The Night Circus(101)

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.