Page 113 of Chasing Never
Nolan, Maddox, and I stride over to the stands and situate ourselves behind a group of rather rowdy men. Thankfully the men are tall, and this section of the stands is crowded, so we are able to slip in behind them easily.
“Are we sure he’s here?” asks Maddox.
“As sure as we can be when our information is based on rumors,” I say.
We hadn’t told the messenger Peter’s exact details. Just that we were looking for a male winged fae. The messenger himself—for substantial coin, of course—had informed us that there was a man fitting that description at this particular carnival. Except the male was missing one of his wings.
The memory of Tink hacking away at Peter’s wing still chills my bones. The Nomad had trapped Peter’s shadows in a pocket watch of adamant Charlie had designed. He’d done it before Peter had had the chance to make his wings dissipate, leaving them just as much flesh as the rest of his limbs.
Tink had sought to take her revenge, but when she had come down upon the second wing, she had hesitated, then relented altogether. A cruelty that I am sure Peter has realized by now.
After about five minutes, the lights dim, and a spotlight swivels across the ring before landing upon a man in a bowler hat who seems to have just appeared.
“Welcome, ye all,” he says, “to the Carnival of Souls. Where the lost wander, where magic lives on, never to be doused by a society who prefers to forget it. Here, you will find yourself caressing the edge of the realms, escaping through the very fabric itself, glimpsing into the world beyond. Welcome, ye all,” he repeats, “to the Carnival of Souls.”
The crowd erupts in cheers.
The man bows, tipping his hat to the stands. Then, whirling, he sends it flying through the air.
It’s just then that the light hits it just right, and I realize that the circumference of the bowler hat is glinting, as if it’s made of—it sinks into a wooden target—razors.
I shudder. Then watch as a woman with legs that seem too long for her torso steps out from behind the target.
She plucks the hat from the target, places it upon her head, and stalks toward the center of the ring.
Then flings the hat toward the audience.
One of the audience members, an elderly woman with a wrinkled face, gasps and keels over. The crowd gasps as she stumbles off of the first row. I clench Nolan’s hand, fear for the woman racing through me as I watch her take her hand to her abdomen, where the hat has sunk and is now protruding. She tears it away, only to reveal an expanding red stain on her shirt.
“We have to do something,” I whisper, but Nolan just shakes his head, beckoning for me to watch further.
I do, shocked when the elderly woman’s face cracks in a cruel smile. With wrinkled, shaking fingers, she unbuttons the bottom buttons of her blouse, revealing the flesh of her abdomen.
The crowd watches in awe as the patch of bleeding flesh knits itself together.
The woman smiles, then flings that razored hat back at the young woman. It speeds toward her gut, but the woman’s waist twists like a gnarled tree trunk out of the way, and the hat passes through her, spinning as it comes to rest on the ground behind her.
The cheering that breaks forth from the crowd is so loud, it almost drowns out the ringmaster’s voice as he booms, “Let us begin.”
CHAPTER 50
The show stretches on for almost two hours before the lights start to come back on, signaling the end of the show is drawing near. My heart races in my chest, disappointment flaring within me.
“He’s not here,” I say, and though I look to Nolan for a reason I might be wrong, all I find in his face are calculations. Were we lied to by the man who tipped us off? Or was his information outdated? Perhaps Peter was here, but we only just missed him.
“We’ll speak to the ringmaster afterward,” says Nolan, placing his hand on mine. “If Peter was here, we’ll find out where he went.”
I nod, biting my lip. Next to me, Maddox fidgets. He adjusts his expression when he realizes I’m looking at him, but it’s too late. I’ve already glimpsed the lack of confidence on his face.
He thinks we’ve been had.
I close my eyes, trying to ward off tears. It’s not that I’d truly let myself get my hopes up. I’ve been through too much for such foolishness as that. It’s more that this was our only lead. The only door I could see back to being reunited with our son. And now that it’s been slammed shut, we have no other options.
Just then, the lights dim again and the ringmaster’s voice booms through the crowd. “Oh, were you worried that we were done? Did you think that perhaps the legend you came to see was just that—a legend? A myth? A story your friends told you to get your attention, to seem more impressive at dinner parties?” The ringmaster flourishes his white-gloved hands toward the ceiling of the tent. “Oh, but he’s not a legend.”
Perched on a platform beyond the trapeze and the tightrope lurks a shadow. A shadow with outstretched, batlike wings. Two of them.
My heart races within me, and I glance at Nolan. He’s just as confused as I am.
