Gods, I didn’t know how they could stand it. The human spectators might have been dangerously sense-dead, but the fae weren’t. Perhaps they were just used to it — just as they were used to the layers of plum, emerald, and turquoise silks that draped the inner walls of the tent, giving the place a cocoon-like feel and creating a maze of narrow passageways through which the performers could slip by unseen.
Faelights floated throughout the tent, casting shadows over the silks. Unnervingly, it was impossible to tell whichshadows came from the spectator side and which were from faeries passing behind the silks. Otherworldly music drifted over the crowd, and I found myself pulled along by the strange melody even as it clashed against my frayed nerves.
The gaggle of humans in front of me stopped suddenly, and I had to stand on tiptoe to see what had caught their attention.
An enormous fae male stood off to one side of the ring — so tall he towered over the mortal spectators by at least six inches. He was naked apart from a gladiator-style kilt, and rather than skin, his body was covered in iridescent gray scales. Several rows of sharp black spikes trailed from the center of his skull all the way down his back, and vertical irises stretched across bright-yellow eyes. As the humans gawked, he drew his head back and spewed a jet of blue flames directly at a silver-skinned female who was swinging from an aerial loop.
The crowd gasped, but the female gave a seductive moan, and her skin began to glow everywhere the flames touched.Oohsandahhsrose from the crowd, and the mortals burst into applause.
A moment later, the faelights flashed, and the spectators began picking their way up the rickety bleachers. I found a seat between a group of young women like those who visited the vampire clubs in the Quarter and a man with heavy black eyeliner. They all had food — stale popcorn, shriveled hot dogs, funnel cakes, and other greasy, unappealing fare that made my stomach turn sour. The humans couldn’t seem to stop shoveling it in, though, and I wondered if it was enchanted the way faerie food was in the Otherworld.
Soon the female who’d handed us our tickets droppedthe tent flap, and all the faelights winked out. The darkness threw itself around us — a glamour of blackness that snuffed out even my enhanced hunter sight.
My skin crawled at the thought of all those faeries skulking unseen behind the silks. The eerie music swelled. It sounded like a violin, but higher-pitched and more demented. With each note, a pinprick of silver light opened above the crowd — dozens upon dozens of artificial stars sparking into existence for our entertainment.
Just when every eye in the big top was fixated on the magical constellation above, a single spotlight crashed through the darkness. It illuminated a male clad in a shimmering gold vest, pinstriped pants, and a red velvet topcoat.
Though the male’s skin was unnaturally taut and youthful, his hair was such a brilliant shade of white that it seemed to glow as he removed his top hat. Silvery eyes were set off by a pair of thick dark eyebrows that rose into sharp points at the ends. An equally sharp goatee accentuated his angular features. He moved with the sort of predatory feline grace that made the hairs along the back of my neck stand on end.
This, then, was the Ringmaster. The female at the entrance had said I wouldn’t have to ask when I saw him, and I knew instantly what she’d meant. The male hadn’t uttered a single word, and yet every set of eyes in the big top was trained onhim.
“Ladies and gentlemen . . . harlots and scoundrels . . . mortals and immortals . . .” The Ringmaster cut a glance around the tent, and a round of nervous chuckles ensued. “Allow me to offer mysincerecondolences.” He made another graceful sweep with his hat, commanding thecrowd’s attention so effortlessly, so completely, that I wondered if he held the humans in his thrall.
“Tonight, beneath these very lights, you shall witness spectacles so marvelous, so enthralling, soconfoundingthat everything in your pitiful human existence shall pale in comparison. It is, ladies and gentlemen, no exaggeration to say that the things you will see tonight are not of this earth. Indeed, these inhuman feats would beimpossiblewere it not for the magic thrashing beneath the skin of every male and female in this ring. Watch, if you dare, and bear witness to the atrocious cruelty of none other than the vicious knife thrower, Khalil, and his gorgeous captive, Lilith.”
The Ringmaster threw out one white-gloved hand, and the big top was thrust into darkness once again. When another spotlight illuminated a corner of the ring, the Ringmaster had vanished.
An enormous circular board stood in the center of the spotlight, splattered with what looked like molten silver. Splayed across the board in little more than shimmering red underthings was a pale female with white-blond hair. Her tiny feet were planted on a platform that protruded from the base of the board, and she held her arms out wide.
Opposite her stood a bald, golden-skinned male with slits for nostrils and a truly ruthless expression. He had to be nearly seven feet tall, dressed in tight black pants with no fewer than fifteen daggers strapped to his waist and thighs.
The muscles of his bare chest rippled as he drew his first blade, and the crowd seemed to hold its breath. I watched in stunned horror as he pulled his arm back and released the blade — hurtling it straight at the female.
The knife sank into her pale flesh, and a blood-curdling screech rent the air. The crowd gasped at the female’sapparent anguish, but then that scream turned into a trill of bone-chilling laughter.
I stared. Silvery blood oozed from where the blade was lodged in her arm, forming tiny droplets that floated into the air and glistened under the spotlight.
The male threw blade after blade with alarming precision, pinning his partner to the board. With each new wound he opened, more of that silvery blood splattered. It floated above them in tiny glistening drops, undulating as the drops organized themselves into gossamer strands of pure silver.
After the tenth blade found its home in the female’s upper thigh, the blood solidified into what was unmistakably a chain. I watched, rapt with disgust, as it launched itself at the knife thrower. The crowd roared as the chain wrapped itself around the knife thrower’s throat, wrestling the behemoth male to the ground.
His muscles bulged as he tried to escape, but the silvery chain tightened around his throat. The female’s mouth stretched in a wicked laugh, and the crowd went wild.
As the mortals rose to give her a standing ovation, the Ringmaster swept back in. The silver chain abruptly released the knife thrower, and the daggers shot out of the female’s body as if propelled by the magic in her blood.
She leapt gracefully off the board, preening for the crowd as she and the knife thrower took their bows. Then they vanished in another sweep of darkness, along with the blood-splattered board.
I’d seen enough.
The longer I sat and watched, the more I felt as though my senses betrayed me. Maybe the Ringmasterhadused a thrall on the audience, or maybe it was simply an effect ofthe music and glamour. Whatever it was, I could feel myself succumbing to the same enraptured state that kept the mortals glued to their seats, shoveling that horrible food into their mouths.
I tried to stand, but my body felt as though it were made of lead — as if there was some supernatural force keeping me in my seat.
Gritting my teeth, I shoved off the bleacher and locked my legs, treading on at least half a dozen pairs of feet as I stumbled over the mortals watching the next act. I plunged behind one of the cool silk curtains that smelled like incense and magic and blinked in the dim light illuminating the passageway.
A few faelights bobbed overhead, though they weren’t visible from the other side of the curtains. In the cocoon of violet silk, I could still hear the stunned cries and gasps from the crowd, though they were strangely muted. The Ringmaster had to have his own dressing area, and I planned to be there when the show ended to ask him about the stone.
Parting the blue silks in front of me, I was met with an angry hiss as two fae sprang apart — a female with shocking pink skin and a male with long curling horns protruding from his head. They looked as though they’d been locked in a passionate embrace, but now they turned to glare at me.
