At least, until she began experimenting with the souls of women and men.
The outcry was thunderous. The Council of Magic’s response was vicious and swift.
Svieta found herself ousted from the Collegium, penniless, without resources, and threatened by some with death. Under the cover of darkness, she and her beastly compendium snuck away from the city.
Eventually, they found their way to Le Cirque de Merveilles Mécanique.
Chapter 20
“Over time the menagerie grew,” Genevieve explained, still translating for Bashaya. “It took nearly thirty years for it to reach its current state.”
“And she’s been with the circus that whole time?” I asked.
“She’s the most loyal of us all,” Bashaya said through Genevieve. “She was with Falak’s mother and father in her early days, but when they left and went home to enjoy a slower pace in their old age, she stayed with the circus. It’s the only place that lets her be who she really is.”
“Has she continued her experimentations?”
Bashaya nodded again. “Unbelievable things, but we dare not mention them. The circus is a place for people who do not easily fit within the bounds of society. We protect each other and allow each other the freedoms the world would forbid us from seeking.”
I thought about Svieta experimenting with the souls of human women and men and shivered—a mixture of wonder and horror. Forbidden indeed. “So, there’s the spirit of a real lion in Sher-sah? Is that what makes him so lifelike?”
“A lion soul muddled with a bit of Magic. He is not merely a lion. He is something more than. They’re all a little something more than just animals.”
It explained so much, and the near impossibility of Svieta’s schemes and designs nearly baffled me. But I could command thunder and lightning with my will, and I’d seen what Jackie and Ruelle Thibodaux could do with Magic. Why should the existence of creatures such as Sher-sah, Ajej, and Ynnua come as any surprise? The morality of Svieta’s actions was a subject I hadn’t the time or luxury to thoroughly debate. Although they were trained and used as circus acts, the animals were treated well. Svieta seemed to be a gentle and loving master, and that would have to be enough, for now. Having accepted the truth what Bashaya had told me, I sighed and released the last of my unease and concern.
“Thank you for telling us.” I rose, shuffled past Gideon, and reached for the door. “Svieta’s secret will go to the grave with us, I swear it.”
Bashaya squeezed past me and descended the steps to the ground.
“One more question,” I said. Gideon, standing at my side, caught my glance and translated for me.
The snake charmer huffed but waved in a gesture that seemed to say, go ahead.
“Why is the ring so important to you?”
Bashaya’s smile wiped a dozen years or more from her face. She nodded toward Gideon in a knowing way, and his face flushed as he translated. “She said...” He cleared his throat. “She said one day perhaps someone will give you such a ring.” The snake charmer’s smile fled, and she said something else. “Sometimes love comes at a steep price, and you’ll be willing to pay it, no matter the cost.” She said something else and retreated toward her wagon.
“What was that last part?” I asked.
Gideon looked away, his expression solemn. “She said sometimes you don’t find out until much later that the cost was too high.”
I stared at him, but he wouldn’t look at me. “She might be right, Gideon. Maybe some costs are too high.”
He made a gruff sound in this throat and jumped down from his perch in the wagon’s doorway. Before he left for the night, he paused. The darkness concealed his features and turned him into a great black shadow. “Even my death, Evie, would not be too high of a price for me to pay. I would have given my life—I almost did. Ask me if I wouldn’t do it again. Ask me.”
“No.” My voice was as dry and brittle as a late-winter leaf. “It’s too much. Bashaya’s right.”
Was my kingdom’s wellbeing worth the cost of his life? He’d nearly died for me, and now that he was back, I realized the price of losing him, really losing him, was one I absolutely couldn’t afford. And if I couldn’t sacrifice one man for the benefit of many, what kind of queen would that make me?
Perhaps Inselgrau deserved better than me. Maybe the country would find new and better leadership in my absence. Gideon had told me of the rumors saying Inselgrau’s citizens were battling it out between themselves—merchants, the former members of my father’s Crown of Men, and countless others had probably joined the fray. Was my country in the midst of a civil war, and if so, could I stop it? If not, would the winner welcome my return or only see me as a threat and an enemy? “I can’t lose you.”
Before he could formulate a response, I retreated into my wagon, closing the door firmly behind me. My heart thundered in my chest, and I leaned against a wall, gathering my composure.
Genevieve glanced at me over her shoulder. She had loosened her braid and was working a brush through her hair. “I heard what you said. You do love him, don’t you?”
I closed my eyes and sent a wordless prayer to my father. “I don’t know, Genevieve. But I do know that I can’t lose him. It’s a price I’m not willing to pay.”
“Not even if it’s the price of getting your throne back?”
My eyes popped open, and I glared at her. “Pray it never comes to that.”
***
The next morning, I collected my breakfast from Gepennio’s wagon before joining Gideon at his roadside camp. He had stretched a bit of oiled canvas over several stakes, rigging it in a triangular configuration that gave him a dry space in which to lie, if the rain should come. By the looks of the clouds gathering in the distance, rain seemed like a distinct possibility. He had also started a small fire, and a shallow pan of water simmered on a rock beside the flames.
Beneath a dark riding coat, he wore slim black pants, a white shirt, and a serviceable waistcoat in a somber blue. He also wore the black leather boots the empress had given him. Apparently, they had survived Vanessa’s fiery attack.
His short hair, though.... I might never get used to that.
The pale-brown strands stuck up around his head in a riot of cowlicks, and my fingers itched to smooth them down, to touch him, to verify again that he was truly there, whole and healthy.
After taking a seat beside him at the fire, I gave him the bread from my plate to accompany his dried fruit and jerky breakfast, and I refused to hear his objections. “I don’t know what’s to come,” I said. “And I can’t bear the thought that you might ever go hungry while I had plenty.”
“That’s not the standard talk for a queen. Aren’t you supposed to crave luxury, even at the cost of your people?”
“How can you say that? Have you forgotten Fallstaff so quickly? It was a grand home, don’t get me wrong, but it was no Prigha Castle.”
“It was a monolith.” He tore the crust from his bread. “Like something frozen in time several hundred years ago.”
