Chapter 16

The canvas rose slow and steady—

ropes drawn hand-over-hand by the crew that knew this dance by heart.

Flags lifted into the dusk.

Poles locked in. Stakes driven with thunderous booms.

By the time the lanterns lit, the fairground was alive.

Children pressed to the gates.

Vendors shouted over one another.

Somewhere, a lion gave its low, rolling yawn.

Belladonna Redgrave stepped into the ring in full regalia.

Tailcoat. Top hat. That unmistakable grin.

“Welcome,” she called, “to the greatest show you’ll ever survive!”

They cheered.

The strongman lifted a barrel over his head—then another, and another, until the last one spilled confetti and the kids lost their minds.

The sword swallower and knife juggler performed in tandem, cracking jokes between acts.

One clown stole a baby bottle and drank from it. The baby stole it back.

Belladonna watched from the ring’s edge, arms folded, barely hiding her pride.

This was a traveling miracle that earned its keep.

And she’d never let it die.

A calliope sputtered.

Tired, notes dragged. One of the keys stuck and added a sour whine to every pass of the tune.

Belladonna didn't flinch. She adjusted the timing of her hat tip, smiled wider, and kept the show moving.

But even the clowns looked at each other.

The crowd was thinner. The posters—once printed weeks in advance—were now sketched by hand the day before.

Some tents had gone dark. Some performers never came back.

She tried everything.

Favors. New acts. Fireworks too close to the treeline.

A knife act where no one dodged.

And then the man in the black coat came.

Or maybe it was a mirror.

His eyes didn't blink. They just pressed—flat and patient—like hands on glass.

Maybe it was her own shadow.

She never told anyone what she saw.

But the next night, the show ran longer.

The night after that, longer still.

And on the third, when the strongman’s spine snapped mid-lift and he still stood up smiling, Belladonna just clapped her hands and called for the next act.

“Come on, now. The crowd’s still watching.”

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Even when there was no crowd.

The fire never stopped burning. The calliope never broke again.

And no one left the fairground.

Not even her.

The crowd never left.

They couldn’t.

Each seat was filled—bodies nailed in place, joints set with wire, heads propped just high enough to face the ring.

Eyes didn’t close.

Mouths didn’t move.

But they watched.

And the acts?

They never stopped.

The strongman performed three times a night.

He no longer bowed.

His arms moved, but nothing else did.

You could hear his bones scrape.

The twins—once acrobats—now danced on wires above the center ring.

No music cued them.

They danced anyway.

Sometimes they slipped.

They’d rise again at the next cue, bodies wrong in more places than right.

The firebreather had burned through her throat decades ago.

Now she gurgled the flame from a hole in her chest, bowing low as the gas hisses lit with a wet spark.

She smiled. Always.

Belladonna stands at the center, pristine.

Tailcoat crisp. Hat tilted. That same grin.

She calls for the acts like a conductor.

“Louder! Higher! They came to remember, so show them what we lost!”

She cannot see the ash.

She cannot hear the wheeze of the calliope anymore, only the notes as they used to be.

Blood slicked the underside of the stage.

Trapdoors coughed out broken puppets.

Carnies with lantern eyes lurched on rails, dragged by invisible cues, shouting the same line every hour:

“Step right up—don’t be shy—

One more show before you die!”

Tonight was no different.

Barkers pulled the curious.

The acts flayed the foolish.

And at center stage stood Belladonna, arms wide, head thrown back—

drinking in the misery like applause.

She stared up at her limelight.

It was done.

Her masterpiece.

The show that would go on forever, continuing as it always had.

But the light tonight wasn’t the same.

It still bled red—but now a flicker danced at the edge.

A flame. Small. Golden. Crawling along the rim.

She frowned.

Lowered her gaze.

The tent was burning.

And the crowd was burning with it.

She spun, eyes wide, searching the tent.

The flames were crawling fast—up the rigging, through the banners, licking at the rafters like hungry tongues.

Her dreams. Her legacy.

All of it turning to ash.

Then she heard it—

a new sound, cutting through the crackle.

A dull thud landed between her feet.

She looked down.

A small black orb.

Dozens of ropes fed into it—tensioned, twitching, alive.

Then they pulled.

The cords reeled backward, vanishing into the dark beyond the stage—and in their place came the stakes.

A flurry. Sharp. Fast. Forgedwood.

They slammed into her back like a storm of iron teeth, pinning her to the boards.

Belladonna screamed.

Blood spread across the stage like an encore.

She tried to rise.

Her body did not respond.

“What is the meaning of this!?”

A figure marched through the flames.

Fire licked at the hem of his coat.

It ate through fabric, climbed his gloves, kissed the cuffs of his pants.

He didn’t stop.

Two carnies lunged to intercept.

He rammed his weapon into the first—face crumpling with a howling crunch.

The second dropped as his boot shattered its knee.

He kept marching.

Belladonna squinted through the heat haze.

Canvas coat. Iron collar. The gleam of a helmet catching firelight.

Closer now.

She saw the hair—blonde.

The face—stern. Hateful.

She knew him.

Reuben raised Heartpiercer.

Aimed where her heart once beat.

The roar swallowed everything.