Chapter Four

 

 

 

Caroline woke up to a knock at her hatch door. Her blankets were tangled at her feet, and she was face down on her pillow. She probably had some amusing creases on her face.

But she also felt fucking fantastic.

As she pushed herself up, the dream didn’t drain away from her head and through her fingers like most did. Thank God for small favors. She’d file that one good and proper for future reference. She hadn’t just brought clothes and her tablet and phone. She’d stuffed her ‘personal massager’ in her bag, too. Caroline knew her priorities.

Caroline lifted her door just enough to indicate she was awake and to listen for a voice.

“Hi, Caroline. You haven’t met me yet, but I wanted to invite you to breakfast with the rest of us.”

The voice was female, so Caroline pushed the door all the way up then tugged her shirt down a little so that it covered her stomach. The shirt was still clean, as it should be, although her panties were a little uncomfortable—that wasn’t such a surprise.

The Bearded Lady peered down at her, already wearing her corset and a long, flowing skirt. Caroline never thought she’d feel anything other than pity for a woman with that much hair all over her body, but up close, Caroline found the woman actually quite…pretty. Maybe it had taken her a while to learn how to hold and dress herself to play up her feminine assets, to comb the hair so that it looked silky soft. She didn’t try to hide her hairy arms, legs, face and chest—they just were, and the woman carried herself as though to dare anyone to care when she didn’t.

Caroline still wanted to keep herself groomed and shave her legs—even more now than a few minutes ago, because her thighs rubbed against each other and the tiny bristles characteristic of mornings before a shower chafed against the skin. But she could respect someone like Kitty.

She bet the woman would slay wearing a bikini and sticking it to the rest of society.

“You’re Kitty, right?” Caroline said.

“That’s me. I’ve talked with Bell. He said to let you wear what you like today…within reason, of course, so not what you’re wearing now,” Kitty added with a smile. “But after we get on the road, I’ll start working on a few costumes for you with Sasha’s help. She’s our leather miracle worker. When we settle down again, I should be able to talk with you about what kind of image you want. The sky’s the limit, but I have a few ideas just looking at you.”

“And you probably know what you’re doing better than me,” Caroline said. “Do you manage everyone’s costumes?”

“Not everyone’s. Some of the cast prefer to take care of themselves. But I’m responsible for a good number, and I’ve been doing it for a while. Part of the reason I volunteered to invite you to breakfast was to get an idea of your measurements. I think we can probably retool some of Valorie’s original costumes instead of working from scratch.”

“Which one’s Valorie?”

“Our contortionist. She prefers catsuits, leotards, pants and things like that these days,” Kitty said. “She’s taller than you, but that just means we’d hem them up. What would you prefer? You’re not functioning as a performer, so you get some leeway.”

“I’d kind of prefer pants, but leather pants in summer seems like a mistake,” Caroline replied.

“You’d think so, but like I said, Sasha works miracles. They’re quite breathable. I just don’t wear the leather because it tends to rub my fur the wrong way,” Kitty said. The smile in Kitty’s eyes suggested she probably meant it in fun, although Caroline could see how leather and hairiness didn’t necessarily mix.

“I’ll let Sasha know you’ve commissioned some leather pants,” Kitty added.

“I’m okay with skirts and dresses, too, especially for summer. It’s not like anyone would be able to see up them when I’m in my chair anyway,” Caroline said. “I haven’t thought this far ahead. I mean, I hadn’t even planned to join the circus until yesterday.”

“Well, you’re handling it better than I did after my first circus audition,” Kitty said. “And you got in faster.”

“That’s…kind of weird.” What kind of world was this, where it was easier for un-unusual Caroline to join the circus than a woman who looked like a trendy werewolf?

Kitty laughed. “Bell’s kind of weird, but he must have liked you to snatch you up before you could get away. Want to walk to the big top with me? After putting on some pants, of course.”

“I don’t know. It’s only breakfast. I’m not used to getting dressed before breakfast,” Caroline joked.

“Well, I’m sure some of our people won’t mind the view,” Kitty said. “Sometimes Melanie’s completely naked during breakfast.”

“Which one’s Melanie?”

“The mermaid,” Kitty replied.

“If I was in the water all the time getting all pruny, I’d probably come in naked too. Let me find some pants. I think I’ll take a shower before breakfast, though.”

Kitty crouched at the entrance and peered in while she gathered the things she’d need.

“There’s a shower in there? A very creatively designed shower?” Kitty asked.

“Mr. Madoc said I could use his, as long as it wasn’t, ah, conspicuously occupied.”

Kitty gave a loud laugh. “That’s a new one. Their shower is a little bigger than mine, but how about you just use mine from now on? I don’t use my trailer for much, other than for travel and for my own body care, so it’s much less likely to be ‘conspicuously occupied’ when you feel the need to smell floral. I’ll walk you to the trailer then.”

“Thanks, ma’am.”

“I realize we’re in the South, but if you ‘ma’am’ me again, I’ll spank you like a red-headed stepchild. My name is Kitty. Or ‘that fuzzy lady’. Anything but ‘ma’am’. I don’t need help feeling old.”

Caroline giggled all the way up to the carousel platform. If everyone was like Kitty, she thought living in Arcanium might not be bad at all.

 

* * * *

 

Caroline couldn’t find a blow dryer in the bathroom, so she just squeezed the water out of her hair and let it dry naturally. When Caroline walked out, Kitty was waiting for her in her living area, which also mingled seamlessly with the bedroom and kitchen.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Caroline said. “I’m pretty sure I can figure out where the big top is. It’s that big canvas thing in the middle, right?”

Kitty ruffled her hair. “Don’t be a smartass. I know it’s hard for the new members to adjust, so I want you to know I’m available if you need me. I don’t do performances. I mostly just sit pretty in my Oddity Row tent during viewing hours, so I’m often free when other people are busy. I have an open door policy until about midnight. Unlike most of our fellow cast, I’m less likely to make anything rock around here. I prefer to keep my encounters outside the circus. Yes, Caroline, I have sex and plenty of it when I want it,” Kitty said.

Caroline probably could have been more tactful with her incredulous double-take. She was ashamed that it had been seen.

It made her even more ashamed when she realized Kitty probably dealt with that incredulity from almost everyone who heard she had a sex life. Caroline’s feet weighed heavy in their sandals as they left Kitty’s trailer.

“Having sex where you work becomes…complicated,” Kitty continued as though Caroline wasn’t avoiding eye contact, tacit forgiveness. She didn’t sound aggravated, just a tad ginger. “However, just a friendly warning, I seem to be a minority in the circus when it comes to separating work and play.”

“Good to know,” Caroline said. “Looking forward to the awkwardness.”

“Most of them have no formal boundaries on the matter. All you’ll have to do is turn around and walk away and it won’t be awkward, unless you’re the one feeling awkward, which they’ll see as your problem, not theirs,” Kitty said.

“I grew up around theater geeks,” Caroline said. “I have a bulk supply of brain bleach and know how to make a surreptitious exit. I’ll survive.”

“That’s the spirit,” Kitty said, leading her in the entrance of the big top. They walked through the ring to the red curtain for backstage access.

“You know, you’ve been very quiet. I expected more questions,” Kitty said.

“I haven’t formed a list yet. I get the gist of what I’m supposed to be doing, since the carousel isn’t that complicated,” Caroline said.

Kitty held the curtain open for her. Caroline ducked under the velvet, the scent of sausage and eggs hitting her all at once.

“No, I mean about—” Kitty began.

Caroline waved to Maya, who sat with Madoc and Valorie and one of the tumblers.

Behind them, a large aquarium was filled with water, like one an escape artist would use. The mermaid had propped herself over the edge to eat her breakfast in a large tortilla, presumably since a plate would be hard to balance while swimming.

Caroline paused. Some people were really into method acting, but she didn’t think spending all one’s time in water with a mermaid tail around one’s legs was healthy. Did she sleep in that thing too?

Caroline left that curiosity for now and took a better and closer look at the cast, more casual outside the context of their circus personas.

The Ringmaster was nowhere to be seen, but she caught sight of the clowns standing in the shadows farther backstage, not eating, just interacting with each other so quietly that she couldn’t hear them.

At another table, Lady Sasha and Lord Mikhail sat with the Lizard Man. On the other side of that table, the short man chattered and the tall man listened. The Rotting Man sat at a table alone across from the Tattooed Man, the sword swallower, the two Human Torsos and the conjoined twins. The female Human Torso had a contraption on the stump of her arm that connected to a spoon so that she could feed herself. Caroline thought it was pretty ingenious.

At another table, the fire-eater, a black man with burn scars around his mouth and hands and some of his arms, ate with the Cyclops. They were hunched over their separate table, keeping their heads down. In the back, near the clowns, there were two attached cages, one with a naked woman and another with a naked man.

“Um…”

Those weren’t oddities. They were people. Naked people in cages.

She looked over her shoulder at Kitty. “Do I want to know?” If this was some kind of sex game, Caroline didn’t want to say anything wrong, because of the aforementioned lack of boundaries she’d been warned about.

“Caroline, did Bell tell you what this circus is?” Kitty asked, her prodigious eyebrows drawing together where they already connected over the bridge of her nose.

“I don’t understand,” Caroline said. “Besides a circus and quasi-carnival?”

“Sweet fancy Moses, he didn’t. Wonderful,” Kitty said, rubbing her forehead. “Bell,” she added more loudly, “you have to stop doing this.”

“Doing what?” Madoc asked, looking up from his meal, an innocent smile out of place on his face.

“You know what I’m talking about. Don’t play coy with me,” Kitty said. She rested a hand on the small of Caroline’s back to lead her to Madoc’s table.

Maybe Kitty believed she was being subtle about guiding Caroline around the tables instead of going between them, which would be quicker. Was Kitty afraid that the sword swallower would stab Caroline or that the Lizard Man would bite her if she got too close?

Maya set her fork down. “Wait, you did the thing to her that you did to me? You didn’t tell her?”

Madoc’s lips twitched, the smile becoming less innocent, but it wasn’t malicious either. “All things in their time, Maya. You should know better.”

“You just liked watching me run around and squeak like a rat in a cage,” Maya retorted. “Do you do that to everyone? Is it some kind of hazing ritual to see the priceless looks on our faces?”

“I can understand you not telling Maya,” Kitty said. “But the least you could do is show some courtesy to someone who voluntarily joined the family.”

“Courtesy,” Madoc said, rolling his tongue around the word as though it was unfamiliar. “What exactly do you take me for?”

“What was the game here?” Kitty asked. “Look at her, Bell. What did you want to happen to her before you gave the big reveal?”

Caroline stepped away from Kitty’s comforting hand, maternal though it was. She didn’t need a mother right now. With all the crypticisms volleying back and forth between the veteran members of Arcanium, she just wanted answers. She’d thought her work here was pretty straightforward, but if she had to do anything illegal, she was going to be out of here so fast, she’d leave a dust cloud.

“This isn’t a front for a crime syndicate or drug cartel, right?” Caroline asked. Because she was pretty sure that would be worse than stripping. “Oh God, tell me it’s not a human trafficking ring.”

“Absolutely not,” Madoc replied. “Arcanium is my circus, pure and simple.”

“Hardly pure, Bell,” Maya said.

“There is purity in what I do,” Madoc said.

“If you’re so proud of it, then tell Caroline. You owe her that much for making her wish into the circus for your amusement,” Kitty said.

“I didn’t make her wish anything,” Madoc said.

“You may not have forced a wish out of her, but damn it, Bell, she wouldn’t be here if she didn’t wish it or if you hadn’t nudged a wish out of her. What do you want from her?” Kitty asked.

“Maybe I’m getting exactly what I want right at this moment, with the two of you yelling at me. Caroline’s taking it much better than you.”

“She’s taking it better than us because she doesn’t know the shit she’s gotten into,” Maya said, swallowing back what seemed like the early stirrings of anger, but her more shaped eyebrows were still just as drawn as Kitty’s. “Kitty’s right. You owe it to her, especially as a voluntary, to tell her what’s going on.”

“I don’t know,” Caroline said in annoyance. “I was kind of enjoying the guessing game. How bad can it be if the circus isn’t concealing crime?”

“Well, crime is relative,” Maya said.

“I’m pretty sure it’s not,” Caroline said.

“You’d be surprised,” Maya replied dryly. “You know what? I need some air.” She grabbed her plate and left out the back without a glance at Madoc.

He followed her exit with his gaze, his expression placid, but it also held that same guarded quality that Caroline had observed before.

Maya avoided the clowns on her way out, walking deliberately around them—which was another strange thing to do. The clowns were creepy, sure, but it probably wasn’t a good idea for Maya to live in a circus if she had clown phobia.

“Do I want to know?” Caroline repeated to Kitty.

“No. Maya knows what she’s in bed with, but that doesn’t mean she always has to like it,” Kitty said quietly.

They’d already established Madoc wasn’t a crime boss or a pimp. Was there something worse?

“And what’s the deal about wishes, my wishes, forcing wishes? I mean, yeah, it sounded kind of formal when he asked whether I wished to do what I’d already agreed to do. What, is he some kind of genie?” Caroline asked, laughing a little. There was nothing funny about it, but this whole conversation was unbelievable. No one was actually saying anything. She would ask a straightforward question if she had even the remotest idea of what to ask in order to get an equally straightforward answer.

No one was laughing with her. Madoc’s unruffled expression remained inscrutable. Kitty crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him.

Well, it might not be worse than joining a gang, but now Caroline wondered whether she’d joined a bunch of crazy people. Artistic types could be eccentric. But did they really believe their mild-mannered boss was some mystical genie figure?

“You’re serious,” Caroline said, staring between everyone, most of whom had stopped what they were doing to watch. “Next thing you’ll tell me that the mermaid is an actual, honest-to-goodness mermaid. I know a sucker’s born every minute, but I’m not one of them, okay? Initiation is over. I didn’t have the patience for sorority pledging, and this joke has played itself out.”

“For the love of…” The tumbler sitting in front of the mermaid tossed his fork down. Then he vaulted onto the table. His boots shook the faux wood and creaked the folding hinges as he crouched before her. “Arcanium’s a circus run by demons, and if you don’t believe it, crumpet, sorry to burst your cynical bubble.”

His British accent was rough, but it didn’t hurt to hear it. She’d always liked British and Australian accents.

The tumbler was a good-looking man, even crouched like a gargoyle on the edge of the table, staring into her eyes. His were bright blue, so bright she thought they might be contacts. His long black hair brushed his shoulders, setting off the pointed bone structure of his pale face. His arms were ropy and strong. When he smiled, there were too many straight, white teeth.

Then those teeth went sharp. Before her eyes, the ends extended and narrowed to jagged, serrated, interlocked points, like a cross between a wolf and a shark. His skin shifted in a shimmer to a sickly greenish-yellow, and that pretty black hair clumped together to form tentacles that draped over his shoulders like resting snakes.

“This is no illusion, love, no magic trick—just plain magic, and the sooner you accept it, the sooner we can all go back to our breakfast without all this infernal yelling.” The tumbler curled his claw-tipped finger and pushed Caroline’s open mouth closed. “The humans here always seem to get their dander up every time one of us demons acts like ourselves, as though they forget what we are when we wear our human faces. You’re young, but if you’re smart, you won’t forget like they do.”

If Caroline’s mouth had still been open, she would have been soundlessly trying to form words, but she couldn’t seem to make her jaw work at all.

“I’m not mad at demons being demons or jinn being jinn,” Kitty said. “But if you’re going to work with humans as equals when they’re voluntary, I don’t think I’m asking much that we be shown a little respect.”

“We don’t eat or torture you,” the tumbler said, shrugging. “Bell doesn’t allow it, for whatever bewildering reason knocking about his jinnish skull. What more do you want of us? So don’t flinch, cream puff,” he added. He ran the smooth side of that black claw over Caroline’s cheek.

She stiffened but didn’t have the presence of mind to flinch—still sure in her numb way that the punchline was coming any second.

“Besides, Lennon doesn’t eat people anyway,” Valorie added, sounding bored. “So don’t let him intimidate you. He’s got scary-looking chompers, and they’d probably tear a good hole in you, but he has no taste for human flesh.”

“As though I haven’t proven you wrong a hundred times before, love,” Lennon said, his shark grin widening farther than a human grin could reach as he turned his electric blue attention to where Valorie was still eating her breakfast.

“I don’t think the new girl is interested in your innuendo,” Valorie replied.

“It’s like I need Cliff’s Notes to understand what anyone’s saying,” Caroline said. “Demons, jinn, wishes, eating people… What the fuck, dude?”

She backed away. Not necessarily out of fear, but because if she stayed where she was, she might start poking and prodding at Lennon to make sure he was real and not a figment of her psychotic imagination. The more she backed away, the more the cast exposed themselves for what they were.

The tall man and the short man showed their own sharp teeth—different from Lennon’s, but just as sharp. Their eyes inked black to the edges.

Lady Sasha and Mikhail’s eyes were red as blood moons. If they hadn’t been so close to the tall and short man, she might not have even realized they weren’t human, since the rest of their bodies looked relatively normal, if unusually perfect.

And now the Lizard Man’s teeth, skin and alligator eyes made sense. He glared at her as he proceeded to eat his eggs raw, shell and all. If she wasn’t mistaken, there was also a dead mouse on his plate.

“All of you?” Caroline asked, still backing away until she hit a wooden crate. Then she started toward the curtain.

“Not all of us,” Kitty said. She approached Caroline the way a person might approach a feral kitten, afraid she was going to bolt at any second. “I’m not a demon, Caroline. Neither is Maya or Valorie. Most of us are human, actually. Lennon wasn’t exactly clear. Not all the demons run Arcanium. Arcanium is Bell’s baby, and he’s jinn, not demon. The Ringmaster is, though. He’s responsible for certain aspects of the circus as well. But you probably won’t deal with him much, so don’t you worry about him. Or the clowns. Or Lord Mikhail and Lady Sasha.”

“The clowns…” Caroline said weakly. She didn’t know why her legs weren’t holding her up as steadily as they should be. After all, none of this was real. She was still dreaming, as vivid a dream as she’d had earlier. Something she’d eaten—maybe all that fried food she wasn’t supposed to have.

“Well, Lord Mikhail and Lady Sasha will have an effect on you, since they’re incubus and succubus, but they can’t help that. You’re a part of Arcanium now, though, and that means you’re untouchable,” Kitty assured her. “None of them can hurt you.”

“Don’t be so hasty,” Lennon said. He swung his legs down so that he was sitting on the edge of the table, his feet on the bench. “No need to make us into harmless puppies.”

“I’m with Lennon. She’s still got to watch out for the Ringmaster—and for Bell,” Valorie said. “Not the way outsiders have to, but still…”

“You know what? This is crazy. You’re all crazy. And I’m not going to let you drag me down into the crazy with you,” Caroline said, holding up her hands defensively. “Clearly, my decision to run away and join the circus has become one of those cautionary tales. I’m just going to leave now.”

“You can’t leave, Caroline,” Madoc called after her as she pushed through the curtain.

She ran through the circus ring and out of the big top, closing her eyes against the sun. Even though it was already incredibly hot and beating down on her like a cudgel, it was an odd relief that the sun still shone. It had been dark backstage, as backstages tended to be. The more she ran, heading toward the carousel to grab her stuff, the less anything in the dark seemed possible—and the crazier the circus folk became, from Madoc himself to Kitty. She couldn’t believe she’d thought Kitty was a nice, safe person.

Either they were lying or nuts. No matter which one was true, these people were neither nice nor safe. She couldn’t go home, not after sending that email to her dad, but she certainly couldn’t stay here.

The carousel was moving when she ran around the big top, and as it rotated toward her, she stopped in her tracks. Madoc was riding the spider sidesaddle, relaxed, not winded at all, although he had to have run to get there before her.

“I told you, Caroline, you can’t leave,” he said.

Screw her stuff. She could call the police as soon as she found someone with a cell phone or a landline, and they could get it from him. There was nothing in that carousel that was worth her life.

Caroline spun around and sprinted toward the gate. She didn’t know whether it was still locked, but if so, the scrollwork was climbable. Or she could find somewhere to hide until people arrived so she could leave in a group, in public, so no one could make a scene.

She reeled back.

No way. No fucking way. Impossible.

Madoc leaned against one of the gate doors, one leg crossed over the other. The other side was open. The padlock dangled from his fingers.

“I am what Kitty said I am,” Madoc said. “You must forgive me. Like most of my kind, I have a bit of a mischievous streak. I like you, Caroline, I really do. I never would have entrusted my carousel to your care if I didn’t.”

“I have to go,” Caroline said. “Look, I’ll just walk away. You don’t have to pay me or anything. You can shred the contract. We can pretend it never happened.”

Madoc gestured out of the open gate door. “You can leave. But you’ll have to come back before two.”

“No, you don’t understand, I’m not—”

“It’s not the paper contract, my dear,” Madoc said. “If it were just the paper contract, it would be as easy as you say. A paper shredder and enforced silence, no one the wiser of the promise broken. But it was the paper contract that was the sham of a formality. You promised yourself to Arcanium and the carousel for a year.”

“With a wish? Look, just because you’re certifiable doesn’t mean—”

“When you were seven,” he interrupted, “you asked for a kitten for Christmas. Instead, you got a betta fish and a cat stuffed animal, and you cried in your room for over thirty minutes. You couldn’t understand yet what it meant for your mother to be allergic to cats.”

“How did you— How could you know that?”

“Your father thinks you probably lost your virginity to your boyfriend from freshman year in college, but you hope he never figures out you had your first awkward but nice encounter a few weeks after your sixteenth birthday.”

“Stop.”

“You tried cocaine with your friend Lisa and her boyfriend, Paul. You had such a bad experience that you still haven’t spoken to either of them, because they assured you it was fun.”

“Stop.”

Caroline didn’t know how he knew these things, because these things were impossible for him to know. It was conceivable, although unlikely, that he could have figured out one of them—she’d mentioned the cat story on a Facebook post a few years ago. But it was impossible for him to have learned about all of them.

The open half of the gate slammed closed. She couldn’t blame a gust of wind. She supposed that he could have attached a near invisible string to the iron and triggered some mechanism to pull it closed. But he would have had to rig it up, and he’d had even less time to do that than to get there as fast as he had.

“I’m not locking it, because you can still leave, as long as you come back in time to fulfill your duty to Arcanium,” Madoc said. “I am standing between you and the gate, however, because the only reason you want to leave right now is to run. Maya learned the hard way not to run, and I let her. It was the only way she would learn.

“But you’re not like Maya, and you don’t have the same restrictions she had. She was wished into Arcanium against her will. She couldn’t step over the boundary of the circus or try to escape during travel without excruciating pain, followed by the Ringmaster’s punishment. You wouldn’t experience the pain if you tried to run, because you’re here of your own will.

“But you don’t want the Ringmaster to track you down and drag you back for his punishment, not least because he will be angry he had to retrieve you. His punishments are severe enough when he is simply doing what he enjoys doing. Piss him off…?” Madoc clicked his tongue. “Our voluntary humans don’t have many opportunities to be punished, but when they are, it’s never good.”

“What kind of punishment?” Caroline asked.

“The Ringmaster is partial to his whip,” Madoc replied. He pushed off from the gate and slowly stepped toward her. “I think you’re the kind of girl who doesn’t want or need to be punished in order to avoid doing things you shouldn’t. So, are you going to run from me? Because the Ringmaster will find you. A demon knows how to find his prey.”

“And if I hide in a church?” Caroline asked.

“For the rest of your life?” Madoc asked in return. “Even if a church lets you stay within its walls after it closes, you’ll find that the walls of sacred ground do not deter us. We work within the balance, not against it.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” she said.

“You don’t have to.”

“I can’t believe I’m even saying this. I must be losing my mind too. But if wishing got me in here, can’t I just wish myself out?”

“All you have to do is ask some of the other humans of Arcanium. They will tell you that is a very bad idea. There are some circumstances under which I would allow it. But leaving impulsively out of fear before you’ve even begun to grant my circus your service…”

Madoc was close enough to her now to brush her hair away from her face where it had fallen against her forehead and cheeks after she’d stopped running. “I can guarantee you that your wish will not go the way you want it to.”

“It’s true,” Maya said, walking up behind her. “Don’t wish to leave just because you’re scared. And don’t wish to lose weight.”

“Did you wish those things?” Caroline asked.

“No. But there’s a wish I made when I shouldn’t have.”

“If you say so, golam,” Madoc said.

Maya went on as though Madoc hadn’t spoken, “And wishing to lose weight just pisses him off. He hears it day in and day out, and he’s not likely to grant it well.”

“So the Human Skeleton…?” Caroline asked.

“I thought the same thing,” Maya said. “But she’s a voluntary oddity. No, Christina’s the one here who was unlucky enough to wish to lose weight in front of Bell.”

“Which one is Christina?”

“The Human Torso.”

“Oh my God,” Caroline gasped, stumbling back. “You mean he lopped off…?”

“My reasons are my own,” Madoc interrupted. “Arcanium has many purposes. It will not be a hell for you just because some of our oddities and performers are demons and I am jinn. Especially for you, because your will brought you here, not your error. Don’t make that grave error so soon by trying to escape when you promised me a year.”

“Come on,” Maya said, putting a hand on Caroline’s shoulder. “Things will look better when you get some food in you. You can meet some of the people who are a part of Arcanium. Even the ones who aren’t here on purpose, they may not agree with Bell’s granting of their accidental wish, but many of them have found a way to make the best of this life. It’ll help that you have freedom that some of them don’t.”

“And an expiration date to your service,” Madoc added. “I was generous, Caroline. Never forget that I was generous.”

Maya gave him a peculiar look. He shook his head in response to her unspoken question, kissing Maya’s forehead.

“Will you come?” Maya asked gently. “It’s going to be okay. I’m not going to tell you there’s nothing to be afraid of. Kitty didn’t put that really well, but then most of the demons like her as much as the rest of us do, so she’s at the least risk. But most of the things that you’re afraid of right now, those you don’t have to be afraid of. It doesn’t have to be bad just because some of us are sometimes dark. Give us a chance.”

“Do I have a choice?” Caroline asked Madoc.

“You always have a choice, my dear,” Madoc said. “All those choices have consequences.”

Caroline gazed at the gate, closed but unlocked. She didn’t think Madoc or Maya would stop her. She could get a head start.

Then she remembered the dangerous emptiness in the Ringmaster’s expression and the fire behind the steel traps of his dark eyes. If she never had to see his eyes again, it would be too soon. In the ring, he had clutched the whip in his hand the whole performance. It had been more of an accessory at the time. He hadn’t used it against anyone. But his grip had molded to the handle as though it had been made for him.

She thought of that emptiness and replaced it with anger, his powerful body driving the whip over her naked back.

Caroline lowered her head, but she let Madoc and Maya take her away. She didn’t scream for help. Nor did her appetite suffer.