“A winner is not declared,” her father says. “The game is played out, not stopped. You should have figured that much out by now. You used to be somewhat clever.”
Celia glares at him, but at the same time she begins turning over his words in her mind, collecting the obscure non-answers about the rules he has given her over the years. Suddenly the shape of the elements he has always avoided becomes more distinct, the key unknown factor clear.
“The victor is the one left standing after the other can no longer endure,” Celia says, the scope of it finally making devastating sense.
“That is a gross generalization but I suppose it will suffice.”
Celia turns back to Marco’s flat, pressing her hand against the door.
“Stop behaving as though you love that boy,” Hector says. “You are above such mundane things.”
“You are willing to sacrifice me for this,” she says quietly. “To let me destroy myself just so you can attempt to prove a point. You tied me into this game knowing the stakes, and you let me think it was nothing but a simple challenge of skill.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, “as if you think me inhuman.”
“I can see through you,” Celia snaps. “It is not particularly trying on my imagination.”
“It would not be any different if I were still as I was when this started.”
“And what happens to the circus after the game?” Celia asks.
“The circus is merely a venue,” he says. “A stadium. A very festive coliseum. You could continue on with it after you win, though without the game it serves no purpose.”
“I suppose the other people involved serve no purpose as well, then?” Celia asks. “Their fates are only a matter of consequence?”
“All actions have repercussions,” Hector says. “That’s part of the challenge.”
“Why are you telling me all this now when you have never mentioned it before?”
“Before, I had not thought you were in the position to be the one to lose.”
“You mean the one to die,” Celia says.
“A technicality,” her father says. “A game is completed only when there is a single player left. There is no other way to end it. You can abandon any misguided dreams of continuing to play whore to that nobody Alexander plucked out of a London gutter after this is over.”
“Who is left, then?” Celia asks, ignoring his comment. “You said Alexander’s student won the last challenge, what happened to him?”
A derisive laugh shudders through the shadows before Hector replies.
“She is bending herself into knots in your precious circus.”
PLAYING WITH FIRE
The only illumination in this tent comes from the fire. The flames are a radiant, flickering white, like the bonfire in the courtyard.
You pass a fire-eater elevated on a striped platform. He keeps small bits of flame dancing atop long sticks while he prepares to swallow them whole.
On another platform, a woman holds two long chains, with a ball of flame at the end of each. She swings them in loops and circles, leaving glowing trails of white light in their paths, moving so quickly that they look like strings of fire rather than single flames on lengths of chain.
Performers on multiple platforms juggle torches, spinning them high into the air. Occasionally, they toss these flaming torches to each other in a shower of sparks.
Elsewhere, there are flaming hoops perched at different levels that performers slip in and out of with ease, as though the hoops were only metal and not encased in flickering flames.
The artist on this platform holds pieces of flame in her bare hands, and she forms them into snakes and flowers and all manner of shapes. Sparks fly from shooting stars, birds flame and disappear like miniature phoenixes in her hands.
She smiles at you as you watch the white flames in her hand become, with the deft movement of her fingers, a boat. A book. A heart of fire.
EN ROUTE FROM LONDON TO MUNICH, NOVEMBER 1, 1901
The train is unremarkable as it chugs across the countryside, puffing clouds of grey smoke into the air. The engine is almost entirely black. The cars it pulls are equally as monochromatic. Those with windows have glass that is tinted and shadowed; those without are dark as coal.
It is silent as it travels, no whistles or horns. The wheels on the track are not screeching but gliding smoothly and quietly. It passes almost unnoticed along its route, making no stops.
From the exterior, it appears to be a coal train, or something similar. It is utterly unremarkable.
The interior is a different story.
Inside, the train is opulent, gilded, and warm. Most of the passenger cars are lined with thick patterned carpets, upholstered in velvets in burgundies and violets and creams, as though they have been dipped in a sunset, hovering at twilight and holding on to the colors before they fade to midnight and stars.
There are lights in sconces lining the corridors, cascades of crystals falling from them and swaying with the motion of the train. Soothing and serene.