your stupid little tricks that you’ve never told us about before, and had me mistaken as an assassin in an emperor’s court! ”
“I didn’t mean–”
“Well, of course you didn’t mean to.” Hurt flashes across his face, but I don’t care.
My body is consumed by full-fledged tremors, I’m barely holding onto my train of thought, but I tried asking him to leave, I did.
“I’m sure you didn’t mean to hurt Iris. I’m sure you didn’t mean to leave me alone in a crowded, foreign court.
I’m sure you didn’t mean for us to not know where you are, didn’t mean to ask me to leave you behind as if you’ll find your way back no problem! ”
His face softens with the worst kind of understanding, the kind of sickening presumption that he sees through me when he doesn’t know me at all. “I’m sorry, doc.”
The nickname is an arrow aimed right at my heart.
“Don’t call me that.” He flinches at my unmistakable vitriol.
I wipe away the angry, unstoppable tears that escape down my cheeks.
“You do whatever you want, whenever you want, with no consideration for the impact it might have on anyone else. You leave on your trips when it suits you best, you decide to come along on ours when it suits your whims. I get that you’re this all-powerful immortal being with everything you’ve ever wanted and more, but the rest of us aren’t.
I’m not a fucking doctor anymore, Everest.” My voice shatters like fallen glass, and every last word draws blood.
“Some of us have had everything taken away; some of us know what it’s like to lose the things we love, the people we thought we would be, and I’m tired of you messing this up for me! ”
At this point, I’m not sure who I’m screaming at.
If it’s Everest, if it’s this fair, if it’s the nameless masters of fate who lured me out under the threat of a dying friend, pushing me into a desperate pursuit of a fairy-tale turned reality, shifting the course of my life forever.
I’ve lost control of my destiny, and in moments like this, I’m reminded of just how powerless I am.
A dandelion seed tossed around at the whims of a mercurial wind.
Everest is just as culpable. He stands there, mute, expressionless.
“Please, leave me alone,” I ask again, drained of energy.
This time, he listens.
I sleep for the next three days.