Chapter Four

 

 

 

The next day, Elizabeth stayed in her small RV. Bell didn’t disturb her, but though she’d locked her door, Kitty somehow managed to open it to leave her food.

“You missed breakfast. I didn’t know if you’d be hungry.”

Elizabeth sat on the small couch in the living area, looking the other way, a new black robe wrapped around her. She had to hold it, because she’d tied the robe’s belt around her waist to bind down her secondary arms. They tended to twitch and flail whenever she moved her prime arms. Her secondary legs had the same problem, but their weight kept them from getting in the way.

The robe had been the only piece of clothing in the entire RV, not so much as a pair of leggings or a T-shirt left over from a previous tenant. She supposed shopping for an eight-limbed person wasn’t easy, but after ten years of completely covering herself, wearing a robe she couldn’t even close still felt naked, and if Bell could make her a spider, she knew he could have made her some clothes to go with it.

“Do you want me to bring dinner?”

Elizabeth still didn’t acknowledge her. Sitting on the small couch should have been a simple process, but her hips kept snapping forward. Not sliding off the cheap material while Kitty was in her vehicle took all of Elizabeth’s concentration. Whatever Bell had done to her, something was wrong at the base of her spine, and she had to use more of her back and abdominal muscles to adjust for the change. She’d been avoiding a proper examination, because that would mean admitting to herself that Bell hadn’t just attached limbs to her like some crazy science experiment. He might have changed the very foundation of her anatomy, and unlike spare limbs, that couldn’t be fixed.

“Do you want to talk?”

“No.” It was the only acknowledgment Elizabeth was prepared to offer.

“Okay. I’ll be back with dinner. We’re leaving tonight.”

Elizabeth waited until Kitty was gone before taking the lunch she’d left behind. Her stomach was still queasy, but growing limbs was hungry work. Though Elizabeth ate everything on the plate, she saw none of it, tasted none of it, didn’t care what it was or whether it would make her sick.

By now, the Bishops would have started worrying. The Wu daughters weren’t a flaky breed. They might excuse one day of absence, one day where a phone call couldn’t find her. But the fact was, she hadn’t been there on Sunday morning to take care of the baby, take the children to church or arrange for their afternoon activities, and she hadn’t been there when the Bishop parents had returned from their business trip, nor had she arranged for a temporary replacement. And that just wasn’t like her.

They’d probably contacted Charity, who would have already written off her eldest. Failing to raise one out of seven daughters well was still a decent success rate, and bad blood could always be expected to go rotten in the end. Bell hadn’t been wrong about that. Elizabeth doubted her family or community would look too hard for her.

Mr. and Mrs. Bishop would probably do most of the worrying, but once they opened Elizabeth’s locked door and started searching for clues, they’d find the whiskey. She was never going to be accepted back as the Bishops’ nanny. Even if Bell hadn’t made her a freak, he could let her out today and have effectively ruined her life.

Elizabeth wrapped the robe more closely around her to avoid looking at the ink on her skin the way she had all these years. She didn’t think she was going to be able to do that much longer.

 

* * * *

 

When they arrived at their new destination the next morning, Elizabeth didn’t bother asking the random woman driving her RV where they were. It didn’t matter. From what she could see through the blinds, the plot of land looked the same as the one they’d left. More trees on the edges but more or less the same.

She could tell by a glance out of the window who would be considered cast and who would be considered staff. The cast was far more colorful, in demeanor as well as clothing. The staff, on the other hand, were dressed in plain black like stage crew, and they didn’t talk, not to cast or to each other. They didn’t emote or listen to music or whistle while they worked. As it was, the circus was up and ready in less than three hours, big top to oddity tents. It was the height of efficiency and just a little too convenient. The staff looked the most human, but they acted more like robots or androids, though Elizabeth doubted Bell would mess with electronics when he could mess with human dolls instead.

It was starting to sink in. Strange, how easily she could start believing in the impossible, how possible it became when it was right in front of her, dusty and worn instead of too shiny to be true.

Accepting a magical explanation, though, didn’t exactly settle her mind.

Someone knocked on her RV door then opened it. Kitty climbed the steps to the living area, carrying a black plastic garment bag over her shoulder.

“Hey, the perimeter’s set up, so you’re good to come out and look around, maybe grab a bite to eat from the big top. I’m not supposed to bring you any more food, but the golems are exceptionally good at breakfast burritos.” Kitty peered down the narrow aisle to where Elizabeth sat on her bed to look out of her window. If she tucked her legs up at her sides, it was easier to sit on her bed than on the couch.

“This is a ridiculous question, I know, but all things considered, Elizabeth, are you okay?” Kitty took in the rumpled bed, the book by her pillow, the otherwise clean space. “It doesn’t look like you’ve been crying.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m okay.”

“I just didn’t notice any tissues anywhere,” Kitty said.

“Look…I’m here. I can’t do anything about it. If I was going to have a breakdown, I would have had it already, but here I am, still frustratingly sane. You don’t have to keep checking on me or pretending to care.”

Kitty sat on the edge of the bed, draping the bag next to her. “I do care. This is what I do. I care for the people he brings into the circus. It’s always hard at the beginning. When Joanne and Jane arrived, they didn’t leave their RV or tent for six months. Christina barely spoke for a year.”

“Then why did he only give me a week?” Elizabeth asked.

“He must think you only need a week.”

“How long did it take you?”

“It’s different for people like me.”

“You mean demons?”

Kitty smiled. Elizabeth didn’t smile back. “I’m not a demon. I’m as human as you are. I wished myself into Arcanium on purpose. Now, I’ve brought some of the costumes Bell wants you to wear. You can dress for the circus here or in the back of my oddity tent, where you’ll usually find me. Obviously, I won’t have to do anything with your hair, but I keep all the makeup in there, so if you want to meet with me this week to discuss how you want me to do your face—”

“I’ll do it,” Elizabeth said. “I know how the bastard wants me to look. Why would you do that?”

“Do what?

“Join Arcanium on purpose.”

“It was the best freak show in a world where freak shows are dying—for some good reasons and some bad ones,” Kitty said. “When you look like me, sweetie, there’s not much else you can do. Sandra, our Skeleton, came in on her own, too. Caroline, the carousel engineer, joined us over a year ago. Victor, the man made of stone, joined a little after. Of course, none of us knew it’s a demonic circus until we were already a part of it.”

“But you stay a part of it even after you know. And you help him.” Elizabeth turned away from her again. Kitty was as friendly now as when she’d just been another sideshow. But it didn’t matter if the locals were demons, monsters or humans with an unhealthy attachment to a damned circus. As far as she was concerned, they were all complicit.

“I’m the human who’s been here the longest, so I’m the one Bell usually has welcoming unwitting humans into the fold. Elizabeth, I’ve had my share of coldness and hatred directed at me. You don’t have to like me or any of the others. All you have to know is that none of us will hurt you, and I do my best to be there for everyone when being a psychic still doesn’t make Bell understand what it’s like to be human.”

Elizabeth gripped the blinds so tightly that they bent and snapped under her fist. “This isn’t my first rodeo, all right? I know how this works. I’ll come out if he insists. I’ll look the way he wants me to look. I’ll wear whatever sick joke you have in that bag. I’ll go to the Tattooed Man to have these blank spaces filled in, just like he told me to do. But I don’t want your help. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“Okay,” Kitty said softly, standing. She paused before leaving. “Troy will be available for you later today in his trailer. He said to look for the one with the tramp stamp.”

Elizabeth could probably have hidden in the RV forever, but she didn’t like it in there. The walls were too damn close. Everything was too brown and smelled faintly of wood polish, as though it was old and new at the same time.

As she stepped out of the vehicle, winter hit her like a wall, but her body didn’t react to the chill the way she’d expected it to. She felt the cold, but it stayed on the surface rather than seeping into her like it had during the storm. If she had to walk around barefoot in a robe that no longer had its belt, with nothing to cover her bare head, she decided it was the least Bell could do for her—literally, the very least, but she’d take it.

On the way to the big top tent, the cast sent her a few curious glances, but when she avoided their gazes and made no move to join them, they maintained a respectful distance. Those who entered the big top before her walked through the ring to the red velvet curtain that led backstage. She followed.

Picnic tables lined the generous backstage area. The cast were all gathered, some together and some alone, on the benches. Staff served scrambled eggs and sausage in tortillas. Kitty had called them golems. That made more sense to Elizabeth than androids.

One of the conjoined twins beckoned to her as she left the food line. “Hey, new girl. The oddly limbed sit over here. And may I say, you learned how to walk with extra legs much faster than I did. I guess it’s easier when there’s only one mind telling them where to go.”

Elizabeth turned away, but there weren’t many other places to sit where she’d have enough room to qualify as ‘eating alone’. The few people who were eating alone weren’t the kind of people she wanted to sit with. Like the Rotting Man, who still seeped and who everyone else apparently avoided as well. Or the Cyclops, whose giant eye over his squashed nose was just a little too big, as though it would explode like one of the Rotting Man’s boils at any moment.

Then there were the groups that were so clearly demonic that she wouldn’t sit with them if they paid her.

She didn’t want to go back to her RV, but she was still absolutely sure she didn’t want anything to do with the humans of Arcanium either—these people who somehow found it in them to smile and laugh despite where they were.

Instead of sitting with anyone, she edged around the crowd and ate standing in the shadows next to a giant pile of crates.

“Hey, what are you doing all the way out here?” Maya wore a long peasant skirt and skin-tight shirt without a bra underneath, neither of which were appropriate for the weather. Making cast members impervious to winter cold as well as summer heat was probably useful for an all-weather circus. “Joanne, Jane and Christina said they were going to talk with you over brunch. I thought you’d want to hang out with people who had to go through similar adjustments. It’s better to get through this with other people.”

“You wouldn’t know. He didn’t do anything to you.” Bad as the rest were, Elizabeth had even less interest in entertaining the lucky ones who Bell hadn’t twisted like clay.

“Of course he did something to me. You think I was able to walk on a high-wire or tightrope before he got his hands on me?”

“How terrifying,” Elizabeth replied dryly.

“It was terrifying. Not the high-wire part, but all the rest.”

Still looking away from Maya, Elizabeth spoke without emotion. “Let me be perfectly clear. I’m not interested in making friends. I’m not interested in talking with other people Bell made like me. And I’m certainly not interested in a little girl telling me how awful it was to be stolen by the devil himself and treated like a princess in return for being his whore.”

The strike against her ear rang through Elizabeth’s skull. The girl was small, but there was darkness in her eyes that could have been demonic.

Elizabeth brought her hand to the side of her head against the unexpected pain. “I thought no one could hurt anyone else.”

Maya laughed, a sound like throwing knives. “A slap, a scratch, a punch… That’s nothing. In a claustrophobic place like this, Bell doesn’t concern himself with those unless it’s in view of guests or if it leaves marks. Now, if anyone tries to kill you and it looks like they really might succeed, he’ll step in. Or he’ll just watch and spontaneously give you tightrope-walking skills so you can escape the psycho with the knife. If you’re really lucky, you might end up friends with said psycho after she gets better. The point being, ‘harm’ is a word open to interpretation. Sometimes Bell gets off on the conflict.”

“What an angel,” Elizabeth said, finally turning around to face her.

“No one ever said he’s an angel, least of all him. But don’t you dare think you know anything about me or any of the others. Don’t you dare think I have it easy just because Bell decided to keep me out of the freak show. And don’t you dare call me his whore, because I guaran-fucking-tee you, you’re going to end up sleeping with someone you didn’t expect, too, when the incubus and succubus really pour their magic out over the entire circus. What? You didn’t think Arcanium got by on rustic charm alone, did you?”

Maya didn’t seem to be the least intimidated by Elizabeth’s strangeness, nor her height—not the way she’d sometimes used it against the Bishop kids. Maya was young but she wasn’t a child, and Elizabeth was well aware from her own sisters that shorter girls sometimes compensated.

“He pulled me in, took me from my family, cut me off from my life, just like all the others. Then he pursued me. And when he sees something he wants… Believe me, loving him doesn’t do me any favors, sweetheart.”

Disgust curled Elizabeth’s lip. “If you think that’s love—”

“What would you know about it? Last I checked, you were covering yourself head to toe and getting your kicks from another person’s family.” Maya shoved her, advancing fast enough to surprise Elizabeth, who stumbled over her extra legs onto a picnic bench. Maya wasn’t much taller that way either, but she had a way of gathering intensity. Perhaps she’d learned a thing or two from the jinni, like using truth as a weapon.

“But hey, Bell likes playing with broken toys, and you are new. Everyone has their own adjustment period. You can be scared, quiet, angry… Hell, you can be as mean as you want. But don’t expect the rest of us to just take it. We’ve all paid our weight in flesh and blood. What you’re going through isn’t anything special. Usually there aren’t enough fucks in the world for me to give when it comes to scared women tossing ‘whore’ at me because I’m convenient, but you’re one of the ones who seems to mean it, and I don’t fucking appreciate it.”

Elizabeth pushed herself to her feet once more and braced herself against the table in case Maya decided to shove her down again. “I didn’t call you that because I’m the shriveled-up, prudish, resentful spinster you think I am, who’ll melt as soon as some big, strong man gets his hands on me. Been there, done that, not impressed anymore. All of you know what he is, but you’re still with him, his lovely assistant. How many have walked through his circus, into his little fortune teller tent, and made wishes with you right there, helping them express their deepest, darkest desires, or perhaps just a weary dream? You were right there with my kids. What if they’d been the ones to wish? What if Todd had wished for a snake of his own? What if Sharona had wished her baby sister could just disappear? What would he have made of the wishes of innocent children? And what would you have done about it?”

Elizabeth took Maya’s face in her hands with more scorn than compassion. Maya shook her off, but she didn’t retaliate this time.

“That’s right. You would have done nothing. You’ll slip into his bed and play circus queen, but God forbid you use your position to stop him, even just a little.”

“God doesn’t live here.” Tension vibrated under Maya’s skin, clenched through her jaw, her fists. The darkness in her eyes remained, but the frustration she kept blinking back made her seem much more human. “And you try undermining a psychic. Just try. The truth is hardly as black and white as you make it. You’ll taste the gray here eventually. We all do. He’s more than the evil he does.”

“No, he isn’t. That’s not the way evil works, sweetheart.”

“Don’t act so damn condescending. I do my acts of contrition daily. Good doesn’t erase the evil, but evil doesn’t erase the good either. I see more of both than most. You’ve barely had a glimpse, Spider.”

Maya stepped closer to her again, her skirt brushing Elizabeth’s legs. She glanced down over the glimpses of ink the robe didn’t cover, gaze lighting briefly on Elizabeth’s lips—long enough for her to question the breadth of Maya’s tastes.

“Let me give you a few pieces of advice, one sinner to another. Don’t judge till you’ve been here more than a few days, till the spells sink all the way in. Do right by Bell’s circus, and he’ll do right by you. Most of all, allies are what’s going to get you by in here, because you might as well start thinking in terms of decades in service to him. So…” Maya traced the edge of Elizabeth’s lower lip with her dark red painted nails, somehow finding the exact places where she’d once been pierced and pricking them. Elizabeth jerked away. “Keep your damn mouth shut. And Bell wants me to tell you Troy’s ready to work on the new tattoos. He’ll freshen up the rest in the meantime. You’re fucking welcome.”

Everyone was watching them by now. Elizabeth didn’t care. She waited until Maya was walking away. “Doesn’t matter what you do. You’re still not forgiven.”

The rigidity in Maya’s spine told her she’d struck another nerve.

 

* * * *

 

The trailer with the tramp stamp. Elizabeth was still trying to figure out whether it was ironic or just trashy when Troy stepped out.

“Hey. We’ve been expecting you. Please, come on up.”

If Elizabeth hadn’t been familiar with the body modification scene, she might have been surprised that Troy was so soft-spoken. By this point, she was used to accepting that it took all sorts—from artsy types to accountants, all the way to bookish rebels trying to stick it to Leviticus.

Even so, climbing into his trailer felt a little more backroom-transaction than she was comfortable with. The blinds were closed, and Troy had covered them with felt to block out the rest of the light. The living space of the trailer had been reconfigured with a dentist’s chair and a workstation instead of a kitchenette.

Troy switched on the surgical lights above the chair, making the situation seem even shadier. Framed pieces of flash art hung from the cabinets and small sections of the walls. The quality was exceptional, from street art to Japanese calligraphy to photo-realism to watercolor to traditional, even better than some of the artists Dez had employed at his shop. Backroom this might be, but it wouldn’t be some shoddy prison tattoo. She found that oddly comforting.

“I hope you don’t mind Christina being here.” Troy nodded to the limbless Human Torso on his bed.

“After all, I worked so hard to get here.” Christina wiggled the stumps of her thighs in her custom jumpsuit. She’d been a small woman before the loss of limbs. Without them, she was the size of a large teddy bear. Troy wasn’t a big man himself, but when Christina indicated she wanted help sitting up, she wasn’t any kind of burden to him.

“No. That’s all right,” Elizabeth said. “Sorry. I don’t mean to stare.”

“I was made for people to stare at. We all were. You’re pretty stare-worthy yourself, even before you take off the robe.”

Elizabeth ran her hand over her bare scalp. She was overdue for stubble. It wasn’t coming back, nor was it just her head that had lost its hair. When she’d been able to stop and take stock of herself, she’d realized Bell had removed every last bit of hair on her body except eyebrows and eyelashes—the better to show off her tattoos. Dez had gone through his own depilatory lengths on her body as well, to ensure the perfect effect.

“You said…” Elizabeth hesitated now that she was in such privacy and proximity with not one but two members of Arcanium. “You said you were made.”

“I made one of the wishes that tends to annoy wish-granting jinn, because they hear it a lot.” Christina shrugged. “Looks like I lost the baby weight, huh?”

Elizabeth lowered herself onto the dentist chair. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, it’s more complicated than that. It is for most of us. Seems he gave you what he took from me. All Asian women must look the same to him.”

“Actually, I think these are mine. Or would have been mine if I had been born with them.” Even the freckles seemed like hers, the tone and length of limb far more plausible than Christina’s would have been.

Christina laughed. “I was just kidding. Bad joke. Mine wouldn’t work on you at all. He always makes us look like we’re born this way, but better.”

“Convenient how he curates a freak show without being one himself,” Elizabeth said.

“Oh, he does a little bit of this and that, depending on what the circus needs. But it rarely needs another freak when wishes provide him with such an endless supply.”

This time, bitterness tainted the joke, and Christina’s face—tanner than Elizabeth’s, with watercolor lips and a less transparent complexion—hardened. She aged ten years in a minute, which made Elizabeth question her original assumption that Christina was young.

Kitty had said she’d been there the longest, but she looked younger than Elizabeth, too. Maya had told her to think in terms of decades. She wouldn’t put it past Bell to interfere with aging just to create the desired effect—a circus of pretty, odd young things to intrigue and entice the perfect clientele. And they’d last as long as Bell wanted them to.

A ragged Siamese missing its back leg jumped onto the bed to curl up next to Christina as though she was its favorite pillow spot. It blinked indifferently at Elizabeth.

“Excuse Bella. She likes to watch, too.” Troy dried his hands with the same thoroughness he’d washed them. “She doesn’t like the sound of the tattoo gun, so she won’t bother you. Are you allergic?”

Elizabeth shook her head.

“Where would you like to start?” He sat down on the stool next to her and clasped his hands like a church boy considering prayer.

“Where does he want me to start?” Elizabeth kept her eyes downcast to offset the clenching of her teeth.

“Well, by the time you’re displayed, he wants at least your upper arms and thighs with some art so that it looks like you’re completing yourself. I haven’t seen what you have yet, so I wouldn’t know what themes and styles to follow. If it doesn’t matter, we can work piece by piece, but if you’d prefer something cohesive…”

Elizabeth considered the art on Troy’s body, some of it his own work, by the style, and some of it impossible for him to reach or see for himself. Cohesion hadn’t been a priority for him. He appeared to prefer creative chaos.

Almost everything that could be pierced or plugged had been—eyebrows, ears, nose, a heavy septum ring and a lip plug centering the piercings along his lips. She hadn’t seen inside his mouth, but she’d bet her extra arms and legs that his tongue was split, pierced or both. Bars lined his sternum and the jut of his hips. Circular barbells adorned the skin between his thumbs and forefingers, as well as his nipples and his navel. Implants horned his forehead and ridged his shoulders and forearms.

His face and shaven head were a black-and-white lesson in facial anatomy—half skull, half musculature. The rest of him reminded her of The Illustrated Man, with realism melding with scrollwork, words weaving among images and almost everything from the neck down covered. After ten years without touchups, Elizabeth’s had faded, some of the lines blurring, but his tattoos were too clear, too colorful, each one as sharp as new.

“I’m not wearing anything under this.” It was a ridiculous thing for her to say. All she had to do was look at him to see he wasn’t Dez. But she hadn’t chosen Troy. She hadn’t agreed to be vulnerable to him. Bell had forced this upon her.

Troy braced his elbows on his thighs and peered up at her. “Don’t worry about what Bell wants from you. If you don’t want me to see you, I won’t kick up a fuss. He can put the art he likes on the skin he created. But he sent you to me because I like the work, and he said you liked the needle.”

Other than the vividness of the color and the unnatural clarity of the art, there was nothing supernatural about the man. Everything he’d done had emerged from natural means, from choices, from artistry—plain, common needle and ink from a man’s hands. If Troy hadn’t been proud of his work, he would never have displayed it on his walls.

“You wished yourself in here on purpose, too, didn’t you? You wanted to be the Tattooed Man.”

“I’ve never wanted to be anything else.” He spread his hands to present himself, the surgical lights blinding on the titanium jewelry. “At a certain point, I couldn’t be anything else anymore. Like Kitty and Sandra, I’ve been to a number of circuses. This one is by far the best. It’s not afraid to get dirty.”

“There’s plenty of dirty here, my man. We never had a problem with that,” Christina said. “You know, I think he’s said more these last few minutes than in the last month.”

Troy grinned, suddenly shy. “I don’t mean sex-demon dirty. I mean Arcanium brings the freak show up close and personal. Shows off the oddities to remind people we exist, whether born this way or created. I like it better when we exist. On a screen, you wonder whether it’s real or not.”

“That’s the second time I’ve heard about sex demons. That’s not just an inside joke around here, is it?” Elizabeth said.

Christina shook her head. “Lady Sasha charms all kinds of snakes. Then there’s Lord Mikhail, our strongman. Ever since Magic Mike, he’s been even more dangerous than usual.”

Troy turned around in a creak of black leather, a comically quizzical expression under all the piercings and ink. “When did you see Magic Mike?”

“Caroline streamed it. I was helpless to stop her. It’s not like I can work the touchscreen. Okay, I didn’t protest too much.”

“She’s going to ask me to dance for her one of these days, I just know it,” Troy muttered to Elizabeth. “You won’t make me dance for you, will you? Please?”

Christina giggled and squirmed with delight, losing all the years she’d gained in her dark moment.

Elizabeth saw beyond the tattoos and piercings with ease. She had so much practice seeing the Before even after the After was permanent. Troy was around her age, maybe a little older, but he took care of his skin the way an artist took care of his canvases. Like most artists, there was a childlike quality to him, but unlike the artists she was used to, he was exactly what he appeared to be in physical presentation and demeanor. Underneath the sharp points and wicked edges, guile didn’t dare touch him. How someone like that could thrive in a circus run by demons, deceit and violence eluded her, but between him and Christina, Elizabeth couldn’t convince herself of any threat from them—not like the razorblades in chocolate Elizabeth sensed from Kitty and Maya.

Christina had been in the big top for Elizabeth’s rebirth, but Troy hadn’t. When he told her she could leave without him seeing her, he really wouldn’t have seen her yet, although she doubted he would remain innocent of her body for long.

Elizabeth glanced back down again, accustomed to defeat enough to recognize it even when the victor wasn’t there. “Do you mind?” she asked Christina.

“We get used to it, seeing skin all the time. But I remember when it still mystified me, even horrified me. I can close my eyes if you want. I’m always good to sleep.”

“You’ve already seen me. What’s there to hide?” Elizabeth slowly drew the bathrobe over her shoulders. A stranger might assume the motion was intended as seductive, but she couldn’t convince herself to expose herself with anything that seemed like eagerness.

She paused with her top half bare, her legs still covered, then lifted her inked prime arms into the light. The bee swarm and honeycomb along her right arm, tinged with honey, had been darkened, deepened and sharpened, as though inked with pen and brush rather than needle across her skin. The gaping hole illusion in the middle of her chest was as fresh as though someone had really cracked open her chest to expose her heart. The mourning corset and the partial mandala that marked her hairless mound were also achingly clear.

Looking at herself wasn’t like peering into Bell’s mirror. In the mirror, the horror had been the arms and legs he’d conjured from her—her ink had been her past. Now, the past she’d escaped had become present all over again.

“As long as you’re in his circus, the art stays fresh, almost alive.” Troy kept his hands away from her, but he lovingly gazed over what she’d shown so far. “This is good. I can mimic it.”

“Don’t. Do your own.” She tightened the robe around her waist, then untied the belt to release her secondary arms. “They’re still a bit wild. They might have to be strapped down, but please, not too tight.”

She tried not to flinch as he took both left wrists to guide her back on the dentist’s chair.

“Don’t worry. I’m a professional. The only reason I’ll touch you is to maneuver the arms. Okay? I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do, Elizabeth.”

She settled back against the firm cushion, though her spine wouldn’t quite uncoil. “Thank you.”

“Now, what do you want me to do for you today?”

 

* * * *

 

Name a phobia and Elizabeth probably had some version of it, with varying degrees of severity. But she’d discovered as a child that a needle-prick was hardly worth the fuss, and she grew up to give at donation stations until she started getting tattoos, which prevented her from donating any more blood.

It wasn’t that needles didn’t hurt. It was that needles never hurt as badly as she feared. Getting a tattoo was facing her fears, and tattooing her fears had been intended as a reminder that she could conquer each one. It had turned out quite differently in the end, but she could still endure a tattoo with something approaching pleasure. Difficult to explain the appeal even to herself, but it had been too long since her last needle, and even though it pierced through skin where once there had been nothing but empty air, her reaction remained the same.

Once he’d cleaned off the blood and excess ink, Troy wiped his hands and helped her sit up. While she waited for the lightheadedness to clear, he gave her the rest of the screwdriver he’d made before they started—something to keep her blood sugar level up. Plus, she needed to finish it before she would even consider looking at what Troy had done for her.

He’d worked on her left arm today, because that was the easiest for him to reach while she rested on her stomach, the robe like a blanket over her legs. Plenty of bare skin would provide additional canvas over time, but the point of this exercise had been to make her new limbs less bare, not completely covered.

A stylized and illustrated chain emerged from the fires of the anima sola, but it gradually became more realistic as it wound around her elbow and connected to the shackle that delicately circled her wrist, so lifelike that if someone didn’t look closely, they might believe her truly bound. Which had been the point.

Warm laughter purred in her ear, though no one was there. Her point to Bell had been made, and it had pleased him—which hadn’t been the point at all.

Soon the chain and shackle inked around her wrist would be joined with more fears, as though Bell had given her extra limbs because her body alone hadn’t been adequate space.

“He’ll want something more spidery on your other arm to balance the spider illustration on your left thigh, but we’ve made a good start.” Troy retrieved a cobalt blue bottle from his cabinet. The handmade label read, For cast only. “This should heal the skin completely within fifteen minutes at most. Saves time for when we need to be performance-ready.”

He wore a glove to smooth it over her arm. The liquid gel moved and absorbed like lotion. The pain she’d been counting on lasting a little longer faded away.

“Will I see you again tomorrow?” he asked.

Elizabeth pulled her robe on, eschewing the binding of her secondary arms and threading the belt through the loops instead. She didn’t look up as she nodded.

“Do you need help home?”

Elizabeth struggled to stand, but she leaned away from Troy when he tried to help. “I’m fine.”

“Troy…” Christina’s caution convinced him to stay back while Elizabeth stumbled to the door.