Page 32 of Lux

“It’s called a Grivet,” Minchae explains, reaching out to stroke the creature’s dark fur. “Supposedly they can tell the future, but it’s one of those ‘at midnight, on a full moon after you bleed a chicken dry and stand on your head ritual type things.’” She sighs as the Grivet leans into her touch. Then she pulls away and continues drifting toward the outskirts of the cluster of tents and chaos.

“You aren’t from a commune, are you?” she wonders, turning back to stare at me with a long, searching glance. “You can’t be. They would have eaten you alive or kept you for themselves. One look at those eyes and they’d never let you out of their sight. I used to think I was the closest they’d come to recreating some mythical fucking fae. Ta-da!” She gestures to her body with a sad, forlorn expression. “I was wrong. I was wrong about so many things, and now I’m stuck here, rotting away on a high wire. Cyrus will never let me leave. Never.”

She tilts her head back and laughs, letting the flame of a nearby torch illuminate the streaks of blue in her hair. I can’t imagine her feeling shame or guilt at her appearance. Even stranger is the thought that… She could be comparing herself to me.

I shake my head to banish the thought. No. Never.

“You’re fucking perfect, aren’t you,” she says, eyeing me once more. “Cyrus can count his lucky damn stars. He certainly doesn’t need me anymore. He’ll never come across anyone who looks half as fae as you do.”

“But he has,” I croak, staggering toward her. My fingers twitch. I want so badly to rip off my robe and show her my back again. I am not fae, not even close. They mutilated me to make it so. I would give anything—anything!—to have even one beautiful, half-formed wing. Anything at all…

Except Caspian. He is my hope in the darkness, and I cling to his memory. Even if he left me behind, the memory of him is all I need. I’ll hang onto it until I die.

For now, another being who abandoned me takes his place. Suddenly, she seems closer than ever, within my reach.

“There was another fae,” I say in response to Minchae’s puzzled expression. “More than twenty years ago. He taunted me about her. Do you remember?”

She shakes her head. “I’ve only been with the bastard for three years. Before that, his main act was a three-headed hydra, so I doubt he had his hands on a real fairy. But…” She pauses and strokes her chin. The blue tips of her nails sparkle in the firelight as she muses quietly to herself.

Suspense builds. It’s rude, but I can’t help it. I must ask.

“But?”

“Hmm?” She looks up as if she’d forgotten I was even here. “Well, if Cyrus did have another fae, he’d have marked her in his ledger. I’m sure you saw it?”

“Ledger?” I shake my head.

Minchae frowns. “It’s where he catalogs all his creatures. Where he bought them from. Who he sells them to. It’s his entire business right there. I think he even lists his suppliers in there. Not everyone his goons find winds up in this shitshow. He has buyers of all sorts. Information like that would fetch a pretty penny on the black market. Enough to purchase a nice future far away from this shithole. Besides, if he ever did have a fae in his collection, she’ll be in there. You could at least see if you recognize her?—”

“See?” I feel my heart stop and then flutter back to life. I can’t hide it. Disguise it. Just how badly I want that possibility: to see her for myself. An image. A snippet. I’ll take anything.

Minchae eyes me warily, an eyebrow raised. “He catalogues all of us,” she says with obvious disgust. “I guess he hasn’t gotten around to you yet. He’s probably waiting to see how big of a crowd you draw in tomorrow night. Or, tonight, I guess…” She sighs and looks up at the dark sky above. “I suppose it’s already past midnight. The show will die down. He’ll have one of his lackeys do the send-off while he counts his hoard of coin. Come.” She beckons me onward with a wave of her head. Voice a whisper, she adds, “we’ll need to be quiet. Stealthy. Think you can manage?”

I nod and make my steps soft as I creep in the shadow of hers. Stealth was the only way of life for me in the other realm. There was no choice but to avoid being seen. Stay hidden. Be meek, modest, and ashamed of my being.

Here, as I follow Minchae around cages of strange beasts and a thinning crowd, my heart races. This is a feeling I never felt while scurrying through the archives. Like my heart might burstout of my chest with one wrong movement. As if pure electricity prickles beneath my skin—a lightning storm of nerves and anxious energy.

I’m excited, I realize. This is fun, in the strangest, most complicated sense of the word. Fun to keep quiet and hide. Fun to crawl behind a massive yellow tent and peek inside through a gap in the fabric.

Validating, to spy Cyrus the Ringmaster, hunched over a desk, flipping through an old book with worn, yellow pages.

“That’s it,” Minchae whispers into my ear. “We’ll never be able to get it, though. He watches it closely and has wards guarding the desk he keeps it in. We’d need a distraction to get to it. Something to keep him busy…”

Keep him busy. I nod along as I watch the man paw aimlessly through his book. Was he lying? Is my mother really captured within those pages? A memory. A photograph. I’d take anything.

It hurts. Only now can I realize just how badly it hurts, to have her so close. To know that someone somewhere—make that two someones, here in the mortal realm alone—have seen her. Glimpsed her. Enough to recognize her form in me.

I hate myself for never questioning Day about her before. It seemed so rude then to question. So greedy.

But now those regrets are all I can dwell upon. Feast upon. Day, my beautiful, poor, confused Day, may be the closest to her I may ever come.

My eyes burn. Tears spill out. Minchae taps me gently on the shoulder and we crawl away back to her tent. Only there does she see my face and notice the glistening wetness.

“Oh, honey…” She reaches out. Thinks better of it. Instead, she grabs the rag left discarded among her makeup and gingerly dabs at my eyes with it. “I’m sorry. I guess this means a lot to you. Whoever you’re looking for.”

I nod. It’s all I can do. Nod and nod. My mother is a creature always on the verge of my existence. In the other realm, it was easy to forget her. Easy to ignore the pain festering in my chest from the day I was born. I wanted her then, but I had to content myself with my meaningless, worthless existence.

Here…

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