Senchan takes a deep breath.
“We want the Trade to end.”
“You know I don’t have the power to shut down the show.”
“No,” he says. “But that is our price. End the Cirque, and you will be free. We don’t care how you do it, only that you deliver. Unless you think the price is too dear…”
“No,” Penelope says. She glances around. “I may have a way.”
“Yes?”
“Kassia.”
Senchan takes a step back, as though Penelope punched him in the gut.
“Kassia is dead.”
“No,” Penelope says. There’s a fervent heat in her words. “She’s still alive. I have seen her. Mab is hiding her.”
“If that is true, then the Blood Autumn Treaty is broken. The circus would be forced to shut down.”
“I would not lie.”
“We cannot attack until there is proof,” Senchan says.
“If I give you proof, if she reveals her true nature, will that be enough?”
Senchan nods and holds out his hand.
“Expose Kassia and Mab’s treachery, and you shall have your freedom. A good bargain, if I do say so myself.”
Penelope reaches out her hand.
“You will tell no one,” he says. She nods as they shake.
Light pours out between their fingertips. The light fills my vision.
I blink and I’m back in the trailer. Kingston is staring at me with his eyes wide and lips open.
“That’s it,” he says. “We have her.”
“Who’s Kassia?” I ask.
Kingston shakes his head.
“I can’t say. Contractual…”
He pockets the necklace, turns away from me, and takes a step toward the door. Then he turns around and pulls me toward him, presses his lips to mine in one quick kiss that fills me with fire. He pulls away and smiles.
“You’re a genius,” he says. Then he’s out the door. I follow right behind.
We’re not even a few steps outside the trailer when we spot Penelope. She’s not in line with the rest of the troupe. She’s standing near the edge of the chapiteau, staring out at the field beyond. Kingston pauses and stares at her. The air around him shivers.
“Kingston, no,” I say. “Let’s just go tell Mab.”
“No,” Kingston says. “I’m going to make the bitch pay.” He stalks toward Penelope and I stand there, torn between running to Mab and running after Kingston. The choice is easy; I run to Kingston’s side and take his hand in mine. His touch tingles.
Penelope turns when she sees us. Her gaze takes us in, the linked fingers, the set in our eyes. She smirks and turns away.
“Back for another round of false accusations?” she says.
“We know,” Kingston says. He holds up the diamond necklace. “We know everything.”
I expect Penelope to gasp, to yell, to do any number of things the bad guys do in movies when they’re found out. Instead, she laughs.
“Well done, Vivienne,” she says. “I was hoping you’d remember that. This would have been so anticlimactic otherwise.”
My heart drops. Penelope looks over her shoulder at my silence.
“What?” she asks. “You truly believe I accidentally left you in my trailer? Please, I’m not truly a — what did you call me? — a daft bitch.”
Kingston drops the necklace in his pocket.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because I want you to understand that my intentions were never to hurt people. I just wanted freedom. This was the only way.”
“If you’ve been changing the contracts,” I say, “why not just change yours? End your contract early? Why kill everyone?”
“You saw what happened when Paul’s contract finished early. Time is a force no magic can change. I couldn’t take the chance that the same would happen to me. No, the only sure way to be free was to end the circus. Then, I wouldn’t be dodging a contract. The contract would simply no longer exist.” She almost sounds sad about it, like she’s upset she had to get her hands so dirty, but Kingston and I are far beyond pity.
“Where’s Melody?” Kingston hisses.
“Safe,” Penelope says.
Fire ignites around Kingston’s fingertips. The heat is blistering and I drop his hand.
“Talk,” he says through gritted teeth. “Talk or I’ll make you beg.”
“Ahh, you see, that is what I was hoping for. It would have been disappointing to go to all that trouble for nothing.”
Neither of us say anything, but I can see Kingston’s resolve falter. Clearly, that’s all Penelope was after.
“I call on line 89F, point three.”
Kingston gasps and crumples to his knees. The heat in his palms vanishes.
“My, Kingston,” she says. “Whoever would have thought that a few words could quench your fire?”
Something snaps inside of me. I leap toward Penelope. The only thought in my mind is the image of punching her square in the face, of making her bleed and beg and suffer like everyone she’s hurt and killed in her quest for freedom. My arm pulls back, aims straight for her pretty jaw.
Then stars explode across my vision as something slams into my gut. I smack face-first into the earth and roll on the ground, clenching my stomach as iron binds itself around my insides. I can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t get the pain to go away.
“As you can tell,” Penelope says, “I’ve quite thought of everything. Your contracts expressly forbid harming me.”
She steps over and kicks Kingston in the ribs. Kingston gasps.
“You, on the other hand, have no such safeguards. Perhaps this will teach you to be more careful with whom you choose to confront.”
Kingston groans. I can barely see him as darkness inks itself around my vision.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Penelope says, her voice perfectly calm. “I think you’ll find that speaking of this to anyone else is a very, very bad idea.” Her words turn simpering. “Contractual, you know.” Then she walks away, humming happily to herself.
The moment she’s out of sight my lungs expand and I suck in a breath so sharp it’s painful. I scramble over to where Kingston’s sprawled out on the ground, his hands clutching his ribs.
“Are you okay?”
“She blocked me. My powers are gone.” He takes a deep breath. “That must be how Senchan did it. She worked a containment clause into my contract and told the bastard the line.” With a wince, he pushes himself to standing. I’m there, helping him up, looping his arm around my shoulder. Zal is wrapped around his arm. The serpent is smudging like mad, now, like those Mom tattoos slowly bleached off bikers’ biceps.
“How could she do that?” I ask. Penelope’s disappeared into the tents and trailers. Even the thought of chasing after her makes an ache creep through my skull. “How can she change the contracts?”
“I still don’t know,” Kingston says. “It shouldn’t be possible; Mab’s the only one who can dictate the terms.”
“So Mab can change them back? Now that she knows what’s wrong?”
Kingston shakes his head. “You can’t just negate magic like that. Power goes in cycles. She won’t be able to change our contracts ’til the next new moon.”
“So there’s nothing we can do.”
He doesn’t answer. Just the thought of yelling out that Penelope’s the traitor makes my throat burn and sting.
“If only you hadn’t signed your stupid contract,” Kingston whispers.
“What do you mean?”
“Your visions,” he says. “They’re the only way we could find Melody. If she was here, we'd be fine. But Mab’s the only one who can get you to use them.”