Chapter 14

Fourteen

"What do you mean?" I ask, even as I head over and sit in the chair opposite her, just like when I was a child. Not much has changed in here despite how much I have. She's older, the years only making her more beautiful and mysterious, and I watch her hand hover over the cards before flipping them all to reveal the queens of each suit lined up.

"They told me you would come," she replies.

"The cards?" I question. I should scoff, but I have seen things here in my short time that make me believe her. This is no regular circus. Things happen at Cirque Obscurum that are unnatural and impossible.

Despite the strangeness and intense herbal smell, I feel at ease here. My worries disappear, and my muscles relax. I sit forward, eager to hear what she will tell me.

"I knew you would find your way to me eventually. You did back then, and you have now. I can teach you, Ember." I jerk my head up from the cards, and she waves her hands. They flip over once more. "I can teach you to read cards. I can teach you to be like me if you wish." She waits, her hand hovering over the cards as if waiting for me to pick my own future. There's no pressure as she waits curiously to see what I will do.

I could walk away and find something else to do, but my heart thrums in here. My eagerness and curiosity get the better of me. Something tells me that in order for me to know this cirque better and the men within it, I must first understand it, and that begins here.

"I'd like that."

The smile she bestows upon me makes me sit up taller, and when she waves her hands, the cards flip once more. Lined up in order are diamond, spade, club, heart, and queen. Does the order mean something? I don't know, but she flips them once more and shuffles them.

"Then let us begin. There's no time better than the present. There are many things you must understand to read the cards, to read the future of those who come to you. Here, you must suspend your ideals of your world and reality. Here, everything is not as it seems. Things you couldn't even imagine are real. This is where magic lives. Within the cards are the past, present, and future. Everything is linked in this world, Ember. Everything has a tie leading somewhere. People fear the dark because they know the truth we only accept here—that magic is real and alive."

I meet her eyes, my heart racing. "And cirque?—"

"Is also alive." She nods. Suddenly, she throws the cards up. I sit back with a gasp at the abruptness and then again as they hover in the air for long seconds before they fall once more. "Here, Queen, we are not the masters. We simply answer the call as you have. We all have. We are its conduit. Pure magic flows through us. We do its bidding. The sooner you realize you can't control it, the sooner you will understand it." The cards arrange themselves on the table, lying face down in a random pattern as she taps them. "The past and the future are all linked, and I, and now you, are the key to keeping it all together, but to understand the future, you must first understand the past. Pick a card." She waits patiently, and with a shaking hand, I reach across the table, tapping a card at random.

When I retract my hand, she flips the card to show me a spade. "It's interesting you would pick this."

"Why?" I ask, frowning. She speaks in riddles, but part of me seems to understand them and why they are important.

"It is interesting that you, who was held captive in your marriage, would pick the card of a man who was held captive as well. You have wondered why there are no cages here, correct? It is his doing. He was held in a cage most of his life, tied to the wants and needs of people posing as parents. He was the second of our suits to be called to the circus, but his strengths were born with him, not grown here. Animals have always answered his call, and the cirque saw that and called him home where he could be free, as well as his animal." Before I can ask questions, she flips the cards and waits with an arched brow. I tap another at random, desperate for the information she is giving me on the men who have consumed my thoughts. They are as mysterious as the cards before me.

This time, it flips over to reveal a red heart, and she smiles. "Heart, despite his name, is often called heartless. It's ironic that he chose that name, though I think that's probably why he did so. He is all about confronting his fears head-on. He was a slave when the cirque found him, forced to sleep within the trees of his master's traveling shops. He was left to nature, and many think that's what drove him mad, or the many beatings he endured in the name of the heart." I must look confused because she smiles. "Only love can bore such madness, Queen, and Heart loved deeper than most, until it was taken."

She flips it once more, and I tap another. This time the black club flips over, and she rubs her thumb over it. "Club was born as an entertainer. We aren't the only circus, of course. He was born into the life, but unlike us, he had no family. He learned to respect the sharp edge of the blade, making it his own after it was used against him. His beauty was his greatest weapon and also his darkest sin. He was wanted by all, and they used that. He was not chained like you, Ember, but you know all too well how easily one can be trapped even without restraints."

I swallow as the card flips, and this time, she flips another—diamond. "Our ringmaster, but you know that. You saw him here when you were a child. Unlike the others, he was born into the service of cirque." She flips the card back over. "All of them were destined to join cirque, but they still chose the oath, chose to bind themselves to this fate. Their pasts and futures collide. It's woven together. Everything is born as it should be, but choices can change everything. That is one thing magic has no control over—free will. Here, we learn to read it and offer the truth without bias. Here, we are the historians, the readers, and the keepers. We are the soul of cirque. Without us, there is no home or family." She levels her pale white eyes on me, her expression solemn. "We answer the cards, Ember, but you will control them."