The Night Circus(116)

The bonfire’s curling cage sits empty, not even a smoldering ember remains. The rain patters in a hollow echo against the metal, drops evaporating into steam where the iron is still hot.

Tsukiko pulls another cigarette from her coat, flicking open her lighter with a lazy, practiced gesture.

The flame catches easily, despite the rain.

She watches the cauldron fill with water while she waits.





Transmutation

NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 1, 1902




If Celia could open her mouth, she would scream.

But there is too much to control between the heat and the rain and Marco in her arms.

She focuses only on him, pulling everything that he is with her as she breaks herself apart. Holding to the memory of every touch of his skin against hers, every moment she has spent with him. Carrying him with her.

Suddenly, there is nothing. No rain. No fire. A stretch of calm white nothingness.

Somewhere in the nothingness, a clock begins to strike midnight.

Stop, she thinks.

The clock continues to chime, but she feels the stillness fall.

The breaking is the easy part, Celia realizes.

The pulling back together is the problem.

It is like healing her sliced-open fingertips as a child, taken to an extreme.

There is so much to balance, trying to find the edges again.

It would be so simple to let go.

It would be so much easier to let go.

So much less painful.

She fights against the temptation, against the pain and the chaos. Struggling for control with herself and her surroundings.

She picks a location to focus on, the most familiar place she can think of.

And slowly, agonizingly slowly, she pulls herself safely together.

Until she is standing in her own tent, in the center of a circle of empty chairs.

She feels lighter. Diluted. Slightly dizzy.

But she is not an echo of her former self. She is whole again, breathing. She can feel her heart beating, fast but steady. Even her gown feels the same as it did, cascading around her and no longer wet from the rain.

She spins in a circle and it flares out around her.

The dizziness begins to fade as she collects herself, still amazed at the accomplishment.

Then she notices that everything in the tent around her is transparent. The chairs, the lights hanging above her head, even the stripes on the walls seem insubstantial.

And she is alone.





*


FOR MARCO, THE MOMENT of the explosion lasts much longer.

The heat and the light stretch endlessly as he clings to Celia through the pain.

And then she is gone.

Nothing remains. No fire. No rain. No ground beneath his feet.

His sight begins to shift continuously from shadow to light, darkness replaced by expansive white only to be consumed by darkness again. Never settling.





*


THE CIRCUS SHIFTS AROUND CELIA, as fluid as one of Marco’s illusions.

She pictures where she wishes to be within it, and she is there. She cannot even tell if she is moving herself or manipulating the circus around her.

The Ice Garden is silent and still, nothing but crisp, cool whiteness in every direction.

Only a fraction of the Hall of Mirrors reflects her own countenance, and some contain only a shimmering blur of pale-grey gown, or the motion of the billowing ribbons as they float behind her.

She thinks she catches glimpses of Marco in the glass, the edge of his jacket or the bright flash of his collar, but she cannot be certain.

Many of the mirrors sit hollow and empty within their ornate frames.

The mist in the Menagerie slowly dissipates as she searches the tent, finding nothing concealed within it but paper.

The Pool of Tears does not even ripple, the surface calm and smooth, and she is unable to grasp a stone to drop within it. She cannot light a candle on the Wishing Tree, though the wishes that hang on its branches continue to burn.

She moves through room after room in the Labyrinth. Rooms she created leading to ones he made and back again.

She can feel him. Close enough that she expects him around each turn, behind each door.

But there are only softly drifting feathers and fluttering playing cards. Silver statues with unseeing eyes. Chessboard-painted floors with vacant squares.

There are traces of him everywhere, but nothing for her to focus on. Nothing to hold on to.

The hallway lined with mismatched doors and covered in fallen snow bears traces of what could be footprints, or might only be shadows.

And Celia cannot tell where they lead.





*


MARCO GASPS AS AIR FILLS HIS LUNGS, as though he had been underwater and unaware of it.

And his first coherent thought is that he did not expect being trapped in a fire to feel so cold.

The cool air is sharp and stinging, and he can see only white in all directions.

As his eyes adjust, he can discern the shadow of a tree. The hanging branches of a frosty white willow tree cascading around him.

He takes a step forward, the ground disconcertingly soft beneath his feet.

He stands in the middle of the Ice Garden.

The fountain in the center has halted, the normally bubbling water quiet and still.

And the whiteness makes the effect difficult to see, but the entire garden is transparent.

He looks down at his hands. They are shaking slightly but they appear to be solid. His suit remains dark and opaque.