“Not anymore.” Simon rolled onto his back again. His face was…healing. She couldn’t see the teeth through the gash in his lips. She couldn’t see it happening from that far away, but the results were clear. Magic is real.
None of this can be happening.
She managed not to wail again as she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. She felt sick. “Please, I just want to go home.”
“I think that would be for the best.” Ringmaster walked away from her. “You’re free to go, Cora. No one will stop you on the way out of the park.” He crouched down and snatched Simon up by the hair. The Puppeteer yelped and was forced to his feet. “You and I are going to speak in private.”
“No—you can’t let her leave, fat man!” Simon swatted at the hand in his hair, but he received a hard punch in the face from Ringmaster for his trouble. He grunted, and his knee buckled. “Ow. Fine, fine…I’ll come. Cora. Cora! Come back to see me tomorrow. We need to talk.”
That freakish, unnatural shadow of his was now trying to bite Ringmaster’s own shadow. But it seemed he really was harmless and could only make threatening gestures and chomping faces.
As for talking to Simon? No, they didn’t need to do anything of the sort, and she had no plans on returning. She was going to put the Faire in her rear-view mirror and never come back.
But what about Trent?
She swore under her breath. “Wait. Ringmaster, I need your help.”
Ringmaster turned to look at her, an eyebrow raised. “What is it, Cora?”
“My friend Trent is in danger. I know he is. I have to find a way to stop this place from killing him.”
“Do you know how he dies?” Aaron asked from where he stood a few paces away, his expression a mix of confusion and muddled shock.
“No. It showed me a bunch of different ways.” She cringed at the images in her memory. She knew they’d haunt her for a long time.
Aaron shook his head. “Not sure how to stop something if we don’t know how it happens.”
“The Faire, if it was whispering to you, showed you whatever it wanted you to see. It doesn’t mean it’s real. This place is a world of illusions and lies, Cora Glass. Leave here, and if you’re wise, you’ll never return.” Ringmaster began walking, dragging a staggering Simon beside him. “Your friend’s fate is his own. This place only means to hurt you, Cora. Stay away.”
That was advice she had every intention of following.
But as she slipped her hand into her pocket and found a pair of sunglasses folded and tucked away, she had the feeling her business with Harrow Faire wasn’t nearly done yet.
I need to save Trent.
I just need to figure out how.
14
Simon crashed into the chair into which Ringmaster hurled him with no pomp or circumstance. But he was glad to be sitting. He was also glad for the chance to take his handkerchief from his pocket to try to wipe some of the drying blood from his eye and his face. His eye had healed on the way to Ringmaster’s office at the back of the big top tent, but he hadn’t had the opportunity to clean himself up enough to use it.
He squinted his best glare up at the man who had pushed him there. “You’re being very rude, fat man. You—” He let out a rather undignified noise as Ringmaster grabbed him by the front of the shirt and half-hefted him back up out of the chair where his “boss” had just deposited him. “Rude and indecisive. Do you want me in the chair or out of the chair?”
“Shut up, Simon. Before I knock your teeth all over the floor.” Ringmaster dumped him back down roughly into the wooden chair. It creaked from the impact but at least didn’t shatter. That would be more insult to injury—picking wooden shards out of his clothes. “Tell me everything you know about Cora Glass.”
Simon smiled and stayed silent.
When Ringmaster reeled back a fist, intending to punch him in the face—again—Simon cringed and turned his head away. He hated getting hit in the face. It seemed to happen fairly frequently, all things considered. “You told me to shut up. Now you want me to talk. You want me to sit. You want me to stand! You want me to sit again. Make up your bloody mind!”
“What else has the Faire told Cora?”
“I didn’t see any of the photos myself.” He had no reason to tell the oaf what he knew. And it was true, he hadn’t seen any of what Cora had told him. The clever child had been smart enough to see she had no friends in that unexpected quarrel only a few minutes prior. She didn’t trust him—which he resented a little but understood—but she also didn’t trust Ringmaster and the rest.
He could use that particular development.
The big man was pacing around the room, concern etched deep on his face.
Simon watched Ringmaster walk back and forth for a moment. He cleaned some of the blood off his face while he thought about how to best to use this to his advantage. “If the Faire is talking to her, she’s a threat to Mr. Harrow.”
Yes, there was definitely a way to get what he wanted out of all of this. He wanted Cora.
All of her.
Ringmaster was facing him now, consternated at best. “I realize that.”
“Then, if you want to protect our mutual employer…I have a suggestion.” Simon grinned. “If she comes back here, let me have her. She won’t be a threat if she’s one of mine.”
The big man sighed and turned away, walking to his desk to place his heavy hands on the wood surface. “You’re asking me to doom that girl to a terrible fate.”
“I’m only asking you to do it if she comes back. If she stays away, then she gets to live out her unhappy little life. But if she sets foot in here again, and you want to protect Mr. Harrow? Then she has to go.” It hurt to grin. His face was sore. But he couldn’t help it. Everything was so terribly funny. For a minute, it had looked like he was going to be denied what he wanted. But this was also going to be fun. It was the long way around, but he didn’t mind a scenic route once in a while.
“What else do you know, Puppeteer?”
“You split open my face, you’ve punched me, what, four times tonight? You let Jack kick me for a laugh. Why, in the name of all the pits in Hell, do you think I would tell you anything? Even if I knew the details?”
“Because if you don’t, I’ll hang you from your ankles in the tower for another five years,” Ringmaster snapped at him before slumping down into his chair. He looked exhausted. “And I will enjoy every second of your screams. You know I will.” The threat was lacking the big man’s usual bluster. It was the half-hearted complaint of a man who knew he was already losing the advantage in the conversation.
“I’m afraid to say that all I have is theories to go on. I have no idea what the Faire wants with Ms. Cora.” Now, that was a bold-faced lie. He had a very good idea of what the Faire wanted. But it was still a theory, even if it was backed up with evidence. The Faire wanted her…and it wanted to keep her for itself. He found himself at odds with the very creature that kept him alive.
But he’d be damned a second time before he let the Faire take anything else away from him. It had taken everything—literally everything—that was valuable to him. He would not let it take this newest prize from his fingers.