The First Bright Thing

by J. R. Dawson

Genres: Historical Fantasy; Fantasy action & adventure

Synopsis

If you knew how dark tomorrow would be, what would you do with today?

"This is the magic circus book that I have been looking for all my life."―Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author of Every Heart A Doorway

"With earnestness that matches the author's poignant story, narrator Petrea Burchard introduces listeners to the Circus of the Fantasticals." - AudioFile

Ringmaster — Rin, to those who know her best — can jump to different moments in time as easily as her wife, Odette, soars from bar to bar on the trapeze. And the circus they lead is a rare home and safe haven for magical misfits and outcasts, known as Sparks.

With the world still reeling from World War I, Rin and her troupe — the Circus of the Fantasticals — travel the midwest, offering a single night of enchantment and respite to all who step into their Big Top.

But threats come at Rin from all sides. The future holds an impending war that the Sparks can see barrelling toward their show and everyone in it. And Rin's past creeps closer every day, a malevolent shadow she can’t fully escape.

It takes the form of another circus, with tents as black as midnight and a ringmaster who rules over his troupe with a dangerous power. Rin's circus has something he wants, and he won't stop until it's his.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.

Release date: June 13, 2023

Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

Print pages: 352

Sample

1THE RINGMASTER, 1926

The Spark circus arrived when no one was looking, early in the morning. The well-worn train snuck onto the tracks right outside of town as the birds woke and the dawn broke through the sleepy shadows of trees cloaked in an early mist.

Train spotters didn’t notice the train’s approach until it was nearly upon them, appearing in a blink and charging into town, the cars red and gold and blue with a name written along the side: WINDY VAN HOOTEN’S CIRCUS OF THE FANTASTICALS. The last two cars were purple and gold with flowers painted on their thick, sturdy wood siding, the windows laced with red curtains.

Today, here in Des Moines, there had been tracks for the train to appear on. On other days, in other towns, the train simply arrived in the middle of a field, with not a railyard around for miles. Like magic.

But no, it was Sparks.

The Circus of the Fantasticals worked on up-front deposits, meticulous yet flexible planning, and well-placed advertisements, like all circuses; but something more than a seasonal schedule also drove this particular train. The Spark Circus always arrived at the right place at the right time, even if it was just for one person who needed to see their show that night.

In a decade where the past was a nightmare and the future was a dream, the present was an unknown sort of way station where everyone seemed a little lost. Some would recall their visit to the Circus of the Fantasticals vividly as a pivot in their lives; others would simply be inspired to do better or think differently, with no catalyst they could quite put their finger on but would likely trace back to that one time they went to see the circus.

Today, June 8, 1926, was Des Moines, Iowa’s turn.

By the time the city awoke, the circus was set up in their rented plot near the tracks. Some townsfolk skipped work and most children ran from chores to watch on the plot’s outskirts while the Sparks emerged from the train cars to put up the Big Top and make the midway appear. One Spark changed into an animal, another multiplied themself to get things done faster, while another lifted wagons above their head. The townsfolk might have been slightly afraid, but as the day got older and the posters went up all over town, as they watched with growing fascination, they realized this might be their only chance to see something extraordinary, and so they went to the circus.

The midway held the youth of smoky July evenings and the feeling of a young body rushing down a very steep hill. Something in the electric string lights hanging above, the musical chime of carnival games and candy carts, brought back a safe home that everyone seemed to remember but had never been able to find. Until tonight.

There was a squeal and a small stampede of children dragging their mothers to follow them up a little wooden bridge. The bridge led to the sideshow, which was for everyone, not just gentlemen. And it wasn’t a cheap exploitation. It may have only been made of plyboard and luminescent paint, but it still held something exciting in the way it invited the audience to run through it, to explore in their own way. Halfway through, giggling children bounced on a rubber bridge with just enough give, and their parents stood in awe inside a tunnel that looked like it spun through outer space. It was technology carved and moved by wooden gears, like something out of Georges Méliès’s dreams.

But the Big Top itself—the archetypal main event—was admittedly nothing special. In fact, it looked more beaten down than other passing circuses the townspeople had seen before. The tent was tattered red-and-white canvas and muslin, thriftily yet expertly sewn together. The audience seats were only benches on bleachers set in a circle outside rings of flimsy painted sawdust curbs with areas on the ground level for those who would have trouble climbing up the rickety steps. The floor was dust that was easy to traverse but still coated boots and wheels and nice Sunday shoes all the same. The lights were too sharp, too few, and seemed mostly to spotlight just how dirty and ramshackle the inside of this Big Top was. It seemed to resemble a barn more than a theater, held together by spit and glue rather than nails.

But that was just the preshow.

When the tent went to blackout, when the audience hushed and the spotlight clicked on, there, in the halo of illumination, stood the Ringmaster.

Commanding in a bright red velvet coat, the Ringmaster looked out to the audience from the center of a large ring. Middle-aged and looking every bit a lioness, the Ringmaster had a wild mane of golden-brown hair that frizzed in the heat, didn’t dry fast enough in the cold, and was somehow always getting in her white face, which was either sunburned with a thousand freckles or as pale as a ghost in winter. She had black eyes, unheard of, that either glimmered with possibility or dulled with the density of a black hole. Some thought she was beautiful, some thought she was brash, but it was undeniable that she would take them on an adventure.

When she smiled, it seemed to the crowd like she was looking at the world for the first time. As if she had just caught her first glimpse of them, saw the brilliance of their hearts, and had known what great things they’d already done and would do. The smile was a genuine embrace, the first bright thing in this dark, dusty place.

“Welcome,” she said, to every single person in the audience. “Welcome home.”

The Ringmaster had run this show from spring to fall for the last six years. Its rhythms shifted slightly from season to season, making room for new Spark performers as their family grew, as their tent got more threadbare, and as she learned more and more what she was doing. She had to remember that, didn’t she? That she knew what she was doing.

She fixed the cuffs of her jacket and gave a small bow to the audience, her top hat appearing in her hand. The audience sounded with a small wave of surprise, and her smile grew. “We are honored to be with you for this precious hour.” To the side, the Ringmaster saw the interpreter repeat her words in sign language. It looked like a confident dance. “Before this, we may have been strangers. After this, we may never see one another again. But what happens tonight, we will hold together in our memory. And so we are family. The acts you will see may seem out of the limits of this world. But I assure you, this circus is as real as you and me. When we dream for something to be beautiful, it can be. When we wish for the impossible, the impossible can find us. If we just want it loud enough.”

That was Mr. Calliope’s cue. He was a man made of pipes and strings, and now he smashed down on his brass bones, creating wind that rang out in chords and cadences. The sound enveloped the audience in a well-timed crescendo as the spec parade made its way from the wings and into the hippodrome, dancing in time with the music.

Kell swooped above on his wings.

Tina, a menagerie all her own, transformed from one animal to another.

The fire-breathing archer, the tumblers that floated in the air, the clowns that grew and shrank, all of it a dream.

All of it heaving, flying, singing, pounding with the cheers of the audience. The Ringmaster couldn’t see their faces beyond the spotlight, but she could feel the energy radiating onto the arena’s stage.

It felt like wonder.

The Ringmaster raised her arms, as if wrapping them around the audience. “Tonight, we celebrate us! We celebrate you! And what we can do together!”

Above, on cue, flew Odette, the blond-bobbed trapeze swinger who looked like an ivory doll. From the platform beside Odette came Mauve, her deep umber skin draped in purple silks, singing with a voice as smooth as a maestro playing her violin. She hit each note then glided to the next as Odette soared on silks.

The Ringmaster loved seeing Odette joyful. The trapeze swinger wore happiness like she wore her sequins, bright and shining and refracting light off her curves like she herself was a star bursting to connect with the dark world around them. Odette had a kind and hopeful soul. And the Ringmaster was lucky enough to hold her heart.

The Ringmaster ran to where Odette would soon descend. She took the bottom of the silk and swung it in a circle as Odette danced high above. The spotlight cut through the dust, illuminating them both, their dislodged locks of hair like golden crowns.

The Ringmaster held the silk steady while Odette flew in circles. The spec parade faded away, back offstage, while Mauve still sang above. The Ringmaster knew the others were getting ready for their next cue. This was Odette’s moment.

Here, in the shadow of Odette’s love, lived the life the Ringmaster had never been promised. As she held tight to the silk, the Ringmaster imagined herself looking back down a mountain to see how far she’d come. When she had started climbing, she couldn’t have imagined this view. And she didn’t know when she’d gotten here, when she’d grown up and solidified a kindness around her. She didn’t yell anymore. She didn’t wake up with the world feeling like cardboard scraping against a concrete sidewalk.

In most Midwestern towns, you’d find a broken street full of potholes and dried up weeds. A street with no shade, hot and stagnant, like a boring Sunday afternoon before a stressful Monday. The feeling of not enough water and being too far away to find any. That used to be how the Ringmaster’s life felt; a scratchy vest made of Sunday afternoons.

But now she had learned to take joy for granted.

Odette slipped down the silk, lowering herself slowly, almost sensuously, into the Ringmaster’s waiting arms.

“You’re doing wonderfully, Rin,” Odette whispered.

Rin was the name used by those who knew her best, and her wife knew her better than G-d.

Rin held Odette’s firm hips, her fingers feeling the rough sequin hems. Odette smiled, sweat beading down her rosy cheeks, and gave a breathy laugh as the audience swelled in cheers. Rin had nearly forgotten there was anyone else in this tent.

“Amazing job,” Rin whispered.

“Love you,” Odette said, squeezing her hand before bouncing away and waving emphatically at the audience. She bowed. And Rin felt a hook cut into her gut. If Rin had been a boy, or if Odette had been a boy, they could have kissed in front of these people. In fact, the crowd would have positively swooned for the two of them. Roaring into whistles and croons as they'd

 have held each other closer.

But even with all the love threaded between them, Rin reminded herself that she couldn’t hold Odette for too long in the spotlight.

The audience was enchanted by them; their magic, their different-ness. But a kiss would break the spell, and the audience would realize the magic was no show. This was real. And it was all right to be different, until it wasn’t.

The same people who cheered for the Sparks in the Big Top could send them to the sanitariums, where all the bright yellow wagons ended up. The same people in the audience who felt warmth in these lights could go home, realize they had previously been taught that these circus Sparks weren’t special, they were freaks. And if the freaks weren’t gone by the next morning, there may be a mob.

Rin knew there was a line to toe.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t smile. So she did. They had made a home here in their circus, despite the world that did not want them to find a home.

But it was about to all get torn away.

As she smiled, as she looked out into the audience, Rin felt a piercing, cold stare among the many eyes watching her from beyond the spotlight. Like ice running down her back. It was unnerving, how quick the fear rolled back into her heart. How easily the past tore into the present.

Rin could only make out faces for a moment as the spotlight ran from her to Mauve, whose set was now beginning. She saw the usual crowd, families with children, young people on dates. Old women staring at the beauty with awe and old men trying not to cry. But there was someone else in there, someone who stood at attention, staring right at her.

A familiar dark brow. Sharp, angry eyes. A dangerous man. The Circus King.

Something in Rin seized. She waited, as the spotlight passed and shadow fell. But when the bright beam swooped once more across that section, he was gone.

He wasn’t here. She was allowing him to infiltrate places he would never be. It was a phantom, a trick of the light. It wasn’t real.

I’ll find you. I’ll find you, and I’ll ruin you.

The show carried on.

She couldn’t let his memory scare her any longer. He would not turn this into his. He was not a part of this life. She had made a new place for herself, far from him and anything he’d ever seen. This was her story. This was her circus, full of bright colored lights like rainbows, sequined costumes that reflected like prisms, and beautiful horses that could shift into beautiful women who could fly as high in the air as a dove.

This was her home.

***

As the show ended, the Sparks froze and held their final position while Mr. Calliope struck a final triumphant chord. Right on cue, three copies of Maynard shut off all the lights (the spots, the board, and that one pesky ellipsoidal that wouldn’t cooperate with the board). The performers on the floor had fifteen seconds of applause and blackout to vamoose, so they rushed out, disappearing as quickly as they had stormed onto the scene.

When the lights came back up, Rin watched as the crowd dispersed and stopped to poke at the props and set pieces, trying to spot any tricks up the circus’s sleeves. Some circuses didn’t allow audience members on the main floor after the show, but it was part of Rin’s nightly ritual; to watch from the wings as the audience spilled onto the floor like the end of a baseball game, intoxicated and invigorated by what they’d just witnessed. Real magic was a strong drink to take in.

But tonight, there was a young woman who didn’t look at the set. She stared right past the ring, past the hippodrome, and her eyes connected with Rin, who stood to the side.

The girl was dressed in an ill-fitting red smock. Her eyes were so empty, she could have been a doll. The smock she wore was not hers; it was Rin’s. Rin had left it behind long ago, and now here it was, resurrected and worn like an omen. A threat.

Something deep in Rin told her to turn away, to run. If she acknowledged this woman, her worlds would collide. The façade would end.

Which was why she had to step forward.

“Hello?” Rin said. “Are you all right?”

The girl smiled, like a marionette with too many strings pulling at her cheeks, at the corners of her eyes, to make her face look like … his.

“There you are,” the girl whispered.

It was all real.

The Ringmaster waited for the girl to take out a knife. To attack her. To hurt herself. To do something angry and unpredictable. To explode in a rage.

But she didn’t. The girl only turned and walked away.

Before Rin could react, to call out or move to follow, the girl had disappeared into the crowd.

“Wait.” Rin heard her own voice as if from far away. “Wait…”

It would have been easier if the girl had stabbed at her, or struck her with a fist, or something. Rin remembered the familiarity of him standing above her, saying nothing. He’d smile at her, soaking in her fear, as she waited for him to move, to speak. But he’d never had to do anything; he’d always known she was his. And he would make her rot.

She couldn’t breathe. She stumbled back, and Odette grabbed her as she started to fall.

“Rin, darling, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Rin shook her head, looking frantically at the faces in the crowd. He was here. He was here, in her home. He had been at her circus.

“He knows I’m alive,” she said.

 

2EDWARD, 1916

No one knows why the Spark came. But it came during the war.

Edward actually saw the beginning of the Sparks, because Edward was seventeen years old and stuck in the thick of the war on the Western Front. He didn’t know that’s what he saw, because he didn’t know anything about Sparks. He’d thought he’d known a lot about war before he left London for these trenches. But he had not.

He thought glory waited. He thought he’d be a hero. He’d sat in his stepfather’s house, speckled with bruises on all the places that could be hidden, and looked out onto the streets full of proud marching boys ready to fight. He thought to himself that it looked like freedom. It looked like power.

They’d told him to go dig up the ground and sit in it, and glory would come.

They’d lied.

Edward had learned men with power created terror; they didn’t drown in it. The ground wasn’t supposed to be dug up. Boys weren’t supposed to be thrown into these holes, waiting to be buried. He stood in a deep, deep trench, not yet dead but cut off from any life he recognized. The fields were silent, until they weren’t. Somewhere beyond sight, but creeping closer, he heard the whistling thunderstorm of mortars and machine guns.

He couldn’t breathe. He could barely swallow back vomit from the musty smell in the muddy air: a smell of men’s blood and sweat, of earth opened and bombed, and of dead rats’ flesh melting onto their bones. Gunpowder, tobacco, and piss. Planes above. Shite below.

Somewhere down the trench, Edward heard two boys laughing about a poker game. Or more specifically, they were laughing about him.

It seemed he didn’t fit in here. Or anywhere. The first day, on the platform at King’s Cross, all of them had someone to say goodbye to. Edward had stood alone. And when they stepped onto the train to pull out for their lie of an adventure, he found no one to say hello to. They had all paired up, old school chums or new mates who had seemingly learned from the same book how to speak and move. Edward felt like an alien, a thousand steps away and invisible.

If only he were still invisible. Now, the other boys knew he was weak, quick to anger, and even quicker to cry.

So it is understandable that all of this weighed heavier on his mind than what was happening … as some boy in a mask dug up a new part of the trench and hit something that sparked like a flint hitting a rock. Something small and soft (or was it small and sharp?) glinted like a flash of lightning. Then, as if it was the speck of a ghost rising from an uncovered grave, the light traveled upward and into the air of the world.

This was the Spark. Not that Edward knew that. No one knew that.

“Oi! Eddie!” one of the boys shouted. “Wallace whipped you hard yesterday, did he?”

Edward managed to breathe in and turn from the shoveling. “Don’t call me Eddie.”

“Oh ho hohhh!” they laughed.

Just wait until they were all back home, he’d make them pay for—

The earth exploded.

The whistle came before the fall. Then boom. Screams. The end of the world.

He heard a crack in his ear. He felt a surge in his body, up through his toes from the earth and into his heart and out his fingertips. The earth flew to the sky, and many things broke that could not be mended.

“GAS!” someone screamed.

Edward fell in the mud. He couldn’t feel anything. He checked his limbs. What happened? His body was intact. He could move. Don’t think of the danger, think of the next thing that must be done.

But then he saw the canister. It looked like a giant baby’s rattle, and it bounced into the trench, thumping against the mud. It thunked into a thick puddle, and smoke hissed out like a serpent. A yellow ghost, come to collect souls. The boys shot upward into the fight, then fell down to the mud, crying and howling, the smoke curling around them, possessing them. They flailed. They were dying. The smoke split them from the inside, a horrific chemical destruction.

Edward screamed, scrambling to his numb feet. Bloody water splashed into his face. He

needed his mask. He grabbed it as the gas cloud slithered closer, an apocalyptic avalanche. But when he put the mask over his head, he couldn’t feel the suffocating, the foggy eyeglass … the hose.

He checked the hose.

It was torn.

“My mask!” he screamed, throwing his mask off and seeing the world again. He ran. “God dammit my mask! Give me a mask!”

And in a selfless act Edward didn’t have time to comprehend, a boy named Nathan handed him his own mask and respirator.

Edward grabbed it and pulled it on as he started to run from the gathering smoke. Bullets and bodies erupted.

More men scattered, running upward to a fight rather than sitting down here and having their lungs filled with acid and water. But then those men shattered. Like a butcher shop exploded.

The tanks drew closer. The thick smoke curled with German shouts and British twangs begging and beautiful French words out of place and gasping and dying and a girl in a blue dress standing in the middle of it all, wide-eyed and …

Wait.

Edward blinked hard from under his mask. He must be hallucinating.

No. There she was, a girl in a blue dress, her hair in braids, white cheeks, and big eyes staring right at him. Her boots stood ankle-deep in the mud, and she seemed entranced … or in shock.

“Aide-moi!” he screamed through his mask. But she didn’t say anything. Not French? “How’d you get here?!” He collapsed, screaming, drenched in sweat and fear. “Don’t just stand there! Help me! Get out! Do something!”

When she heard him, all hesitation or fear vanished from her eyes. The girl shot toward him with the determination of a trained medic. She held out her hand. She touched his shoulder.

Everything disappeared.

A pop, a light.

---

Edward stood on white sand, the sun setting before him and the girl. The waves crashed in a soothing rhythm on his mud-caked boots. Palm trees swayed above. A jungle crawled over steep mountains behind the girl’s head. Up at the top of those mountains, Edward saw waterfalls cascading down into the air, and then dissipating. Like a city of clouds.

Edward’s knees buckled, and he collapsed.

“I’m dead,” he muttered through the mask.

The girl knelt down beside him. She took his mask off. He held his breath, but then realized how stupid that was. She was alive and breathing, and this wasn’t France. It couldn’t be France.

“What the fuck is going on!” He tried to scramble away from her, but his limbs failed him. He sat there, in the sand, shaking and crying. “Where are we?”

The girl studied his face. She also shook, but her voice was steady. “Where were we?” she said. Her accent. It wasn’t British. It wasn’t French.

“You’re an American,”

he said weakly. “How—”

“Was that war?” she asked.

“Yes?” he said.

Her eyes widened. “I … was wondering why I all of a sudden felt different … like I’d gone down a hill on a fast bike, but I was just sitting at home. Then … I wasn’t at home anymore. What happened?”

“What happened? You’re asking me what happened?” Edward said, exasperated. “What the hell did you do?”

She shook her head, violently, and he realized she was as scared as he was. “I don’t know. I was only thinking of somewhere quieter than where we were, just now. I’ve always wanted to come here.”

“So this is a real place?”

“It’s an island in Polynesia,” she said.

“We’re—did you say—in Polynesia?” he gasped, his throat scratchy. “You’re a steamboat now, are you?”

“No, no, I … I don’t know what … happened.… I’ve never done this.… I’ve never heard of anyone doing this.…” Her eyes slowly fluttered away from the fantastical beach, and sank with worry. “I don’t know what to do. My mother … I have to get back to her.”

“Where’s your mother?”

She looked up at a palm tree. Her lip trembled. “New York,” she said, exasperated.

They sat on the beach a while longer. None of this made sense. Maybe he was dead. Maybe they were both dead. But it didn’t seem likely. He still had his muddy boots on. Surely in the afterlife, your boots were at least clean.

“My name is Edward,” he said.

“My name is Ruth,” she said quietly.

“How old are you?”

“Almost sixteen.”

“I’m seventeen,” he said. “You’re a young fifteen.”

“You’re an old seventeen.”

Then silence again, as the ocean came in and out. The tide rose. No one came to collect them. They were alone. He watched the sunset, and after a while, he realized she was watching it, too.

“You chose me,” he finally said as her face danced in the purples and oranges of an ending. “Why did you take me with you?”

She shook her head, in disbelief. But she looked so genuine as she said, “It felt like you needed me to save you.” She bit her lip. “This place probably belongs to someone. We need to leave. We should go back to France. We should try and save the others.”

They could. But something choked him hard, inside. He knew if he went back, he would freeze. He would disappear. And if the gas got him or the tanks got him, he would die.

He took her hand. “No, please,” he said. “No, forget about saving the other boys. We can’t go back. It’s too dangerous. Take us to New York.”

She looked at him. She had such a sweet face. She understood his fear. She didn’t say anything, but she clenched her thin fingers around his. She closed her eyes. He closed his. He took a deep breath in as he felt the sun slip away. The wind brushed his hair.

Then the beach was empty.

 

3THE RINGMASTER, 1926

The war had been over for many years. Grief had blended into everyday life. So the circuses had returned.

And with those circuses, the Ringmaster had come to be.

She needed to remember this, as she sat in the dark of her caboose, waiting for Odette and Mauve. She needed to remember things were different than they were when she last saw him. Years had passed. She had grown more than her fair share.

She looked at the space between her bed and the wall. She shouldn’t reach down there to what she’d hidden. She didn’t need to; she was strong enough without it. But why did she have to be?

She pulled the small flask out of its hiding place. She unscrewed the cap. But something stopped her from putting it to her lips. She’d promised Odette she’d try.

It would be a release, to let it go down into her brain and stop the electric worry. Rin had one foot in dark memories and one foot in fear about what was to come, and she tried to straddle sanity here in the today.

To just take one swig, just a little bit, she could breathe. It wasn’t the alcohol that called her, but what the alcohol would give her: peace, and the pain she deserved.

But she screwed the cap back on. She stared soberly at the quilt beneath her, her head pressed against the wall behind. Out the window, the landscape moving, far away from Des Moines and now magically coming for Omaha from the west. She’d flown them to Kearney, then let the train speed along the tracks like it was a normal train, a real train, nothing to see here.

It would be all right.

She was no longer someone he knew. In fact, she had very much hoped he thought her dead and buried. Eternally out of his reach.

The past belonged to the war, to the man who had orchestrated her story, for a time. But she had reclaimed herself, built up defenses of love and beauty, until she felt not quite new, but restored. Like a piece of old furniture, unbroken and with new purpose.

But reclaimed and rebuilt or not, she would still take her circus and she would run. They’d shouted out a John Robinson, and the aftershow on the midway and in the Big Top abruptly ended in a sense of urgent danger. But everything had gone like clockwork, just like they’d practiced in drills, Rin preparing her crew for something she had never really thought would happen. The performers had hurried the few lingering members of the audience out the door. Maynard multiplied and hastily packed up the tents, the midway, the wagons, the sideshow, and shoved it all onto the fourteen train cars linked to the 4–8–2 Mountain engine. Mr. Weathers, the trainmaster, worked with Francis the Fire Starter and Yvanna to heat up the coals and get the train rushing. Once everyone was on board, the train shot forward into the night. Once the wheels were turning and they’d built momentum, Rin had tapped into her Spark, forced herself to concentrate long enough to stiffly move the whole train from Des Moines to the tracks west of Lincoln, rushing east to Omaha.

Then there was only the waiting. The uncertainty of the dark, black space beyond and ahead. Wide Nebraska sky above, dead black fields around them too far from the train’s light to see.

You think you’re so clever. But I was always the clever one. I know you’re afraid.

She shoved her aged body off the bed, still holding the flask and gritting her teeth as she situated her trick leg to walk. Her stiff fingers fumbled around its black metal skin.

She’d promised Odette she wouldn’t. It had been six years.

Odette and Mauve would be on their way to the caboose, making sure everyone else was comfortable and got food in the pie car since they’d had to vamoose before getting any dinner after the performance. They’d be here any minute, to get to work and plan for Omaha. But Rin felt a thousand years removed from them, and a million miles away.

Mauve and Odette had not known the Circus King. They knew him in name, they had seen his posters. They had heard the stories. But they had never looked him in the eye. Rin had not only known him, but she had loved him.

She felt the weight of the black flask in her palm. Sometimes the Ringmaster thought she was strong, and sometimes she thought she’d be better off disappearing into nothing.

You are nothing.

The girl in Rin’s red smock, her monotone voice still whispered in Rin’s ears. There you are.

The Circus King thought she was dead; she had abandoned her name on a grave for him to find. Years ago, in a cemetery in Chicago, she had cauterized the wounds of everything that had come before. As far as the world was concerned, she was dead. She could let go, start over, try again. And although she’d known it might not protect her forever, it had allowed her to sleep at night.

It had worked for a time, but now he knew—he was wrong, and she was very much alive.

“Rin?”

Odette and Mauve stood in the doorway, the vestibule and the dark night behind them. The metal door shut with a loud clang.

Odette spotted the flask. Rin sucked in air. She handed it over. Odette narrowed her eyes.

“I didn’t,” Rin said.

Rin knew Odette believed her. But Odette still walked back outside to the vestibule, and even though Rin couldn’t see her, she knew she was dumping it out onto the passing gravel.

“Rin,” Mauve said again. “Are you ready?”

She had to be ready. One show was done, and they had another show tomorrow night. It was past midnight, which meant they’d get into Omaha soon enough, have a little time to plan and sleep, then they’d get up and start unloading the wagons off the flats. It was usually something full of anticipation and excitement, like a perfect blue-skied day.

Rin looked out the back window, off past the caboose’s end railing, as if she would see him trailing behind them.

“We knew this would happen someday,” Odette said quietly.

“And now it’s happened,” Rin said.

“He doesn’t get to take our joy,” Odette said. “This isn’t his circus. He doesn’t get to scare us.”

“He’s more powerful now,” Rin said.

“Why do you say that?” Odette said.

“Because I’m more powerful,” Rin said, looking at Odette. She tried to believe she looked steadfast in the dark, solid and unafraid. “I’m strong enough, even if it’s just enough to outrun him.”

Odette took Rin’s hand, gloves on. Even after all these years, Rin couldn’t let Odette’s bare hands touch her unless Odette was healing her. Because the only thing separating the Circus King’s Spark from Odette’s was good intentions. ...