Chapter 10 River #2
River could almost feel the way the air would whoosh through her hair if she swung from it—a breeze created not by the elements,
but by the force of her own movements. It really was like flying, especially when you let go of the bar and swung only from
your knees, for a moment suspended, waiting to grasp your partner’s forearms.
A smile must have crept up River’s face, because when Celine returned with food, she said, “I knew you would enjoy this.”
“Me? No. This is just what I look like when no one’s watching.”
“You have a resting smile face?”
“Don’t forget to include that in your write-up. River Pricemark, known for her permanently delightful expressions, says the show was satisfactory at best.”
“I suspect you may switch from satisfactory to swept away when you taste this,” Celine said, handing River a salt-covered
twist bun.
The bun was easily the size of River’s face, and so buttery that it glistened even in the dimness of the tent’s elevated back row. River took a hearty bite, and rivulets of a rich, orange cheese sauce oozed out, dripping down the side of her mouth.
“Oh dear. You don’t like it,” Celine said. She reached over to take the twist bun back. When River elbowed her away, faking
a growl, Celine clapped her hands together as she laughed.
“This may be the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life,” River conceded.
“Finally, I’ve found your weakness!” she said.
“I have no weakness,” River told her.
“That can’t be true.” Celine had another twist bun on her plate, and she took her own bite, letting out a sigh of pleasure
so deep that River had to squeeze her thighs together.
“It is. The guild even tests you on it.” River didn’t know what possessed her to admit this. Compared to Dougal’s crimes on
the ship, it was a far milder transgression, but it was still the most specific piece of knowledge she’d shared so far. Celine
was winning this information game far too easily.
“What do they do? Dump stingbugs on you to see if you’ll scream? Trap you in a room that shrinks in size until it becomes
an airless coffin? Show you renderings of your loved ones and explain the ways they might be ripped limb from limb?”
Celine was almost exactly right, but River gave her a look that said, You know I can’t tell you that much. Instead, River used the pad of her thumb to swipe cheese from the corner of Celine’s mouth.
It was as if other patrons had vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving only River, Celine, and their salt-covered twist buns.
River could not help but indulge this feeling, letting her thumb linger on Celine’s lower lip, pulling it down until Celine’s bottom teeth were bared.
Even still, she did not pull away. She wasn’t sure she could.
She might have to live the rest of her life right there, with her thumb against Celine’s mouth.
It was Celine who interrupted, letting out a soft, “Sorry,” moving so that River put down her hand.
“I’ll tell you this much,” River said, fighting to regain her composure, looking everywhere but at Celine’s lips. “Some of
the guild members do have weaknesses. And they’re a lot funnier than you’d expect.”
Celine grinned in delight, sending another shimmering thrill down River’s spine.
“For one, Vandra Ravenfall believes she can tame brushwalkers,” River continued. “Anytime the guild sent the two of us near
a cursed forest, she’d stop in to find one and try to pet it. Her hands are covered in scars from all the bite marks, but
she gets them charmed away so you can’t tell.”
“No way,” Celine said, sufficiently scandalized. “Brushwalkers are so unpredictable! Why would she ever believe she could
tame one?”
“That’s her nature.” River tapped her finger on her chin, trying to think of another guild member’s weakness that Celine would
find amusing. Vandra had left the guild and become a Mythrian hero in her own right, so her desire to love a brushwalker would
not compromise her. River combed through her knowledge of her colleagues until she landed on another weakness she felt would
be safe to share. “There are these twins, Gary and Mary. They work as a team, and they’re very good.”
“Twin assassins? How does that happen? Did one join before the other? Do they love it equally?”
“Hush, love, let me finish,” River said.
Shit. The endearment had just slipped out, no effort or thought.
She tried to continue as if she’d said nothing out of the ordinary, not allowing herself to examine Celine’s face for any clues that she’d caught it, too. “Gary is incredibly ticklish in his left elbow. To the point that he collapses to the ground. Only the left side, though. It’s quite odd.”
“Very peculiar indeed,” Celine said. “How did they even discover this?”
River gave her the same look as before, the one that said she’d already shared too much. But how could she resist a woman
like Celine, whose curiosity needed to be sated somehow? This was a far better option than what River really wanted to do.
“Well, these twist buns would be a good weakness, if you ever need to give one,” Celine told her, accepting that River had
already gone far beyond the limits of what was allowed.
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
“I had them the last time I visited, and they’re even better than I remember. Then again, I was young when we came the first
time. Well, not that young, I suppose. It was the summer before I met you, which feels like a lifetime ago, but also feels like just yesterday
now that we’re around each other again.”
“You know, it’s occurring to me that you never told me back then that you’d seen another circus troupe perform,” River said.
“I must have forgotten to mention it,” Celine replied.
“I find it hard to believe Miss Memory would forget to bring up seeing a traveling circus to the girl from a traveling circus.
Just yesterday you mentioned the time I accidentally wore two different color socks to school.”
“It was funny,” Celine said.
“They were two different shades of black!” River protested.
“Yes, but it was still memorable.”
River wished she had Celine’s gift of perfect memory, so she could accurately recall her earliest weeks stationed in the outskirts of Queendom with the Pricemark Family Circus.
All she remembered was her first impression of Celine—she was kind and welcoming to River when no one else had been, but she also seemed withdrawn.
A little shy, even. Then River had shown up to school with flecks of bright blue shimmering hair powder still lingering on her scalp—remnants of standing too close as her mother had gotten ready for a performance—and suddenly, Celine bloomed like a flower, asking River a dozen questions about why her hair was that color, then even more inquiries about what it was like to travel with a circus.
She was neither shy nor withdrawn. River always assumed she’d misjudged her, projecting her own initial teenage self-consciousness onto Celine.
But watching her now, she saw that same shyness bloom again, thinly disguised by a lifted chin and clear-eyed stare.
“We came here once on our annual family voyage. And you know how family voyages can be,” Celine said. “I often wished I could
forget them, so I always tried my best to do so.”
Celine was withholding something, that was clear. As much as River wanted to know what that might be, she knew it would do
her no good to uncover it. When this time in Vestriya was done, and River had restored order in the Deathrose Guild, she’d
go back to her nomadic life of assassinry—hopefully after being promoted to a position like Dougal’s—and Celine would return
to the hamlet outside Queendom. They need not forge any closer bond than the one they already had.
So River truly didn’t know what possessed her to say, “My family never went on voyages. Although some might think moving to
a new place every nine months qualified as a constant voyage. I got to see almost all of Mythria in those years. But I never
had a place to call my own. No real home. Just a temporary tent. And in the end, I didn’t have any people to call my own,
either.” Finally aware of herself and her words, River threw on a casual smile as she added, “Ah, well. Who needs other people
anyway?”
The tent lights flickered, allowing River to fix her face forward and ignore Celine’s probing gaze.
A man dressed in a black bodysuit with a sequined jacket atop it sauntered to the center of the floor. “Welcome, welcome!
The show will begin shortly. All we ask is that you cheer loudly, watch closely, and believe everything you see. The realms are full of magic, but none more potent than ours. Let us enchant you tonight!”
He threw his arms open, and a dove flew out of each jacket sleeve, growing larger and larger the farther away they flew, until
suddenly, each bird puffed out into a cloud of sparkling nothing.
The crowd gasped. Not River. She knew the birds were an illusion, though she couldn’t quite figure out how the man had done
it. Perhaps it was his hand magic. Or just a well-timed stunt. It made sense that these kinds of shows would have gotten more
elaborate. Everything about the realms had improved in the years since River had traveled with her family’s troupe, and though
Vestriya had not progressed in ways such as spell service, they’d evidently put their effort into more practical improvements.
As the show progressed, River found herself incapable of keeping her critical eye at the forefront. The Vestriyan Caravaners
were good.
They could flip and fly just as well as they could make jokes and entertain, and their stage was ever-evolving, curtains shifting
from sky blue to midnight black as troupe members twisted, spun, and swung from the fabric like animals in trees. The sea-foam
floor held real water beneath it, and at one point the water rose, suspended in the air by a magical barrier that was as wide
as the stage and as tall as the tent. Troupe members dove into the water and swam, performing synchronized stunts while fully