The Night Circus: Part IV

“This place is so well protected it’s downright absurd,” Hector says, waving at the door. “Nothing could get in without that boy explicitly wanting it there.”

“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.”

“That is a gross generalization but I suppose it will suffice.”

A derisive laugh shudders through the shadows before Hector replies.

She smiles at you as you watch the white flames in her hand become, with the deft movement of her fingers, a boat.

The engine is almost entirely black. The cars it pulls are equally as monochromatic.

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.

While most of the train compartments are saturated with color, Tsukiko’s private car is almost completely neutral.

“Love is fickle and fleeting,” Tsukiko continues. “It is rarely a solid foundation for decisions to be made upon, in any game.”

“Indeed we are,” the man says with a similar lilting accent.

While they wait for the train Elizabeth takes out her knitting needles and a skein of deep red wool.

“Not with me,” Bailey says, remembering the suit packed in a trunk at home that was only ever pulled out for special occasions. He guesses he has likely outgrown it in the interim, unable to recall exactly what the last suit-worthy occasion was.

When Lorena realizes that Bailey has no red, she surreptitiously removes a rose from a nearby floral arrangement to tuck in his lapel.

“Like a clock that is not oscillating properly.”

The acrobats catch the light perfectly as they spin. The entire circus sparkles, dazzling every patron.
And then the immaculate cohesion stops as Celia reluctantly breaks away.

Upon the desk itself there is a slowly cooling cup of tea, a scarf that has been partially unraveled into a ball of crimson yarn, a framed photograph of a deceased clockmaker, a solitary playing card long separated from its deck, and an open book filled with signs and symbols and signatures procured from other pieces of paper.

“Very much Alexander’s style, overly complicated and covert.”

“You are both cowards. You fight by proxy because you are too cowardly to challenge each other directly. Afraid that you will fail and have nothing to blame except yourselves.”

“Only a handful of people on this train have any idea how integral I am to the running of the circus,” she says.

It is a cold morning, and Bailey’s faded grey coat does not look particularly elegant paired with his new charcoal suit, and he is not entirely certain the two shades are complementary, but the streets and the train station are too busy for him to worry much about his appearance.

Victor and Lorena seem equally discombobulated, but Elizabeth is on familiar ground.

Bailey steps down from the railing and turns back to the conversation, all the elation he had felt moments before draining away.

It takes him a moment of trying to catch his breath by the side of the gates, staring at the sign that reads:

Closed Due to Inclement Weather

hanging over the normal sign denoting the hours of operation.

“Miss Penelope is indisposed at the moment.”
“How can she not know that I’m here?” he asks.
“She might very well know you are here, but that does not change the fact that she is, as I have mentioned, indisposed at the moment.”

“I am only an emissary,” Tsukiko says.

“I am here to act as convoy to escort you to a meeting, for a discussion of such matters, I suppose, because at the moment I am the only living person who has any idea of what has transpired, and why you are here. Your questions are better saved for someone else.”

Marco rubs the shimmering powder from his face, which has reverted to its true form and he is too disoriented to change it.

His suit remains dark and opaque.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she says when she reaches him, her voice a tremulous whisper.

It is not what he expected, being liberated from the world and reinstated in a confined location.

Bailey loses his balance stepping around the prone figure of a polar bear.

The branches are bare and black but they are covered with dripping white candles, translucent layers of wax frosting over the bark.

Only a fraction of the candles are burning, but the sight is no less resplendent as they illuminate the twisting black branches, casting dancing shadows over the striped walls.