Simon leaned close to hover over her as she went through the images. “That’s incredible. It has a tiny little screen!” He reached down to poke it and set off the touch screen. “Oh. Hah. Fascinating.” He poked it a few more times and figured out how to scan around the image. “Can I play with it?”
She smiled despite herself. He looked like a kid in a candy shop. “Sure.” She handed the camera to him and took off the lens from the front. “The knob on the top switches modes. The button with the little right arrow there goes back and forth between taking pictures and looking at them.”
“What did the Faire show you that scared you so badly?” He picked up the camera and started clicking switches and pushing buttons. He put it into camera mode with the screen on and started waving it around, watching the image change.
“Trent. Dead on the ground. He’s in danger. I asked it what I could do to stop it, and it showed me three images. The first one was of the mirror in there. The last one that says ‘see into your soul.’ It told me to look into it, and I did.”
He paused in his fascination with the camera and looked over to her. “I’ve never known that mirror to be anything but a cheap trick. There’s a weight sensor in the floor that triggers an illusion. It’s a two-way piece of glass that lights up a fake monster dummy on the other side. It’s just an old jump-scare.”
“That’s not what happened to me.” Cora sipped the drink. She needed it to settle her stomach, as well as help dull the pain in her shoulder. “It showed me dressed in some freaky circus outfit, and I was covered in blood.”
“Oh, my.” Simon looked off thoughtfully. He picked up the camera and took a photo of something in the distance. It was terribly out of focus. He began twisting the lenses to try to fix it. “Then my shadow made an appearance, I take it?”
“Yup.”
“The good old one-two punch.” He took another shot. It was much better. “Am I wasting your film?”
He really was a hundred and sixty years old, wasn’t he? “It’s digital. You can take about a thousand photos. There’s no film in there. It all goes to a little plastic memory card.”
“I understood those three words, but I have no clue what they mean together.” He smiled. “Technology is so fascinating.” He took a few more images, now clearly unafraid of using up her film. “What else did the Faire show you?”
“The second image was of your tent. The third was of an old-fashioned train car with a number zero painted on the door.”
Simon froze. When he looked at her again, his freakishly colored eyes were wide. “When you saw yourself in the mirror…what did your reflection do? Anything at all?”
“I…bent in half backward, like a contort—”
She broke off as Simon jumped up to his feet. She caught her camera before it crashed to the ground. He was suddenly pacing around in front of her, back and forth in rapid succession. He was muttering wildly to himself.
“Simon?”
He didn’t answer her. He just kept pacing, rapidly talking to himself.
“Whatever.” She dropped her voice to mutter, “Lunatic.” She sipped the drink. Once she felt like she could walk without throwing up or passing out, she was going to go home and convince Trent never to set foot in the Faire ever again.
Suddenly, he had her by the good arm and was dragging her up to her feet.
“Hey! Let me go!”
“No.” He started pulling her down the path. “This is important.”
“Stop. Right now. Stop it!” She kicked at his leg. “Don’t make me scream rape, you giant strawberry popsicle stick. Let me go!”
He stopped and turned to face her. “I’m a what?”
“Let me go. Right the fuck now, Simon.”
He sighed heavily. “You need to come with me.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to go see Mr. Harrow.”
12
Cora stared at him, stunned. “I thought…I thought nobody talks to Mr. Harrow.”
“Nobody does. And nobody talks to the Faire either.” Simon took a step closer, towering over her. His fingers were still wrapped around her wrist. They tightened. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make sure she was paying attention. “Let me explain something very crucial for you to understand in the following few minutes. Are you listening?” The amber lightbulbs of the nearby rides flashed off his mismatched sunglasses. She could just barely make out the black-red-white coloring of his eyes.
She blinked. Christ, he was terrifying. “Y…yeah.”
“Good. The rules are simple—the Faire only talks to Harrow. And Harrow only talks to Ringmaster. That is how it has always been. Those are the rules. And yet here you are…and the Faire is whispering to you. And I want to know why. Why it picked you, when—” He broke off. “Come on.” He turned and started walking, dragging her behind him.
She dug in her heels hard enough that he growled and turned back to her, irritated she wasn’t playing along. “When what?”
“Hm?”
“You said, ‘why it picked you, when,’ then you stopped. When what, Simon?”
“It’s not important.” His jaw ticked. “Just follow me like a good girl, please.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How hard do you want me to knee you in the balls, Simon? No. Step one, let go of my wrist. Step two, tell me what you were going to say.”
Simon sighed. “You modern women are so irritating sometimes.” He let go of her wrist. “The simple fact is that I misspoke. Now, come with me. You want your chance to talk to Mr. Harrow, don’t you? This is your opportunity.”
It was painfully clear he was hiding something. He didn’t want to tell her what he was about to say. I can’t trust him. Not now, not ever. “You know something, and you’re not telling me.”
“Oh, most certainly. Several things, I would imagine.” Simon grinned, a vicious flash of white teeth. “But that is neither here nor there. Come, Cora. Let us go see Mr. Harrow like you wanted.”
When he turned and left her there, she knew he was calling her bluff. With a groan, she followed him. She had to run to catch up. “Next time you want to take me somewhere, just ask, Simon. Just ask.”
“Not something I’m accustomed to. I’d be dragging you by my strings, but I think your high-pitched shrieking would upset the patrons.” He slowed his steps by half a beat. Whether it was because he wanted to gloat or because he took pity on her shorter legs, she didn’t know.
“I do want my gun back, by the way. How did you hide it?”
“Double-lined pockets.” He smiled. “Simple trick. No dark magic involved.”
“Magic is real.” It was a statement more than it was a question. “I’m still processing that fact.”
“You are a little slow. I understand.”
She glared at him.
He didn’t seem to care. “Before you ask, I’m not sure if magic is real elsewhere. But I know that here, in the Faire, it very much is.” He tucked his hands into his pockets as he walked, slowing down another beat. He seemed to like to talk and was suddenly in much less of a rush.