I scraped the last bits of rice and gravy from my plate and stood. “What does Falak do with the receipts from each show?”
Gideon translated for me, and Stefan, who seemed to have the greatest understanding of the circus’s intricacies, answered. “After he purchases supplies—food, fuel, material for maintenance and repair and whatever it takes to keep the show going—he deposits payment in each of our names in the Trans-Continental Savings and Loan. He’s always said it was too dangerous to allow us to carry much currency on the road. By the time we pack up and roll out of town, the only money on hand is what he keeps for incidentals and emergencies along the way. It isn’t much.”
“So.” I paced at the edge of the group. “Even if the Brigands do attack, they aren’t likely to come away with much.”
Stefan shook his head, and his silver curls bobbed. “Not unless they know someone in the market for striped canvas and used costumes.”
“The animals,” Genevieve said. “They might be valuable to a gang like that.”
Gideon nodded. “I agree. They’re the circus’s most valuable asset, and that’s what we’ll have to work hardest to protect.”
As a group, we worked out the rest of the details. Gideon devised the shifts for those who volunteered to go on watch, including Genevieve and me. When he’d tried to object to my participation, I quietly reminded him who was the queen in our relationship, and he relented, although it obviously pained him to do so. “I might not have my lightning right now,” I said, “but I have a mechanical lion at my beck and call, and he’s proven himself deadly.”
Gideon cringed. “Indeed.”
“If I promise not to unnecessarily put myself in harm’s way, will that ease your dread?”
He gave a bitter smile. “Hardly. I doubt you and I agree on the definition of ‘unnecessary’. It’s my job to protect you first and foremost, and it’s difficult to do that when you insist on placing yourself in danger.”
“Do you expect me to lock myself in the costumes wagon and pray to the gods for help until we’re through the mountains?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Would you?”
“Don’t underestimate me, Gideon Faust.”
His expression turned grim. Something fierce flashed in his eyes. “Never.”
I nodded. “Then let’s get this procession back on the road. The sooner we get through these mountains, the better.”
BOOK THREE
LIGHTNING AND CLOCKWORK
Chapter 21
After supper, Gideon ordered everyone not on active guard duty to return their wagons. With Falak’s blessing, he instructed them to stay inside with their doors locked and barred. No one argued or resisted, perhaps because his orders made sense, or because fear made them compliant and tractable, or perhaps because of the mist in the air, the blustering winds, and the darkening skies. Rain was imminent, and was no longer a question of if but when.
Although Gideon had arranged a formal watch with assigned shifts and schedules, some members of our troupe, particularly those with children, took their own precautions. The Bianchi family had worked out their own familial sentry while their youngest children huddled with Camilla behind a barricaded door. One of the older Bianchi acrobats perched on the roof of her wagon like a raven, surveying her surroundings as our train bumped and jostled up the steep mountain path. Other families, ones who also had children in their folds, had instituted similar defenses. Most had nothing more than a few knives and impromptu clubs, but the firm set of their chins and the hard look in their eyes revealed their intent to fight and defend their livelihoods and loved ones.
As the last of the sunlight faded, and as the shadows of the Thaulgant Mountains thickened around us, Le Cirque de Merveilles Mécanique prepared for battle.
Perched atop Ynnua, Genevieve trotted beside me and Sher-sah. At Gideon’s request, we kept a position within the procession neither near the front nor close to the rear, where attack seemed most likely and imminent. I wore the leather knickers and slippers that helped me keep a firm grip on my mount, and Falak had lent me an oilskin cape that resisted the rain—mostly. The princess had traded her flashy show attire for a pair of dark trousers, a dark shirt and waistcoat, and a rain-impervious covering of her own.
“Is that my Thunder Cloak?” The dim light hid the fabric’s iridescent nacre, but the shape and form was unmistakable.
Genevieve nodded. “Svieta gave it to me right before we pulled out. Said she hasn’t perfected it, but it should work well enough, especially on a moonless night.” She pointed at the heavy clouds. “I might not be invisible, but she said it should shield me from Otokar’s scrying spells.”
A cold finger of dread traced the back of my neck, and I shivered. “If Otokar can scry you, perhaps Le Poing Fermé will do the same to find me.”
The princess shifted forward in her saddle, hunching lower, drawing her shoulders in tight. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I should have thought of it before.”
“Can we cut the cloak in half? It seems we both need its protection.”
I shook my head. “I’d never harm my cloak. It’s too precious.”
“I didn’t really mean it.”
I waved aside her apology. “I know. I understand what you meant, though. You can stretch the cloak quite a bit and the two of us could share it on occasion, perhaps, if we were in a desperate situation.” A drop of rain splattered on my nose, and I pulled my hood lower over my face. If the rain bothered Sher-sah, he made no complaint, and I wondered if wet weather affected his mechanical bits and pieces. “I’ve dealt with Le Poing Fermé before and lived to tell the tale. I’m not dismissing them, but the Kerch and her men are the more immediate threat. Let’s worry about surviving this passage first, and then I’ll worry about Le Poing Fermé.”
The rattle of the wagons, the sputter of their clockworks, the clop of Ynnua’s brass hooves, and Sher-sah’s subtle clicking and whirring as he trotted up the road filled the silence between the princess and me. The rain fell in steady splatters that muffled distant noises and seemed to make the world smaller and closer. The conditions were terrible for fighting, but perhaps the storm would keep the bandits away, deter them from prowling. Surely they’d prefer warm beds, dry clothes, and hot drinks on a night like this.
“I never told you how the cloak works. Not all of it anyway.” On this dark dangerous night when I was thousands of miles from home and the clouds were blotting out my ancestors’ constellations, speaking of my Thunder Cloak pained me like a strand of barbed wire cinching around my heart.
As though she sensed my heartache, my reluctance, and—to be honest—my resentment, the princess said nothing. She merely listened.
“To trigger the cloak’s invisibility powers, you have to button the clasp at the collar and speak my grandfather’s name aloud.”
She paused a beat before replying. “Trevelyan.”
I flinched, hearing such a beloved familial name on foreign lips. “How...?”
“I know the gods’ histories, Evie. My mother and grandfather ensured Tereza and I were thoroughly educated on the matter. My family was so, so envious of the Stormbournes, the last of an otherwise extinct species. And they were resentful. I understand why Tereza did what she did to me. To know that the kind of power your family has, that our family once had but lost, is just beyond her reach, as though she could stretch herself far enough, she might reach it, somehow.”
“It doesn’t make what she did to you justifiable.”
“No. Not justifiable, but it was understandable. Every day growing up we were reminded of what we had, but had lost. Tereza took it harder than I did, but then, she is the empress.”
The mountain road turned, and its incline steepened. Holding fast with my legs, I gripped Sher-sah and leaned forward, wrapping my fists in his reins. “I know you abhor a saddle, King Lion, but bareback riding in the rain is challenging the full extent of my skills.”
I pictured Mika and Adaleiz warm and dry in the menagerie wagon and envied them. Somewhere at the front of our procession, Gideon rode on Wallah. The rain had probably made him miserable, too, but at least he had a saddle and warm-blooded beast beneath him.
“Is there anything special you have to do to make Svieta’s cloaking spell work?”
“No.” Genevieve’s saddle creaked as she shifted again. “She only said I should keep it on at all times.”
As the night grew later, the strain of staying alert for signs of an attack wore on me. Rain had soaked me to the bone, and subtle shivers trembled through me from head to toe. My body screamed for a break, but I refused to admit weakness. If Genevieve and Gideon could outlast the night, so would I.
After hours of proceeding at a slow, torturous crawl into the mountains, the rain eased to a misty drizzle. The impenetrable darkness relented, fading from abyssal black to a sickly, dark gray. Dawn arrived, bringing with it a blessed shift change for those of us who had guarded the circus throughout the night. The troupe paused briefly for breakfast, and after I’d gulped a bowl of hot oats soaked in milk, Sher-sah and I returned to the menagerie cart with Genevieve and her unicorn to check on our horses and let them out for a bit of exercise.
Svieta was waiting for us when we arrived, and she wore an anxious expression. She clutched a small oil can and a chamois cloth, obviously eager to inspect and repair the unicorn and lion if necessary. I worried that our arduous night in the rain might’ve harmed their mechanics, and the tinkerer appeared to share my concerns. She issued a command, and the lion and unicorn scurried into the wagon as Mika and Adaleiz trotted out, both eager to stretch their legs.
“I feel dead on my feet,” I said. “I might pass out the minute I lie down.”
Genevieve groaned. “I might not even make it that long.”
We let the horses nibble at the sparse greenery sprigging up from our rocky surrounding, but the mountains favored granite walls over green meadows and leafy trees. Jagged knobs of rock jutted up from the roadside, leaving precious little room for the wagons to squeeze through. We had ascended high into the Thaulgant’s peaks, and a misstep would send the wagons and their inhabitants plummeting down steep hillsides and gullies. I peered up at the tallest summit, one Falak had called Dziadek, a local word meaning “grandfather.” Craggy, and snowcapped like an old man with white hair, the mountain had rightfully earned its name.
