She picks up the volume filled with names. It seems a good place to start as she understands the basis of what it is meant to accomplish.
She takes it with her as she leaves.
Celia closes the door to Marco’s flat as quietly as she can after she slips out into the darkened hall, the leather-bound book tucked under her arm. The locks slide into place behind her with a series of soft, muffled clicks.
She does not notice the figure concealed in the nearby shadows until he speaks.
“You deceitful little slut,” her father says.
Celia shuts her eyes, attempting to concentrate, but it has always been difficult to push him away once he has grabbed ahold of her, and she cannot manage it.
“I’m surprised you waited in the hall to call me that, Papa,” she says.
“This place is so well protected it’s downright absurd,” Hector says, waving at the door. “Nothing could get in without that boy explicitly wanting it there.”
“Good,” Celia says. “You can stay away from him, and you can stay away from me.”
“What are you doing with that?” he asks, gesturing at the book under her arm.
“Nothing to concern yourself with,” Celia says.
“You cannot interfere with his work,” Hector says.
“I know, interference is one of the very few things that is apparently against the rules. I do not intend to interfere, I intend to learn his systems so I can stop having to constantly manage so much of the circus.”
“His systems. Alexander’s systems are nothing you should be bothering with. You have no idea what you’re doing. I overestimated your ability to handle this challenge.”
“This is the game, isn’t it?” Celia asks. “It’s about how we deal with the repercussions of magic when placed in a public venue, in a world that does not believe in such things. It’s a test of stamina and control, not skill.”
“It is a test of strength,” Hector says. “And you are weak. Weaker than I’d thought.”
“Then let me lose,” she says. “I’m exhausted, Papa. I cannot do this any longer. It’s not as though you can gloat over a bottle of whiskey once a winner is declared.”
“A winner is not declared,” her father says. “The game is played out, not stopped. You should have figured that much out by now. You used to be somewhat clever.”
Celia glares at him, but at the same time she begins turning over his words in her mind, collecting the obscure non-answers about the rules he has given her over the years. Suddenly the shape of the elements he has always avoided becomes more distinct, the key unknown factor clear.
“The victor is the one left standing after the other can no longer endure,” Celia says, the scope of it finally making devastating sense.
“That is a gross generalization but I suppose it will suffice.”
Celia turns back to Marco’s flat, pressing her hand against the door.
“Stop behaving as though you love that boy,” Hector says. “You are above such mundane things.”
“You are willing to sacrifice me for this,” she says quietly. “To let me destroy myself just so you can attempt to prove a point. You tied me into this game knowing the stakes, and you let me think it was nothing but a simple challenge of skill.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, “as if you think me inhuman.”
“I can see through you,” Celia snaps. “It is not particularly trying on my imagination.”
“It would not be any different if I were still as I was when this started.”
“And what happens to the circus after the game?” Celia asks.
“The circus is merely a venue,” he says. “A stadium. A very festive coliseum. You could continue on with it after you win, though without the game it serves no purpose.”
“I suppose the other people involved serve no purpose as well, then?” Celia asks. “Their fates are only a matter of consequence?”
“All actions have repercussions,” Hector says. “That’s part of the challenge.”
“Why are you telling me all this now when you have never mentioned it before?”
“Before, I had not thought you were in the position to be the one to lose.”
“You mean the one to die,” Celia says.
“A technicality,” her father says. “A game is completed only when there is a single player left. There is no other way to end it. You can abandon any misguided dreams of continuing to play whore to that nobody Alexander plucked out of a London gutter after this is over.”
“Who is left, then?” Celia asks, ignoring his comment. “You said Alexander’s student won the last challenge, what happened to him?”
A derisive laugh shudders through the shadows before Hector replies.
“She is bending herself into knots in your precious circus.”
The only illumination in this tent comes from the fire. The flames are a radiant, flickering white, like the bonfire in the courtyard.
You pass a fire-eater elevated on a striped platform. He keeps small bits of flame dancing atop long sticks while he prepares to swallow them whole.
On another platform, a woman holds two long chains, with a ball of flame at the end of each. She swings them in loops and circles, leaving glowing trails of white light in their paths, moving so quickly that they look like strings of fire rather than single flames on lengths of chain.
Performers on multiple platforms juggle torches, spinning them high into the air. Occasionally, they toss these flaming torches to each other in a shower of sparks.
Elsewhere, there are flaming hoops perched at different levels that performers slip in and out of with ease, as though the hoops were only metal and not encased in flickering flames.
The artist on this platform holds pieces of flame in her bare hands, and she forms them into snakes and flowers and all manner of shapes. Sparks fly from shooting stars, birds flame and disappear like miniature phoenixes in her hands.
She smiles at you as you watch the white flames in her hand become, with the deft movement of her fingers, a boat. A book. A heart of fire.
EN ROUTE FROM LONDON TO MUNICH, NOVEMBER 1, 1901
The train is unremarkable as it chugs across the countryside, puffing clouds of grey smoke into the air. The engine is almost entirely black. The cars it pulls are equally as monochromatic. Those with windows have glass that is tinted and shadowed; those without are dark as coal.
It is silent as it travels, no whistles or horns. The wheels on the track are not screeching but gliding smoothly and quietly. It passes almost unnoticed along its route, making no stops.
From the exterior, it appears to be a coal train, or something similar. It is utterly unremarkable.
The interior is a different story.
Inside, the train is opulent, gilded, and warm. Most of the passenger cars are lined with thick patterned carpets, upholstered in velvets in burgundies and violets and creams, as though they have been dipped in a sunset, hovering at twilight and holding on to the colors before they fade to midnight and stars.
There are lights in sconces lining the corridors, cascades of crystals falling from them and swaying with the motion of the train. Soothing and serene.
Shortly after its departure, Celia places the leather-bound book safely away, camouflaged in plain sight amongst her own volumes.
She changes from her bloodstained gown to a flowing one in moonlight grey, bound with ribbons in black, white, and charcoal, which had been one of Friedrick’s particular favorites.
The ribbons drift behind her as she makes her way down the train.
She stops at the only door that has two calligraphed characters as well as a handwritten name on the tag next to it.
Her polite knock is answered immediately, inviting her inside.
While most of the train compartments are saturated with color, Tsukiko’s private car is almost completely neutral. A bare space surrounded by paper screens and curtains of raw silk, perfumed with the scent of ginger an
d cream.
Tsukiko sits on the floor in the center of the room, wearing a red kimono. A beating crimson heart in the pale chamber.
And she is not alone. Isobel lies on the floor with her head in Tsukiko’s lap, sobbing softly.
“I did not mean to interrupt,” Celia says. She hesitates in the doorway, ready to slide the door closed again.
“You are not interrupting,” Tsukiko says, beckoning her inside. “Perhaps you will be able to help me convince Isobel that she is in need of some rest.”
Celia says nothing, but Isobel wipes her eyes, nodding as she stands.
“Thank you, Kiko,” she says, smoothing out the wrinkles in her gown. Tsukiko remains seated, her attention on Celia.
Isobel stops next to Celia as she makes her way to the door.
“I am sorry about Herr Thiessen,” she says.
“I am as well.”
For a moment, Celia thinks Isobel means to embrace her, but instead she only nods before leaving, sliding the door closed behind her.
“The last hours have been long for all of us,” Tsukiko says after Isobel has departed. “You need tea,” she adds before Celia can explain why she is there. Tsukiko sits her down on a cushion and walks silently to the end of the car, fetching her tea supplies from behind one of the tall screens.
It is not the full tea ceremony that she has performed on several occasions over the years, but as Tsukiko slowly prepares two bowls of green matcha, it is beautiful and calming nonetheless.
“Why did you never tell me?” Celia asks when Tsukiko has settled herself across from her.
“Tell you what?” Tsukiko asks, smiling over her tea.
Celia sighs. She wonders if Lainie Burgess felt a similar frustration over two different cups of tea in Constantinople. She has half a mind to break Tsukiko’s tea bowl, just to see what she would do.
“Did you injure yourself?” Tsukiko asks, nodding at the scar on Celia’s finger.
“I was bound into a challenge almost thirty years ago,” Celia says. She sips her tea before adding, “Are you going to show me your scar, now that you have seen mine?”
Tsukiko smiles and places her tea on the floor in front of her. Then she turns and lowers the neck of her kimono.
At the nape of her neck, in the space between a shower of tattooed symbols, nestled in the curve of a crescent moon, there is a faded scar about the size and shape of a ring.
“The scars last longer than the game, you see,” Tsukiko says, straightening her kimono around her shoulders.
“It was one of my father’s rings that did that,” Celia says, but Tsukiko does not confirm or deny the statement.
“How is your tea?” she asks.
“Why are you here?” Celia counters.
“I was hired to be a contortionist.”
Celia puts down her tea.
“I am not in the mood for this, Tsukiko,” she says.
“Should you choose your questions more carefully, you may receive more satisfying answers.”
“Why did you never tell me you knew about the challenge?” Celia asks. “That you had played before yourself?”
“I made an agreement that I would not reveal myself unless approached directly,” Tsukiko says. “I keep my word.”
“Why did you come here, in the beginning?”
“I was curious. There has not been a challenge of this sort since the one I participated in. I did not intend to stay.”
“Why did you stay?”
“I liked Monsieur Lefèvre. The venue for my challenge was a more intimate one, and this seemed unique. It is rare to discover places that are truly unique. I stayed to observe.”
“You’ve been watching us,” Celia says.
Tsukiko nods.
“Tell me about the game,” Celia says, hoping to get a response to an open-ended inquiry now that Tsukiko is more forthcoming.
“There is more to it than you think,” Tsukiko says. “I did not understand the rules myself, in my time. It is not only about what you call magic. You believe adding a new tent to the circus is a move? It is more than that. Everything you do, every moment of the day and night is a move. You carry your chessboard with you, it is not contained within canvas and stripes. Though you and your opponent do not have the luxury of polite squares to stay upon.”
Celia considers this while she sips her tea. Attempting to reconcile the fact that everything that has happened with the circus, with Marco, has been part of the game.
“Do you love him?” Tsukiko asks, watching her with thoughtful eyes and the hint of a smile that might be sympathetic, but Celia has always found Tsukiko’s expressions difficult to decipher.
Celia sighs. There seems no good reason to deny it.
“I do,” she says.
“Do you believe he loves you?”
Celia does not answer. The phrasing of the question bothers her. Only hours ago, she was certain. Now, sitting in this cave of lightly perfumed silk, what had seemed constant and unquestionable feels as delicate as the steam floating over her tea. As fragile as an illusion.
“Love is fickle and fleeting,” Tsukiko continues. “It is rarely a solid foundation for decisions to be made upon, in any game.”
Celia closes her eyes to keep her hands from shaking.
It takes longer for her to regain her control than she would like.
“Isobel once thought he loved her,” Tsukiko continues. “She was certain of it. That is why she came here, to assist him.”
“He does love me,” Celia says, though the words do not sound as strong when they fall from her lips as they did inside her head.
“Perhaps,” Tsukiko replies. “He is quite skilled at manipulation. Did you not once lie to people yourself, telling them only what they wished to hear?”
Celia is not certain which is worse. The knowledge that for the game to end, one of them will have to die, or the possibility that she means nothing to him. That she is only a piece across a board. Waiting to be toppled and checkmated.
“It is a matter of perspective, the difference between opponent and partner,” Tsukiko says. “You step to the side and the same person can be either or both or something else entirely. It is difficult to know which face is true. And you have a great many factors to deal with beyond your opponent.”
“Did you not?” Celia asks.
“My venue was not as grand. It involved fewer people, less movement. Without the challenge within it, there was nothing to salvage. Most of it is now a tea garden, I believe. I have not returned to that place since the challenge concluded.”
“The circus could continue, after this challenge is … concluded,” Celia says.
“That would be nice,” Tsukiko says. “A proper tribute to your Herr Thiessen. Though it would be complicated, making it completely independent from you and your opponent. You have taken on a great deal of responsibility for all of this. You are vital to its operation. If I stabbed a knife in your heart right now, this train would crash.”
Celia puts down her tea, watching as the smooth motion of the train sends soft ripples through the surface of the liquid. In her head, she calculates how long it would take to halt the train, how long she might be able to keep her heart beating. She decides it would likely depend on the knife.
“Possibly,” she says.
“If I were to extinguish the bonfire, or its keeper, that would also be problematic, yes?”
Celia nods.
“You have work to do if you expect this circus to endure,” Tsukiko says.
“Are you offering to help?” Celia asks, hoping she will be able to aid in translating Marco’s systems, as they shared the same instructor.
“No,” Tsukiko says with a polite shake of her head, her smile softening the harshness of the word. “If you are unable to manage it properly yourself, I will step in. This has gone on too long already, but I shall give you some time.”
“How much time?” Celia asks.
Tsukiko sips her tea.
; “Time is something I cannot control,” she says. “We shall see.”
They sit in meditative silence for some of that uncontrollable time, the motion of the train gently billowing the silk curtains, the scent of ginger and cream enveloping them.
“What happened to your opponent?” Celia asks.
Tsukiko looks not at Celia but down at her tea as she responds.
“My opponent is now a pillar of ash standing in a field in Kyoto,” she says. “Unless wind and time have taken her away.”
Escapement
CONCORD AND BOSTON, OCTOBER 31, 1902
Bailey walks circles around the empty field for some time before he can convince himself that the circus is well and truly gone. There is nothing at all, not so much as a bent blade of grass, to indicate that anything had occupied the space hours before.
He sits down on the ground, holding his head in his hands and feeling utterly lost though he has played in these very fields ever since he was little.
He recalls Poppet mentioning a train.
A train would have to travel to Boston in order to reach any far-flung destination.
Within moments of the thought crossing his mind, Bailey is on his feet, running as fast as he can toward the depot.
There are no trains to be seen when he gets there, out of breath and aching from where his bag has been hitting against his back. He had been hoping that somehow the circus train he was not even entirely certain existed would still be there, waiting.
But instead the depot is all but deserted; only two figures sit on one of the benches on the platform, a man and a woman in black coats.
It takes Bailey a moment to realize that they are both wearing red scarves.
“Are you all right?” the woman asks as he runs up to the platform. Bailey cannot quite place her accent.
“Are you here for the circus?” Bailey says, gasping for breath.
“Indeed we are,” the man says with a similar lilting accent. “Though it has departed, I trust you have noticed.”
“Closed early as well, but that is not unusual,” the woman adds.
“Do you know Poppet and Widget?” Bailey asks.