Dancing on Strings

The Special Ones

Reve pushed her by the shoulders down the hall and they seemed to walk forever.

And there were branching halls.

The sheer scale of the hall hit Mai like a bull.

It couldn't even be called a hall; it made it sound too small. Every branching corridor had no apparently ending, and they had more branches, corridors criss-crossing on and on and on.

And every, single hall had dozen – no, hundreds – of alcoves.

And every alcove had a doll inside.

All posed, on a stage, like a museum piece.

And there were so many more than the group Mai had seen down in the banquet hall. That huge crowd had been barely a fraction of the collection.

Suddenly Mai was aware that, wherever this little world was hidden, it wasn't so little.

"How many people are here?" she forced herself to ask as they continued to walk, and walk and walk and walk.

"Hmm," Reve mused as he looked around. "I wonder."

He released her shoulders and moved in front, admiring one of the ladies they passed – a human dressed in red velvet and fur, surrounded by white wolves in a snowy landscape.

Mai almost stopped at the sight of the girl, only Griffin passed her by and gently threaded his fingers through hers, pulling her along.

But Mai's heart was pounding.

That girl had been the daughter of a powerful duke from a kingdom up north. She had only met the woman once as a young child but had been struck by her severe and striking beauty and had always remembered her for it.

And because that woman had vanished during the same trip she and her parents had been visiting the duke and his family. It had been assumed she'd been killed by wolves.

Her hand tightened on Griffin's and he gave her a gentle, reassuring squeeze as they followed Reve along in front, Angelique following behind.

On and on and they passed a young man Mai recognised as someone who had arrived with her own mother as part of the performance troop she'd been part of. He still wore the incredible costume he'd gone missing in, his terrifying stage mask in one hand, hiding half his face as he held it up.

Mai stopped, gaping, only to be pulled along by Griffin.

She still remembered how upset her mother had been when he'd gone missing, it had taken months of consoling from her father before she realised her childhood friend was gone. And not five months later, she had been killed herself.

"Millions."

Mai looked at Reve and he tipped his head back to smile at her over his shoulder.

"There are millions, I lost count a long time ago," he said.

Mai must have looked stricken because he laughed.

"Oh no, dear, don't look like that. The world can afford to lose a couple people here and there."

"It's so many!" Mai cried out and he just laughed again.

"There will always be more to replace them," he said, turning away before they reached a hall with white curtains drawn across it, cutting it off from everything else. He flicked a hand and the curtains drew apart and he stepped aside, holding out a hand. "The Special Ones," he announced and Mai sped up, her fingers slipping from Griffin's as she lifted her skirts to run through.