Page 27 of The Jester

The woman looks down at him and licks her lower lip. She assesses the ribbon in her hands, then pulls it taut.

The jester looks up at her and nods.

She smiles, then steps around him and – pressing all her weight onto his wings – pushes so they curl inward.

Finn lets out an anguished cry. The crowd claps and cheers. Beneath my skin, my own wings shudder with sympathy and I yearn to be closer to him.

When his wings are fully curled in, pressed against his back in an impossibly painful position, the jester raises his arms. Without hesitation, the woman begins to bind him. She snakes the rope around, and around, and around his body – pulling it tighter every time his wings twitch or he moans in discomfort.

This Sunborne fae revels in the control she’s been granted and the audience watches with a mixture of fascination and arousal.

Gracefully, Finn stands. His wings are bound tightly, his movements deliberately restricted. This time, when he paces the circle, he keeps his back to us, allowing us to see the way the rope presses against the tissue-like flesh of his wings and how they visibly pulsate with pain.

I flex my fingers, ice-cold inside my gloves, and look away. I’m about to push back through the crowd when the air changes. The drums return – louder, faster, harder. The jester roars. His muscles strain, his eyes flash. And with a sudden, forceful motion, he breaks free from the bindings, his wings springing free.

A smile parts my lips but quickly fades when this moment – which in another place could signify a reclaiming of power – is met with laughter and applause. As if it is a hilarious joke.

The Sunborne view the jester’s display of strength as simply part of the evening’s entertainment. They clap, and laugh, and the Sunborne woman who bound his wings sashays back to her husband with a smirk on her face that makes me want to scream. Her husband squeezes her arm and kisses her cheek, staring at her as if her participation in the dance has affirmed her dominance rather than undermined it.

The jester stands completely still, breathing heavily, eyes closed. A strong jaw and a stubbled chin protrude from the mask he wears. His lips are full, and his hair protrudes in unruly tufts. His throat twitches when he locks his gaze on mine.

A shudder runs through me and settles beneath my skin, simmering, fizzing, vibrating. How is he here? What does it mean that we have been brought together like this?

The music changes. The drums are no longer sinister heartbeats but pulsing rhythms that nudge the Sunborne court into a flurry of movement.

As they filter towards the centre of the room and begin to dance, the jester remains amongst them. Now performing magic tricks, winking and smiling, his entire demeanour has changed. And I do not need to be feeling in order to see it.

With a flourish of his hands, he captures the attention of those nearest him. While some continue to dance, others form a small crowd around his slender figure. I linger on the periphery, entranced by the shift in his aura. It is as if he possesses two different faces, and it is impossible – even for me – to tell which is real.

Grinning at a pale-haired Sunborne male, the jester plucks a single leaf from the air – a leaf that wasn’t there a moment ago. Vibrant green and seemingly ordinary, it twirls between his fingers. His lips begin to move and, with a whispered incantation that is barely audible above the murmur of the crowd, the leaf starts to shimmer, casting a soft, emerald glow around him.

Onlookers lean in as the jester, with a sly grin, folds the leaf in his palms. When he opens his hands again, the leaf has transformed into a fluttering butterfly, its pale, purple wings catching the light as it takes flight amongst the audience.

“Is that all?” A woman nearby coughs.

“Shadowkind have little magic,” replies another. “What did you expect?”

“He should stick to dancing.”

The other woman hums in agreement, and something snags in my gut when her eyes catch on the jester’s muscled physique. Jealousy? Am I jealous that she is looking at him that way?

I’m still watching her, trying to interpret my own emotions – which somehow seems so much harder when I am blocking others’ – when her eyes widen.

With a subtle flick of his wrist, the jester has directed the butterfly in a graceful arc over the heads of the onlookers. It flutters inches away from the woman who asked, is that all?

She stares at it, a pitying smirk on her face.

Then, in a blink, the single butterfly becomes two, four, ten, fifty... a cascading effect that continues until a small, mesmerising swarm of identical pale purple butterflies flutters up to fill the ceiling of the ballroom.

Each butterfly moves in perfect synchronisation, forming intricate patterns in the air – first the shape of a blooming flower, then shifting into the form of a dancing fae, and finally, a delicate, fluttering crown that seems to hover directly above the jester’s head.

As he moves, the piercings on his wings chime gently and a smile parts my lips because my butterflies are always purple too.

As the butterflies dissolve back into harmless leaves, floating gently to the floor, a round of applause fills the room. The jester bows deeply, his eyes sparkling with mischief and the faintest hint of pride, before moving on to his next trick.

The dichotomy of his auras is enchanting. I cannot stop staring at him. While he is now full of jovial smiles and laughter, the first part of his act meant something. Deep in his soul.

And I wonder if it meant something to Briony and the other Shadowkind of Eldrion’s court, or if that is why she walked away – because she couldn’t bear to watch him.

---