Drystan brought Maske the medic bag. Maske continued his investigation of my arm.

He said nothing, but waited for me to speak.

There was no point pretending. I felt obligated to try and explain. "I was born different from most," I muttered, the mumbled explanation distracting me from my pain. "I was raised as a girl, but now live as a boy. But I am both."

"I see," he said, his eyes only on the bruises of my broken arm.

But he still didn't know anywhere near the full story. Truth be told, after the response of the Penglass to my touch, I still wasn't entirely sure what I was. I had been Iphigenia Laurus, the daughter of a noble family in Sicion, a society debutante. I transformed into Micah Grey, runaway on the streets turned aerialist and pantomime actor. I didn't know who I would be now.

This stranger now held more leverage against me, should he choose to use it. I had no such leverage in return.

Perhaps Drystan did.

Jasper took out a roll of plaster bandages from the medic bag and a new arm sling. He told Drystan to fetch the washbasin from the chest of drawers.

He held my arm firmly. Maske wrapped the damp bandages around my injury. I struggled not to move, stars of pain dancing in my eyes. The bandages dried, and the pain lessened to where I felt coherent again.

"This will take about six weeks to heal, and will be weak for a time," Maske said. "But you should regain full use of your arm."

Should.

A shiver ran through me. I could not imagine having a weak arm. Not being able to climb or tumble, always having to be mindful of how I moved. Such a possibility at sixteen was frightening.

"Here," Maske said, measuring a spoon of laudanum and passing it to me. "This should dull the pain and help you to sleep."

I gulped, grimacing at the overwhelming bitterness that all the honey and herbs could not hide. Maske patted me on the shoulder.

"I have a feeling you two are going to make my life decidedly more interesting," he said.

"I imagine you'll like that, Maske," Drystan said with a small smile. "Considering how interesting your life was when I knew you last."

"Perhaps, Drystan," he said. "Though I wouldn't want my life to be quite so... animated as it was when we last parted. I'm no longer that foolhardy man. Things have been far too quiet for far too long, but life is safer that way." He stared at us, and in the dimmer light his eyes were wide and dark again, and my skin pricked into gooseflesh.

"I shall see you two in the morning. I hope neither of you have any more nightmares."

"Me, too," Drystan said softly as Maske closed the door behind him.

"How long are we staying here, Drystan?" I asked into the darkness after we climbed back into bed.

"I hadn't thought much beyond this point, truth be told. At least until the trail runs cold."

"We need to leave Ellada, don't we?"

"It's probably our best chance. I know people in Byssia. But it'll cost more than we kept from... from the safe."

We lapsed back into silence.

"Do you trust Maske, Drystan?" I asked. "With no reservations?"

"I trust him. But I trust no one without reservation."

That did not comfort me.

And a small corner of my mind wanted to ask: not even me?

4.

PENGLASS PERIL.

"Most Elladans have not travelled beyond the island. Some may have gone to Girit to visit family, but very few have been to the Temnes, Linde, Kymri, or Byssia. Thus, the Archipelago must come to them in the form of entertainment a circuses or magic shows, theatre or vaudeville. Of course, by nature of this entertainment, many Elladans still know very little about the native culture of each island, no matter how much they think otherwise."

Modern Ellada, Professor Caed Cedar, Royal Snakewood University The next morning, Drystan's bed was empty when I awoke to a rainbow falling across my face. The stained-glass window showed a dragonfly, which startled me. I'd dreamt of dragonflies the previous night, weighing the darkness of my soul. I couldn't remember if the dragonflies decided whether my soul would stay in gentle waters or sink into the dark current of the River Styx.

After my first hot, proper bath in six months, I felt like a new person in my clean, if patched, clothing, even if I limped down the stairs. The Kymri Theatre was full of strange alcoves. The skirting boards and moldings were all carved with animals or glyphs, and walls painted shades of blue and terracotta; the floors dotted with colored mosaics.

Eventually, I found the kitchen, a cozy room at the back of the building, full of tiles of blue and green, warm varnished wood cabinets inset with blue and yellow glass, and shining copper appliances. The air smelled of coal smoke and coffee. At the worn kitchen table, Maske read the newspaper and Drystan stared at his hands, his drink growing cold. He wore a spare pair of Maske's trousers and a patched shirt. Dark circles ringed his eyes.

"Coffee," Maske said, his face still behind the newspaper.

"Thank you," I said, though I was not too excited by the prospect. The last time I tasted coffee was when I spent some brief time with a spice merchant, Mister Illari, before I joined the circus. It had been strong and just as bitter as the laudanum.

I sat at the table with them and took a sip, and found to my surprise that it was far milder than the stuff Mister Illari had made. With four lumps of sugar and a huge dollop of cream, it was actually quite nice.

A scrawny little calico with a torn ear sauntered into the kitchen and mewled, demanding food.

"Hey, hey, Ricket," Maske said, getting up and taking a plate of meat scraps from the chiller. He patted the top of the cat's head.

The cat contented himself with gulping the food, purring all the while.

It was so strange to be back among civilization. To not find granules of sand in each seam of my clothing, to have stone walls between me and the outside, not thin wood or the canvas of a tent. I was no longer surrounded by dozens of people. At the same time, the quiet was unnerving; the only sound the rustle of the newspaper and the ticking of the old clock on the wall. It was a domestic scene, except that the magician was a stranger and we were fugitives wanted for murder.

After a moment, Maske looked up from his newspaper. "As you're both here, I believe I may as well tell you that we have a problem."

I set down my coffee with a clatter. "Pardon?"

Wordlessly, Maske slid the newspaper across the table between Drystan and me.

The City Searcher was an Imacharan rag, and they would print even the most outlandish rumor. Unfortunately for us, those were the ones most likely to be true. Above a story about the rising ire of the Forester political party was an article about us: Tears of Blood: Penglass Peril Correspondence by Elena Gillen The manhunt begins for the two fugitives from the terrible tragedy of R.H. Ragona's Circus of Magic. The circus is now dead and gone, never to camp on the beach again.

Yesterday evening, Ringmaster R.H. Ragona and one of his aerialists, Aenea Harper, were murdered in the ringmaster's cart by two members of their circus. A significant amount of money was stolen from the safe, and the two thieves escaped along the beach. The fugitives were cornered when something impossible happened.

The City Searcher has an exclusive eyewitness account of a resident who claimed to see the event from her window.

I fought down a choking noise. Seeing Aenea's name in print brought all the grief perilously close to bursting. And now all of Imachara would be after us. Drystan read next to me, his shoulder pressing against mine.

The woman, who prefers to remain anonymous, confirmed that noise drove her to the window. She witnessed the two fugitives cornered by their pursuers, the clowns from R.H. Ragona's Circus of Magic, and it seemed they would soon be brought to justice.

One of the fugitives screamed at the other to close his eyes and then pressed both hands to the glass. It was only after the fugitive, who was described as wearing a torn wedding dress, touched it that the Penglass began to glow. As the light brightened, the witness turned aside, saving her eyesight.

"When I turned back," she said, "the clowns were crying tears of blood. It was the worst thing I've ever seen." The fugitives had fled. The Imacharan citizen contacted the police and tended to the victims until assistance arrived.

Authorities are searching for the murderers and are confident that they will be apprehended soon. Fresh graffiti on a nearby municipal building stated: "TREES FOR ALL" and so policiers are not discounting that it could be a political Forester attack of some nature.

Experts were not available for comment on the claims of glowing blue Penglass. Doctors have urged anyone who observes Penglass behaving strangely not to look at it directly and to contact authorities immediately.

The two fugitives were the White Clown of the circus, known only as Drystan, and the other was the male aerialist of the final act, called Micah Grey. Former members of R.H. Ragona's Circus of Magic were unavailable for comment.

The clown is tall and slender, with white hair and blue eyes. The aerialist is the same height, with auburn hair and hazel eyes, seen wearing the torn wedding costume from the last performance of R.H. Ragona's Circus of Magic, which they both starred in before the killing began. They are considered dangerous.

Significant reward offered.

I took a deep breath and looked at Maske's expectant face.

"This article makes it sound much worse than it was," I said, and Drystan kicked me under the table. I rubbed my shin.

An eyebrow rose, but Maske said nothing.

"I once trusted you enough that I would stake my life on it," Drystan said. "Have you changed in the past few years?"

"I have taken you in," Maske said. "But being discovered harboring fugitives would prove quite tricky for someone with a past like mine. I want to know what I am getting myself into, should you both stay. I'm not demanding you divulge all of your secrets a just the most pertinent."

Secrets. Always so many secrets. Sometimes I felt as though I would drown in them.

"I'll tell you what happened," I said, on impulse. "But if I do, will you tell me your tale?"

Both of Maske's eyebrows rose. "My tale?"

"The theatre has been shut for years, and Drystan only told me you no longer performed. I would like to know what happened."

"It is not a happy story."

"Neither is ours."

He gave me a long look, but I narrowed my eyes, not letting him win so easily. I gestured at the newspaper article. "Please." I took a deep breath, holding it while I waited for his response.

"Alright, I shall tell you." He sipped his coffee. "But not yet."

I pressed my lips together.

He smiled wanly. "I'm a magician. You can't expect me to give up my secrets easily and so soon. All I'll say for now is that someone I thought was a friend, my partner Pen Taliesin, turned out to be no such thing, and I have paid the price for it these past fifteen years. I can never again perform magic in front of an audience. When the time is right, I shall tell you everything."

I'd have to content myself with that.

I licked my lips. Where to begin, and how much to divulge? Drystan still stared at his cooling coffee. It was up to me to speak.

And so, hesitantly at first, I told him the bare bones. That I had run away and joined the circus in early summer the previous year and trained as an aerialist's assistant and, eventually, the co-star of the pantomime. There was no need to mention that I had once been Iphigenia Laurus, the sixteen year-old daughter of Lord and Lady Laurus, and that the threat of surgery drove me from my home. I told him only that my life had once been comfortable.

I told him I had struggled to fit in at the circus at first, and then found my place. But the past would not leave me behind. The ringmaster decided to extort me for money. He was a man prone to anger and drink, and I provoked him enough that he would have killed me, if not for Drystan and Aenea.

At this last, Drystan looked up at me, eyes unreadable as I told Maske what Drystan did to save me. Bil had been a man to pity, but he was not innocent. In his anger, he killed his wife, poor Frit, and in his purchase of Vestige artifacts, he had all but brought the circus to its ruin. My throat tightened when I spoke of how he had killed Aenea, and Drystan had killed the ringmaster. We had no choice but to flee, leaving the circus a ruin in our wake. And I told him that what the newspaper wrote about the Penglass was true, but said that I did not think we were responsible.

Maske nodded to himself when I was finished. "You speak the truth," he said, no doubt coloring his voice. "Except for that last bit. You do think you were responsible."

I gaped at him. "How...?"

He gave an illusionist's smile. "A magician knows."

Drystan laughed without humor. "I wondered if you still owned your Augur. Let's see it, then."

Maske lifted his chin at Drystan, and in the tilt of the head, the curl of the lips, I saw something of Drystan's mannerisms as the White Clown. Drystan must have based his clown persona on Maske.

Maske tapped his pocket three times. Out crawled what looked like a small, iridescent beetle, which hummed softer than the far-off buzz of a bumblebee. It lifted its wings, and below them, Vestige metal cogs whirred.

Maske rested the mechanical beetle in his palm. "It is one of my most prized possessions."

I stared at the beetle, pressing my lips together. I had heard of Augurs before, of course, but never seen one. They were rare, and the few that remained were with the constabulary and the courts, for use in high-stake trials. They were not failsafe, though a some murderers had been so convinced that they told their own truth that they walked free. And, as with all Vestige, once the power ran out, it could not be rekindled. I swallowed. He had not used an Augur lightly on us.

"What happens when you lie?" I asked.

"Usually only the wearer hears the alarm, but there is a way that all hear it." He fiddled with a clasp on the Augur's underbelly.

"There. Tell a lie."

"My mother was a giraffe," Drystan said, straight-faced.

The room filled with a rhythmic, high-pitched clicking and whirring. Maske set the Augur on the table, and its wings opened and closed in time. It was not loud enough to drown out conversation, but it was definitely annoying. I grimaced. Maske switched it off, and the clicking returned to a buzzing, and then faded.

I did not like that he had used Vestige on us without our knowledge. But at the same time, I could not blame him. He knew Drystan long ago, and he might have changed in that time. And he knew little of me, though more than I'd have liked him to.

A coal popped in the fire, startling me from my thoughts.

"Where is Taliesin now?" I asked, deciding to risk the question.

"You know him."

"I... I do?"

"Taliesin's stage name is the Specter."

"He runs the Specter Shows?"

Every child knew of the Specter Shows, and I had even seen it when I was younger. Cyril and I had spent weeks afterwards trying to master card tricks after we saw them, but we never understood how they worked. The memory saddened me. I missed my brother.