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

of my mother; the vision of her still cut him. How hard to be a powerful being and yet be denied the only thing you’ve ever desired. It was the first time I saw the imprint of his own prison on him. “But both you and your sister have cost me dearly.” He spoke slowly and deliberately, so that I absorbed each word. “When you were born, I should have thrown both you and Esmé into the Styx and let it have you.”

My eyes slowly traveled up to meet his. Those flat pupils stared back at me, unflinching.

Terror swept through me. I gripped the handle of the ride.

“I could do it now, in fact,” he said, his tone measured like he was discussing the weather. “Start with you, right here, then her next.” He tapped his cane, then stroked the arm of the gondola seat.

Tensing, I sat back in my own seat as far away from him as I could get. He had a strange sense of humor, but this wasn’t one bit funny. I felt my heart beating wildly. Would he really throw me from the car? Was this why he’d lured me here?

He leaned back and draped his arm on the gondola seat. “Relax, Cecile. I’m not in a vengeful mood tonight, although what you girls put me through, no other daemon would take it, I assure you. As part of me, though, I know what you’ll do before you even think of it. That’s why I know that you cannot handle what we are—what you are. You think you can handle anything—oh, you’re a trapeze star now, the talk of Paris,” he said mockingly. “You are quite correct that your sister has killed those men. Now I know what you’ll ask next.”

I went to speak, but he cut me off.

“You’ll want to know why.”

It was exactly the question I was going to ask.

“Because it is the cost of the circus that you both live in. Esmé bears it, alone. Now the next thing you are going to insist… with great aplomb… is that it is unfair for her to bear such a burden. Hear me now. Are you really so naive that you think I care about fair, Cecile? Have I allowed you to so greatly misjudge me?” He leveled his eyes at me. They were cold. I saw no traces of love or even affection for me in them. Never had I been more frightened.

I knew what he was getting at. Father was the most feared of the generals and yet here he was consoling his sniveling daughter. “She hates me because of it,” I said, staring off at the barren trees of the White Forest. She had gone there and endured unspeakable things because of me. Now it all made sense.

“Sadly, she will hate you more when she learns of your news.” He eyes went to the tiny swell in my waist.

“How did you know?” I said, touching my stomach protectively. Beneath my fingers, I felt the warm ball below my navel, firm and round, like an orange.

“How could I not. You must know, this is not good, Cecile,” he continued. “You and your sister are cambions—the offspring of a human and a daemon. You are carrying a child who is part cambion. While it can weaken with every generation, this birth—a child with the essence of a daemon—will be hard on you. You should know it’s what killed your mother.”

“Will I die?”

“Sadly, my dear, the Reaping is the one thing that I cannot control.”

“But I have your daemon blood. Won’t that help me?”

He shrugged. “You also have a fragile mortal shell, like an egg. Inside you have magic, that is true, but you are not immortal, sadly.”

I considered his words. “Émile does not know about the baby.”

“That is for the best.”

“If he knew, he’d insist that we be together.”

“I’m afraid,” he said wearily, “that is not possible.”

He continued gazing out at the Styx below. The river and its coal-black waters were the source of his power. This was my world. While I came and went from the circus, I was, in fact, like Doro. A creature of Hell. That I could not be with Émile was the answer that I was expecting, the one that I had known deep inside.

“It is my fault entirely that I brought this painter into the circus. I’m just sorry that you were the unfortunate pawn.”

“What do you mean?” I stared off at the white sandy banks that led to the White Forest.

“I enchanted the paintings.”

“I knew that.”

“While I enchanted them so that anyone who gazes on the three paintings will see what I want them to see, that’s not all I did.”

“What did you do?” My nostrils flared and my voice rose, echoing in the cavern. He had a habit of cruel tricks. Instantly I thought of the bargain that Émile had made with him to secure the commission. Had it included Émile’s soul?

“It’s been dull around here this summer, so I cast a little spell.” He dismissed me with his hand. “It was really nothing. I simply let Émile choose three subjects for his paintings. Each subject would fall in love with him. He painted you; you fell in love with him… Esmé, Sylvie…”

“That’s cruel,” I gasped. “How could you?” Again, my hand fell to my baby. The dates were important. Had my feelings for Émile been enchantments? Had anything about him been real except for the child I was now carrying? “When… when did you do this?” I was sick.

He shrugged. “When I commissioned him, of course.”

I sank back into my chair, recalling the day at the market at Rue Mouffetard when Émile had bought me an apple. That was the very moment that I fell in love with him, before Father had hired him. My feelings for Émile—and his for me—had been genuine.

August 9, 1925

Doro has informed me that Esmé gave Émile a ticket to the circus. To his