“Well, home is the circus, wherever we are. Mama’s made sure of that. And my father’s a noble from Esting City, the capital, although he lives in Port’s End now. We write letters sometimes, but I haven’t seen him in . . . a while.” I took a deep breath as the city came into view. “But still, if I did call someplace home, Port’s End would be the top contender. It’s where Rosie and I were born, and where the circus was born too.”
“Your father is an Estinger nobleman? I thought Rosie said he was from Nordsk.”
I felt my lips press together. I had thought a Fey wouldn’t ask questions like that. They live in friend groups rather than in couples like Estingers, and one Fey can have many parents. It’s one of the things the Brethren missionaries tried to put a stop to when Faerie was a colony of Esting, but it never worked.
Still, maybe all Tam knew of Estinger families was what those missionaries told fer. “Rosie’s father is Nordsk. Mine is Estinger. They both live in Port’s End now, but . . . we don’t see them much. At all.” I swallowed. “Mama couldn’t choose between them, so here we are. It bothers people more than it should.”
Tam touched me gently again, in apology this time. “It doesn’t bother me. I have five parents, you know. And one of them is human—a soldier who defected during the war.”
I smiled at fer. “I’d better check the luggage again before it’s disembarked,” I said. “Some of the mechanisms are pretty delicate. I can’t have Rosie off-balance for our homecoming show.”
“Can I come?” Tam’s freckled face lit up. “I still can’t understand the first thing about what it is you do, Ivory. The way you make machines that obey your bidding at a simple touch or without touching them at all. It’s like . . .”
“Magic?”
We both laughed, and Tam followed me to the hold.
Rosie
Do you know how to fly?
I do. It has nothing
to do with becoming airborne,
the way Ivory thinks:
so many feathers, this much
tailspin, that much lift.
You can fly in your own
skin. All you need
is to make your hands
rough and find
something strong
to hold on to.
The crowd at the docks
will have such heavy hearts.
Crowds always do.
An acrobat’s work
is to lift them too.
Flights you don’t see.
We measure the breadth
of each muscle, each breath.
I move them with me.
My limbs could be
heavy as Bear’s
and still
I’d bring the sky
down in my grip
and make you
believe
you
too
have
wings.
Ivory
Pink and gold banners unfurled across the starboard side of the airship as we pulled into view of the port. Everyone with free hands had been given cheap trumpets so they could help blare the Circus Rose’s tinny theme tune—which made me feel almost grateful for the heavy wheeled boxes I dragged behind me.
I may not have an ounce of showmanship in my bones, but I love being backstage, managing the lights and the music that I’d gotten nearly half automated by then—or better yet, designing some newer, better contraption to show off Rosie’s dancing and acrobatics. I was sure the girls from engineering school, not to mention my old teacher Miss Lampton herself, were going to admire the work I’d done. I was going to send Miss Lampton enough tickets to bring the whole school to one of our shows.
Truth was, I should have worked more during the months-long voyage from Faerie. I always think I’ll get so much done while we’re traveling, but I rarely do—it’s so tempting to use the free time resting and reading when being a stagehand demands so much work and so many hours once we arrive at our next venue.
And, all right, maybe I’d spent less time reading on this trip and more time talking with Tam.
But I hadn’t had a crush in a long time. It was fun.
I told myself to stop feeling guilty, and I refocused on the task at hand: getting the circus on land again and making sure everyone knew we were here.
Mama creates all the fanfare she can whenever we arrive somewhere new; it’s free advertising, she says, the gossip about something bright and shiny that’s just pulled into town.
I waited impatiently for the end of the showing off, then hurried back to the hold to make sure I could oversee my contraptions getting unloaded in good time.
Usually the Circus Rose does make a fair splash wherever we arrive, with the blaring trumpets and the banners—and we ourselves, of course. Mama has everyone who’s willing (that is, exactly all the performers and exactly none of the stagehands) wear costuming and makeup when we get out somewhere new, but we hardly need that to stand out, what with a bearded lady, a strongwoman, a fire-eater, and contortionists and clowns by the dozen among our number. Not to mention the dancing boys, the only group of their kind, and our absurdly beautiful new magician.
Well. Not absurdly beautiful.
Seriously beautiful.
Deeply, gravely, sincerely beautiful.
Black curls tumbling down to big, sooty-lashed gray eyes, radiantly smooth olive skin constellated with the blue freckles that mark all the Fey. Even the lines of fer nose and chin and cheekbones stroke so lovingly across fer face that they look made on purpose.
Long, slim hands, powerful and delicate at once. Strong, graceful limbs, with a chest you just want to rest against. And a mouth that makes you want . . .
I stopped my own thoughts. I hadn’t gotten this swoony about anyone since Mama first hired the dancing boys.
That was two years ago, just before we left on the grand tour that eventually took us to Faerie. I remember the exact day. It was when Rosie and I both knew we were growing up.
We were never permitted to watch the Circus Rose auditions, as much as we begged to do so. We had been allowed to, once, but then a seemingly innocent act turned into something violent enough to give us both nightmares, and after that, Mama forbade it. She and Vera held the auditions, and Mama got final say over the new acts joining the troupe before anyone else got to see them.
It was strange to see the circus tent from the outside on audition days. We were kept occupied sweeping up and breaking down the merchandise stalls and all of those wholesome, boring, busy-making types of things, but despite the rush of activity, there was still an eerie quiet around the main tent: no blaring recorded orchestra, no applause or echoing laughter or unified gasps. Just one quiet phonograph for background music—instead of the elaborate sound system we employed during shows—that was never enough to carry past the thick canvas walls.
I hadn’t noticed the dancing boys when they arrived among the other hopefuls in the morning. They would have just looked like . . . like everyone else, then. They wouldn’t have put on their costumes yet.
But when the hopefuls walked out of the tent in the evening . . .
I was leaning on the long broom I’d been using to sweep up the path between concession stands. My face felt hot and grimy, sticky with sweat. I was a little out of breath too. I wasn’t long back from my year as a student, and I wasn’t exactly in stagehand shape. My heart was thumping and my throat felt a little raw, as if I’d spent the day running laps instead of just sweeping and uprooting tent pegs. It was work, but nothing I would have called hard the year before. I was feeling childish and inadequate and very annoyed with myself for not being bigger and stronger—especially since Rosie had recently had a growth spurt, both up in height and out in some very specific places that made me devastatingly jealous.