Spectacle of Souls

2:1 - Sheep and Wolves

"Dace?"

"Hnuh?" Her words surfaced as a strangled snort.

"Ah, are you okay?" Two pale green eyes stared down at her.

"Wonderful." Dace grabbed Eliot's shoulder and hauled herself up, head throbbing.

The clown regarded her with concern as she struggled to her feet and, with a hand that kept flinching back, he began to brush the dirt off of her shoulders.

"Ah, sorry." He bit his lip as his palm hovered over the bark-gold hue of her skin. "Hey, have you had anything to drink since you got here?"

"Don't think so." Now that he'd brought it up, she was parched. Dace couldn't remember the last time she'd drank anything.

"That'll be why..." Eliot's eyes flickered away from what was surely a gargantuan bruise on her forehead from the fall to the ground, and he withdrew a metal hip flask embellished with a full moon. "Here, have some of this."

Dace shot him a look of disgust. "Excuse me? Is that alcohol? I'm seventeen, I'm not allowed to—"

"It's orange juice, miss songstress." Eliot's sheepish little grin was back. "I don't drink either; it messes with my vision."

Dubious, but certain this night couldn't get much worse, Dace took a swig.

It was orange juice. Nice orange juice, at that, although she was sure she could taste something sharp lingering beneath it. As Dace handed Eliot back his flask, her headache began to thaw and she finally remembered why she had fainted.

"The Ringleader!" She called out, head darting around the empty circus ring. "Where did he go, I need to ask him what the hell-"

"He went to deal with the corpses." A voice rose from behind the two of them and Dace instinctively softened before common sense caught up with her. She turned around to face Matt with a snarl.

"I can't believe you."

"I'm glad you're still with us." Matt still didn't meet her eyes and instead focused on the bundle of bright gold fabric tucked under one arm. It had been lining the tent half an hour ago; now the performers were clearing up around them. The circus, and all evidence of the killings that had taken place within it, would soon be little more than a story to the people of this town.

Dace was not so fortunate. "I want to leave," she told Matt firmly, "please. If this is the sort of circus you're running, where you're totally fine with kids dying and animals being slaughtered, then get me the hell out. I never want to see any of it, or any of you, ever again."

The girl ran a hand through her fair beard, tearing through its knots with a vicious callousness. "You think any of us really want to be here?" Her tone, despite the warning carried in her words, was upbeat and almost patronising. "You have no choice, Dace Livigin. You're a circus freak now, so get used to all of this. Get used to us."

Dace happened to cast her eyes downwards at that moment. She saw how Matt's hands trembled by her hips. Well, Dace didn't care if she'd made her angry. Shrugging off something as grim as death was nothing to feel victimised over.

"Eliot, would you find Dace a room? There must be a spare bunk somewhere." With the Ringleader absent, Matt seemed to be the one giving orders around here - Eliot nodded obediently and gestured for Dace to follow him out of the tent.

The two of them walked in swiftly-broken silence back to the train.

"How's your head?"

"Fine. Almost back to normal." Dace felt the non-existent bump. She wished her emotions could be rectified just as easily: each step she took brimmed with frustration and each breath was sharp and anxious.