I had a dream last night where the reason Queenie abstraced was because she fought another abstraction to save Kinger. Something weird about it was that it happened outside of the Circus. It was on an Arctic based adventure and a chasm formed in the ice, which the abstraction was at the bottom of. It nearly separated the two, but Kinger almost made it to the other side, but fell short. Queenie grabbed him before he was entirely lost, but he was extremely close to falling down, even making literal eye contact with the abstraction. Queenie didn't want to lose her husband, so she pulled him towards her, and threw herself down in front of him, sacrificing herself. It was extremely heart-wrenching.
Now, this doesn't make much sense in-universe, since we've seen what coming in contact with an abstraction does to someone firsthand (poor Ragatha) and there's no implication whatsoever that abstraction itself is contagious. More than that, if this were to be the case, how did Kinger get his abstracted wife back into the Circus proper without Caine noticing? It makes more sense for her abstraction to happen while already inside the tent, giving her husband enough time to bring her into his fort before she was sent to the cellar.
Then the dream went off the rails. This was all revealed in a surprise episode that came out after episode eight, but BEFORE the finale. None of the other characters, including Caine (somehow), knew that abstraction could happen during adventures. Then it became clear to him that not only could it happen outside of the tent, but through... hear me out... MERCH SALES, it could also spread into OUR REAL WORLD.
I mostly just focus on the first bit. XP