THE FIFTH

 

Stars peeked from a blanket of navy sky, trying to break through the ever-present wool of shadow haunting Winter’s heavens. Fred’s sleigh was packed; Zane, Apple, Timblewon, Wanda, Kilen, Mirkra and I had all wedged in. At first, Timblewon had insisted he shouldn’t come, that the white lions would sniff him out. But Apple had been persuasive; she’d powdered his hair dark with cocoa and insisted the chocolate scent would fool the lions. She’d fixed everyone else with robes and coats, and Zane and I with large, preposterous hats—fake apples and berries sewn together with ribbons.

Apple giggled and hooted the whole way, exchanging wild banter with Wanda whose cackling howl echoed to the sky. I found myself laughing, especially when Zane mimicked Wanda’s laugh twice as loud and her smile dropped.

The circus glowed below a radiant halo of stardust when we arrived, casting visions of gold waters across the underside of the dark clouds. Zane chucked Kilen out of the sleigh first, right into a heap of snow.

Sky-high tents bloomed up from the ground, heavy-drummed music boomed through the fabrics, and dancing elves entertained the crowds. Multicoloured, sparkling fires breathed up from glass barrels to light the paths through the circus, painting the air with turquoise, sour pink, and dusty orange.

“Ragnashuck, it’s like being under a rainbow sea!” Kilen gushed, flicking a bulb-ornament.

“You’ve never been to the circus before?” Timblewon’s cocoa-dyed brow arched.

“Never,” Kilen replied. “I haven’t travelled anywhere apart from my birth village, the old library, the factory, and that one time we all went to the Scarlet City and Cohen started yelling at the Ruby Legion, and then we had to fight for our lives. You remember that, right, Timbie?”

Timblewon made a face. “It’s hard to forget.” He shuddered, no doubt remembering the viper’s bite.

“Cohen wasn’t yelling at the Ruby Legion,” Mirkra corrected. “He was yelling at the frostbit Crimson King, the Red Princes, Asteroth Ryuu, a measure of other scotchy fellows, and the Ruby Legion.” Mirkra jabbed Zane with his elbow.

“By the sharpest wind, was there anyone you weren’t yelling at, Mr. Zane?” Apple murmured, and Wanda snorted a laugh.

We ventured onto a misty path, warm with the fires’ glow. The banter faded amidst the folds of chatter and music as we braved the metropolis of brilliantly coloured tents. I scanned the paths, the creatures, the jugglers, the musicians, the acrobats on round stages. But I looked at the shadowed corners too. My gaze travelled past open tent flaps, along narrow drapery alleys, and into the crevices of the stages most would ignore.

Apple appeared at my side with a wand of sticky bubbles—bright gold and glittering with sugar crystals. She handed it to me, keeping a metallic blue one for herself. She bit into it and blue crumbs tumbled down her chin and into the snow. “I do love this stuff. I wonder if I can make a bubblebaker-stuffed chocolate tray. It would be excellent for the village children.”

My teeth cracked into the fizzy treat, and warm, sweet vanilla tickled my tongue. I nodded, “Yes, you should definitely make a chocolate tray of these.” Good grief, I was in love. But the candy paused on my lips when I saw something shift in the dark behind a tent.

I turned, gazing through the sheer fabric, unsure if I was imagining the set of bright eyes and white beard. I pushed into the tent and peered into the darkness; shoulders tight.

“Have you come to see the future?” A voice tore my focus down to a table where a tattoo-faced woman eyed me. Before her, a glass ball with a roiling haze rested on a pedestal.

My gaze flickered back to the shadow behind the sheer tent, but my shoulders dropped when I saw just another hollow corner.

“Helen, what are you doing in here?” Zane cast the woman a scowl. The woman released an unfeminine sound and began to examine her nails, seeming to grasp we wouldn’t be paying customers.

“Oh, um…” I took in the odd symbols dangling from strings above and the scatters of tea leaves in glass jars around the tent. “I…wasn’t looking where I was going.” I forced a laugh and turned to leave.

Outside, Zane eyed me as he stuffed the rest of the bubblebaker candy into his mouth.

Zane had downed three of the bubble wands before any of us had finished our first. It seemed to rush straight to his brain, and he bounced into the sky to see over the tents, his hat catapulting halfway across the circus and revealing his pecan hair for all to see. Kilen sprang after him, and it quickly became a contest to see who could jump the highest. “Save it for the records testing, sputtlepuns. We don’t have our weapons,” Mirkra scolded them, eyeing the crowds.

When Zane landed, I snagged his blue imperial coat and dragged him to my side to end his shenanigans. He flung an arm over my shoulder, laughing at himself and tousling his hair.

“He almost beat you, you know.” I nodded to where Kilen was pushing through the crowd to play a game.

Zane’s smile fell. “No, he bloody didn’t.”

I laughed.

“Don’t be so ubbersnugged. Kilen has a top-quality mentor!” Wanda called as she kicked a wad of snow at us. Zane slapped it out of the air before it hit me.

“There’s a merry show up ahead!” Kilen rushed back. “It’s about to start!”

“Wait.” Timblewon snagged Kilen’s sleeve. “Should we be going in there?” He made a face at the big tent.

“Why ever would we decline an invitation to a show?” Apple fanned her grinning cheeks.

“It’s a show put on by untrustworthy ring-hungries, that’s why.” Timblewon folded his arms and stood tall.

“Oh come, Mr. Timblewon. Let’s have a pinch of fun before we’re forced to endure more factory meetings,” Apple rolled her eyes and pranced toward the show.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Timbelwon muttered as he followed, but he smiled at Apple’s back. I barely caught the look before he recomposed his face.

Inside the show tent, spectators squeezed into rows of satin-coated bleachers, some eating bubblebaker treats, others chewing on white-pearl candies, and still others consuming dark green strings like licorice. The crowd cheered when a man with silver-streaked black hair spun his way onto the stage. Behind him, pure-white lions waited in gilded cages. A chandelier lowered from the ceiling, and I gaped at the four slender elf women draped across it, waving with glittering smiles. When the chandelier reached the stage, the elves climbed off and danced, claret skirts billowing.

“Welcome Rime Folk, wide and tall! Come inside and be enthralled!” The dark-haired man twirled back to centre stage, and Apple squealed down the row.

“I’m your ringmaster, Sigrion Mellstellie! And you’ve just entered a night of fascination, enchantment, and chaos!” the man went on, and the crowd roared. The ringmaster pulled a glass ball from his pocket and tossed it. The ball whipped around, soaring over the seats like a wingless bird. People reached to try and catch it from the air, but it darted left and right, evading everyone.

When the ringmaster lifted his hand, the ball came back, but his eyes stayed on the crowd. His gaze narrowed, head tilting slightly.

Down the row, Timblewon sprang to his feet. “No…” The Patrolman spun to the rest of us. “He knows.”

The ringmaster flicked his hand. We’d barely had a chance to register Timblewon’s warning when the boy gasped like something had hit him, and suddenly, Timblewon disappeared.

The crowd around us gasped and clapped, but Zane, Mirkra, and Wanda jumped from their seats, Mirkra jabbing the empty space where Timblewon had just been.

“Well, what a turn of events this is,” the ringmaster cooed. His fingers grappled at something in the air, and he tugged.

Suddenly Timblewon appeared on the stage, stumbling to catch his footing. His cloak was off, his disguise dissolved, his hair fuchsia.

“Frostbite!” Mirkra leapt over the row before us toward the stage, and Wanda tugged Kilen down the aisle by his sleeve to the exit.

“Time to go.” Zane took my arm and reached for Apple, but Timblewon held up his hand at the front, halting Mirkra halfway down the rows and stilling Zane’s grip on me.

The whole tent was quiet. Timblewon was still half hunched from catching himself, but he glanced up at the ringmaster.

“I thought I spotted tulip hair beneath that patchy disguise.” The ringmaster’s hand remained in the air; his fingers pinched together like they held a leash.

“Patchy?!” Apple whispered.

“What a merry trick,” Timblewon said, finally standing. “Smoke and mirrors, strings and stars…You always had flair, Sigrion.” For once, Timblewon’s voice wasn’t theatrical.

“That’s what the folk remember me for. Isn’t that right?” The man took a bow as people clapped again, likely assuming this was part of the show. “Same as your tulip locks. A folk like you can never hide. Not without real magic.” The ringmaster’s grin spread—too wide to be natural.

But Timblewon smiled and offered a shallow bow to the audience as well. When he came up, he lifted his hands at his sides. “I’m not you, Sigrion. I’m a good measure better.” Suddenly Timblewon yanked his hands together and disappeared into thin air.

The ringmaster’s brows furrowed. He spun once, his hand coming up to swipe at nothing.

A loud screech echoed through the tent and chatter lifted from the crowd as one of the white lion’s cage doors slid open. Then another, and all the rest followed. The ringmaster spun on his heel as the lions emerged, barring their teeth, growls rumbling through the tent.

Timblewon suddenly appeared back beside Apple, and Apple screamed. He slapped a hand over her mouth and pulled her down the row toward the exit. I was hot on his heels, Zane dancing backward down the aisle, casting his electric-eyed glare at the intrigued audience. Wanda fidgeted by the tent flap; I fell into step beside her, and we broke into the cold night, the coloured smoke gliding over us. I glanced back to find Zane waiting for Mirkra. Flowery security creatures rounded the path just as Mirkra burst from the flap; Zane grabbed his shoulder and pushed him down a different path than us.

Apple craned her neck toward me. “Hurry, friend!” she called. Kilen appeared from a tent across the pathway and walked parallel to our group.

A figure shifted at the edge of the path, mostly shadowed by a tall checkerboard tent. My heels skidded to a stop. The others didn’t notice—Timblewon led them around the snowy bend toward the field where we’d left Fred’s sleigh.

The figure crept from the shadow, and my breathing stilled. The firelights illuminated his white beard, his droopy eyelids, and his bright, golden irises.

“Helen!” I heard Zane somewhere at my back.

The man with the white beard glanced behind me toward Zane’s voice, then back to me. He raised his hand like the ringmaster had done, and he flicked his wrist.

It was so quick; I almost didn’t feel the tether wrap my waist. My body was sucked forward like I was speeding through a straw.

I vanished.