The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📕

was nothing but an illusion. A cruel manifestation of her own mind, like the chandeliers in the old circus tent or the turn of a lock. This is what she’d wanted to see. This was all she’d wanted to see.

As he beamed down at her, she allowed herself to see this moment for what it was. Had he been at the church, this was the look he would have given her at the end of the aisle where he’d have stood waiting for her before they said their vows. She took the champagne glass from him. The stem was thin, and she could feel the chill on her forefinger as she held it. She slid her hand in his. It was warm, like a real one. She clung to it for a moment, pulling the illusion of him toward her.

“You look beautiful.” It was that voice, deeper than you expected from him, that always surprised her. The timbre of it. She’d never erased his voicemails, saving them for the day she could bear to listen to them again.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispered.

The knowing smile he gave her was heartbreaking. “You’ll be fine, Lara.”

“I don’t want to be fine.” Tears so easily began to run down her face, the grief hitting her in waves.

As she blinked, her tears seemed to fade him, like a watercolor in rain.

And he was gone.

Wiping her face, Lara felt something stir, a breeze, giving her goose bumps. Despite the fact that she was at the top of the stairs in a crowded room, everything and everyone in the room fell away. Standing in front of her on the other side of the staircase, wearing a black tuxedo and gold mask, was the man with brown ringlets who had stood in her field all those years ago. Even with his mask, he was unmistakable, dashing. Like a wicked fairy-tale villain from childhood, he flashed the same devilish smile. With him was the woman with the parasol, only now she was wearing a gold dress that matched his mask. Margot—her grandmother.

This entire scene was impossible and yet they stood before her, just as Todd had a minute ago.

“You’re getting so much better with your illusions, my dear. I almost believed he was here with us.”

“Aren’t you another one?” She didn’t have time for games. Lara wanted to run down the stairs and out the door like some princess in a Grimm fairy tale.

“Hardly.” The man slid his arm around her as if he instinctively knew that she was unsteady. He whisked her down the stairs like a Victorian lady and into the foyer below. His arm felt real and people seemed to part for them, as if they saw him, too. “I assure you, I’m as real as you.”

“What did I just do?”

He led her through the double front doors and onto the street. “You created the illusion you wanted the most.” Everything about him looked normal—human. “But you need to be careful, my child. Sometimes illusion has the power to destroy us. Best to snuff it out like a single flame before it catches.”

He pulled away and looked into her eyes, taking her in with his strange horizontal pupils. “You look lovely in that choker.”

“It’s an heirloom.” She wanted to touch it, but he held on to her firmly, not allowing her shoulders to move.

“I know,” he said. “I created it for my Juno, so many years ago.” He slid a finger across the necklace, causing a chill to travel up Lara’s spine. “It was my gift to her. Those are the finest pearls found in Styx.”

“The river?”

“Well, certainly not the band, my dear,” he said with amusement. From the vantage point of the City Hall entrance steps, he scanned Main Street like a cat in a window. “We are alike, you and me. There are some days the desire to glimpse Juno again—even the shell of her—is still so overpowering that I would risk everything to conjure her. And yet I know it would be only the manifestation of her. It would be hollow, like a waxwork.”

Lara met his eyes. “Why are you here?”

“Excellent question.” He started down the steps with surprising grace, like a Bob Fosse dancer, his shoes tapping against the concrete. Lara followed after him. At the bottom, he stood with his hands in his pockets, smelling the night air as an animal does. “I have a proposition for you, my dear. That fiancé of yours.”

“Todd?”

He looked bored at the specifics, like names. “You just conjured that tall drink of water up as your date for this evening’s soiree, so you must want to know what happened to him?”

“You know what happened to him?” There was desperation in her voice. She heard it crack.

“Of course I do.”

“Well?” Lara rubbed her sweating palms on the dress. She wasn’t fifteen minutes into this gala and she’d seen three surprising guests. Why did she always feel faint when she saw Althacazur? Her breathing was growing shallow and she tried to remember everything she could from her research on him. If he was, in fact, the daemon Althacazur, then he was Lucifer’s favorite… ruled the greatest layer of Hell… was vain and often underestimated… had horizontal pupils. As she did the checklist in her head, she thought she should probably sit down before she passed out. Eyeing a bench near the bus stop, Lara steered him there. At the entrance to the gala, Lara watched Margot flirting with two young men. While she seemed to be enthralled with their conversation, she kept a watchful eye on Althacazur’s and Lara’s movements.

He took a seat next to her, like it was something novel. “Is this what it’s like to wait for a bus? I’ve never done that before.”

“You know what happened to Todd?” Lara felt the need to repeat herself now that they were seated.

“Tsk. Tsk.” He wagged his finger at her. “I require something for that information. If you want to know what happened to Tom.”

“Todd.”

“Whatever.” He shrugged