#eviemara

Evie didn’t really know what to say in moments like this. Whatever was bothering Lion, he’d never really been one to talk about his feelings, and asking just made him get even more twitchy. She wiggled her fingers towards him instead: an invitation.

Lion said, all bitey, “Of course you’d think that would solve it,” and stalked out of the tent.

Evie exhaled softly. She whispered the words that made the whole world ready for talking-to, and then she asked String, “Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

Not really, said String. He looks tired. Usually you can fix it, so I thought I’d let you know about it.

Evie swallowed. Sometimes it made her chest hurt when String looked at her with those beady, love-filled eyes, like she really was capable of fixing everything that was wrong with Lion. And she sort of had to be, didn’t he? He didn’t have anyone else. 

Neither did she, really, unless you counted—

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“Gemma!” said Evie. 

Amara turned from where she was doing her hair up all funny for the trapeze. She said, “Vivi!” and pursed her lips up without moving until Evie came over and gave her a silly little kiss. They’d had to come up with a good way to kiss without smudging any of Amara’s makeup—Evie didn’t mind one way or the other—and they’d decided that Evie would come over and kiss Amara, which was fun, even if it wasn’t the deeper kind of kissing Evie liked to do to say hello. 

When had she stopped kissing Lion like that in the mornings? Used to be they’d kiss like that forever. 

Probably now wasn’t the time to think about that. You had to keep your head for the trapeze act, else you’d drop your partner, which, to Evie, was worse than losing your own balance. She called Amara Gemma because Amara sparkled and shone and was worth five times her weight in gold. Amara was beautiful and perfect and Evie had to make sure she didn’t get all scratched up. 

“Is your boyfriend being a dick today again?” said Amara.

Amara didn’t like Lion. Lion didn’t like Amara either. It didn’t seem like they had the same reason for it, though. When Evie asked Amara, she said, “It’s because he doesn’t deserve you,” and when Evie asked Lion, his jaw flexed and he said, “Why do you care what I think?”

Evie considered the question. “I don’t know,” she said. “Probably. But he doesn’t make friends as easy as me.”

“Hm!” said Amara, infusing a whole lot into one little closed-mouth noise, and gestured Evie over towards the makeup table.

Amara did makeup for everyone in the circus. She’d learned from her mother, who had died about ten years before she’d met Evie, but she looked Evie’s age because she was an elf. She was almost twenty-four—an elf baby, basically, if Evie’s math was right—and she carried herself like a teenager trying to look older, and Evie was a teenager trying to look older, which meant they got along. Amara would have been Evie’s best friend if Lion hadn’t gotten there first.

Amara always did Evie up in red. She did herself up in grape-and-gold, usually, sumptuous, royal, magical mystery colors, but she said she wanted Evie to be the thing everyone was looking at, because Evie was the one who was actually aces on the trapeze. Evie thought that was silly; Amara was the one who had taught her. Trapezes were easy. Balancing was all about knowing in your bones you wouldn’t fall, and Evie had always had that certainty.

She was not a girl who fell. She was a girl who leapt. That was how it was. 

String said, Tell Amara she’s doing a good job!

Amara said, “Vivi, whatever String has to say, it can wait until I’m done with your eyes.”

“String says—”

“Shush,” said Amara. She dusted String with a little bit of blush on the top of his head, and he sneezed, then made a noise that Evie knew was his kind of a laugh. “You and her!” she said reprovingly, but she was smiling.

Evie’s eyes were ringed with gold. Amara had done something with magic and jewels to stud the lashes with red, sparkling gems. She called it her special little flourish, because none of the audience would be close enough to see, usually, but if they went up to compliment Evie later, they’d be able to see how wonderful a thing she was up close, how sparkly and incredible. Evie couldn’t do makeup for shit, but she made Amara ugly lucky charms, and Amara wore them all even though they looked stupid next to her mother’s bangles. 

That was part of why Evie never, never worried about falling. Amara caught her.

Amara did Evie’s lips. Evie pretended to try and eat the lipstick. Amara smacked her on the nose and said, “Were you raised in a barn?” and Evie held her smile on her face and didn’t think about Marigold. Then, finally, blessedly, Amara stood up and said, “Done,” and Evie examined herself in the mirror.

She’d been told she had a pretty face. She mostly just liked the places where other people touched it. Amara’s makeup meant everyone got to look at her and see Amara too, even if they didn’t know that was what they were seeing; it meant that when they said she was beautiful, they were talking about half an hour in front of the mirror with Amara putting rubies on her eyes. She wished there was something of Lion’s for people to compliment, but he…it was complicated with him, lately. She wasn’t sure why.

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Entering the ring was always fun. Evie loved being surrounded by that roar of excitement. She loved knowing that a daring jump and twist high above the ground could make people feel like they were up there with her. She’d catch them all if they needed, but right now they wanted to watch her, so she held Amara’s hand high as old Charlie shouted about the great trapezists or however he was billing them to this crowd. Sometimes he got bored and changed it up.

There was a strange prickle at the back of her neck. She wondered what it was about. Nothing good, she thought, but it could wait for later. She had a show to put on.

Lion was standing outside the ring. All the soft parts of his face seemed eclipsed by those dark, dark circles. If they were the sort to talk about their feelings, Evie would have so many things she’d want to ask him. Tell him.

Amara saw where Evie was looking and said, “Vivi, he doesn’t deserve you.” 

Evie didn’t think that mattered. When Lion was ten, she’d grabbed his hand and taken him onto a pirate ship. He’d hated the sea. He’d gone because she was there. He was here because she was here. To be loved like that…

Her feet left the ground. Amara was pulling her up.

The air-dance was always her favorite. She did a lot of things for the circus, mostly because she loved learning all the different things people did, but nothing compared to air-dancing with Amara. She dropped Amara’s hands, let herself fall, grabbed a rope extending down from the roof as the crowd screamed and gasped and laughed. She swung the circumference of the ring and felt the hands reaching out to try and touch her and would have reached back if she could. I see you, she wanted to tell them. I see you and I’m so glad you’re here.

She collided with Amara in midair, a laughing tangle of limbs. They didn’t ever kiss with eyes on them, because then it would look like a performance, and kissing Amara was never done for everyone else—it was for Evie and Amara. That was it. They bonked foreheads instead, and Amara whispered something to Evie.

She whispered something new every night, just so Evie could show off. She was always so proud of Evie for never losing her balance, no matter what she said. One week it was I want sweetbreads after this. Another week it was You’re the second-prettiest girl in this tent, which of course they both knew who the prettiest was, and Evie had had to hold back laughter as she’d swung from ribbons. Once she’d said he’s a dick, Evie, leave him before he hurts you: words that left Evie as soon as her feet were back on the ground. Lion had been hurt before. Whatever he did would never be as bad as what had been done to him.

This week, though. Something was different in Amara’s eyes. She looked a little uneasy.

“You’re in the stands,” she said.

And then she was gone, and Evie was there, motionless, suspended at the end of a rope. All the beautiful radiance had left the tent. The noise was dulled and dimming as she moved through the air, as if through molasses, circling the ring again. Looking more carefully, this time. Following that quiet prickle at the back of her neck.

There was a girl in the stands. She was pretty and long-haired and she had Evie’s face. She was sitting with a friend and she had Evie’s face. She was eating a toffee apple with Evie’s mouth, her long hair black as a raven’s wing, just like Evie, except Evie had kept it short forever, and Ella—

Ella had kept it long. Like the murderer. Ella had it long now. She looked like the murderer, just with darker skin. They both had the murderer’s face. That was how it worked. 

Evie didn’t care about the trapeze anymore. She swung towards the girl in the stands, landing on the balcony, moving through shocked and laughing circus-goers who thought that this was part of the act. The girl in the stands put down her apple and looked up at Evie with empty, dark eyes.

Ella had been ten when they’d hidden in a hollow tree and prayed to every listening god that the murderer wouldn’t murder them too. Or at least that was what Evie had been praying. Ella had been dead silent the whole time, face nestled in Evie’s shoulder, holding her hand tight, tight, tight, even though they really hadn’t been sisters until Marigold was dead.

Ella had always been a still child. Poised. She had that to her now.

It wasn’t like looking in a mirror. That was what people always said about twins. They wouldn’t be right if they said it here.

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Ella’s friend was quiet. Quieter than Ella, even. She hadn’t taken a single bite of her toffee apple. Neither of them seemed to be treating this like a glorious sisterly reunion, which was good, because Evie didn’t fucking want to treat it like that. The last time they’d spoken, they’d been ten, and Evie had said I need to find Marigold, and Ella had said Marigold is dead. Something dragged her off and ate her. Don’t be stupid. And then Evie had run away anyway. She’d have rather lived a thousand years alone than even one more standing next to a sister who would say that to her.

Ella hadn’t seemed to care when the murderer raised her murdering knife and sunk it, over and over, into Marigold, who was everything sunlight in the entire world. Ella had held Evie back. She’d never been strong enough to do that until that moment. 

Ella didn’t say anything. Just looked.

Evie didn’t say anything either. What the hells was she supposed to say? Why was it on her to pretend to care?

“You look like me,” said Ella. She smiled. “Funny. I’d have thought there might be deviations.”

She spoke like the murderer. Precise, sweet, high-society, never mind that the deep black she was wearing wasn’t anything like the frou-frou colors that the murderer had always said they’d dress in as proper ladies. It was discomfiting.

“What do you want?” said Evie sharply.

“I want my sister,” said Ella.

Evie didn’t know what she was supposed to say to that, so she turned on her heel to go find Amara. She and Amara met by the river after a show that went sideways, where they could wash off all the makeup and kiss and cuddle and make it all feel better. This show hadn’t gone sideways, exactly, but Evie thought she’d rather be at that river than here.

Ella grabbed her elbow. Her hand was strong, nails sharp like claws. Nothing like a proper lady. She said, “I’m not talking about you, Reverie Northaven.”

“Reverie Riverborn,” Evie spat. She’d never take the murderer’s name.

“Oh, what a lovely segue!” said Ella. She smiled. Her smile was white and too sharp. “I want Marigold.”

Something is wrong, Evie thought. Something is so, so, so wrong. She looked for Ella’s friend and saw that Ella’s friend wasn’t anywhere. 

“She’s alive, you know,” said Ella. “She’s living in a city. Dear little poppet to a harper and a hammer. Perfect little honey pastry. A spider and a rose and a butterfly and a little lieutenant—”

Now, Evie was one to talk with a bit of blunt obtuseness herself at times, but she’d never had trouble understanding people until whatever the fuck Ella was saying. It felt more like a mocking riddle than anything true. She’d stopped listening after the first part, anyway.

“She’s alive?” she breathed.

Ella opened her mouth to say something else—

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The girl that descended on Amara was wearing Evie’s face. Amara knew that something was wrong immediately, because Evie didn’t smile like her face was splitting, like something was living under her skin. She was already pulling out her knife as the girl drew closer.

The girl said, “Oh, it’s a clever one!” Her arms lengthened and her smile grew. Her face gave way, shimmering in the moonlight like it was still deciding what to be. “What will its brains taste like on my knife, I wonder? Will they think clever thoughts?”

Amara’s mother hadn’t been a sorcerer—that was her dad’s terrain. He did illusion magic, mostly, and a lot of that was because the magic he’d tried to do had killed her mother in front of them. Of course he hadn’t meant to do it, but watching her come apart, knowing there was nothing they could do to stop it—that was scarier than any of this ever could be. She raised her knife higher and let it catch the moonlight.

“Went to the circus to have some fun,” hummed the girl with too-long legs and a too-sharp smile. “To make a friend or two. To take a friend or two apart. You’re friends with my sweet Elodie’s face, aren’t you? She’ll like your skin for the collection.”

“Fuck you,” Amara snarled.

The girl laughed. It sounded like a hyena call. She moved, quick as lightning, and her knife caught Amara’s shoulder, tearing the gauzy sleeve and digging—digging—

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“Oh,” said Ella. She cocked her head—no, not quite cocked it, more tilted it increment by increment, like the second hand on a clock. “Orin’s drawn blood.”

“What?” said Evie, and ran.

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Amara staggered back against the tree. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t. She was angry, sure, and the way her arm hung limply at her side didn’t say anything good, but it wasn’t anything a cleric couldn’t fix. “What the fuck are you doing, you fucking maniac?” she demanded. “I don’t even know you?! Back off!”

The girl was raising her knife again. “You spun so beautifully on those ribbons,” she breathed. “Will your flesh spill and spin like ribbons, pretty little trapezist that you are?”

Hands closed around Amara’s good arm. Evie yanked her out of the knife’s path, pressing worried hands to the blood in some clumsy attempt to stem it. 

“It’s fine,” Amara briskly assured her. One of them had to be the grown-up, and Evie was never very good at it.

“Ella, what the FUCK?” Evie shouted.

The girl wearing Evie’s face furrowed her brow and said, “Dear, sweet Orin, you seem to have picked poorly.”

“A complication,” said the other girl. “What use do you have for another face like yours?” Her face melted like wax and formed again, light hair turning dark and long. “I have a face like yours. Easy as breathing. No need for this one’s still, simple face where we are going, if she turns her nose up at the blood of a friend.”

“She was always the sort,” said the first girl meditatively.

Evie and Amara held each other and stared. Evie said, shakily, “Ella. Elodie. Mari’s alive?”

“Mari,” said Elodie. Her lip curled. “Will you not respect our mother’s dying wish?”

“What,” snarled Evie, “to kill our older sister?”

Elodie tilted her head—a ticking-clock tilt, dark eyes glinting. It was unsettling to see Evie’s face, always so full of light and life, entirely still and empty. “Baldur’s Gate,” she said. “If you change your mind. I thought it right to ask you, at the very least. You’ll have a part to play either way.”

She stepped back, Orin’s hand in hers, and they disappeared into the shadows. Or maybe that was just—

“Oh, fuck,” Amara breathed, her vision blurring. Her legs went all wobbly as she slumped against Evie’s side.

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Of course it wasn’t that serious. Evie got Amara set up with her over-worried dad and the on-hand cleric and headed back to her tent to find that Lion was standing outside with a tight jaw, String on his shoulder. She didn’t really know how to talk to him about—well, any of it—so she tried to walk past him, but he caught her arms and said, “Where were you?”

“Someone tried to kill Amara.”

Lion looked like he wanted to say something but knew Evie’d get mad at him for it. It was clear what he did say wasn’t that. “There was…a girl,” he said. “In the audience.”

“Elodie,” said Evie.

All that usual anger gave way to the boy underneath, the one Evie loved. He blinked at her with sympathetic confusion and asked, “What’s she doing here?”

And Evie remembered. “Marigold’s alive,” she burst out. “Not dead. Alive. I don’t know how Ella knows, I don’t know why she told me, but I—” She exhaled shakily. “Baldur’s Gate,” she said. “Ella said—I don’t know if she’s heading there, or Mari’s there, or what, but we have to go. Lion, we have to go. Ella’s friend can change faces and she almost killed Amara, she—”

That hardness had returned to Lion. Sharp. Pronounced. He didn’t respond to anything Evie said, but the way he was looking at her dropped a curtain over the rest of what she was about to say.

“Evie,” he said. “I’ve got a present for you.”

String hissed, No. No. No. No. Evie. No.

Evie thought about all those words she left in the air with Amara. She thought about the shadow over Lion’s face, the one that never left. She knew this moment mattered.

And then she thought about Ella’s hard mouth, her empty eyes. Marigold’s blood on their mother’s hands. She knew who she wanted to be.

“Course you do,” she said softly. “You’re my Lion. My love.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the mouth. “You’ll come to the Gate with me, sweet one?”