“I’m glad to hear it,” said the Entity. He spoke as a voice inside Nero’s head, not overpowering, but not quiet either. He was very solidly there, and strangely enough, it was almost comforting to Nero. For the entirety of his off-and-on existence, the Challenger had been alone. Now he was alone no longer. Whatever else, there was something to be said for that.
Still… he wondered if the Entity would always be there. Even if it managed to get its way.
“You want to know if I can leave your body as easily as I inhabited it.”
Nero turned and glanced across the room at the mirrors that were above the bar in his downtown office. But all he saw was Nero: handsome, dangerous, dressed in suit pants, a button-up shirt open at the collar, and rolled-up sleeves. He held a crystal glass with expensive bourbon in one hand. But he was alone. No Entity.
“Why not?” said Nero. “The thought crossed my mind.”
The Entity seemed to shrug inside him; it was something Nero felt, like a “very well” kind of movement somewhere near the vicinity of his brain. And then there was a whiteness behind his eyes, and the room tilted. Nero reached a hand out to the wall to steady himself. He stumbled a little, and the drink fell from his grip to tumble to the carpet.
Bourbon stained the plush pile, but it went unnoticed as Nero squeezed his eyes shut tight in an attempt to make the room stop spinning. A few beats passed, and he felt a hand on his shoulder. The spinning stopped, the tilting stopped, and the vertigo faded.
Nero opened his eyes to find himself staring into a set of white irises with no pupils. They were simply white from corner to corner.
“Better?” the Entity asked pleasantly.
Nero stared at him a moment, then nodded.
“Good. And in answer to your query, it appears I can,” said the Entity with a chuckle. His voice was different out here, unchained by human form or dimension. It echoed and felt grating. It set Nero’s teeth slightly on edge. And suddenly, Nero Crowley realized that for the past day or so, he’d been possessed by an evil being. And he hadn’t been bothered by it at all.
Not like he was now – staring into the Entity’s ghostly, very wrong gaze.
The Entity lowered his hand, and Nero swallowed.
“Now then,” the white-eyed man said. “We have some things to discuss. Your Adelaide Lane has friends in powerful places. If we are going to get a second shot at her before she becomes Queen, we need to act quickly.” The Entity turned and moved to the liquor cabinet, where he proceeded to pour himself a second drink.
Nero glanced down at his own spilled glass. Then he looked back up to watch the Entity.
“I prefer Scotch, personally,” he said conversationally. “Much like your Nightmare King, I suppose.” He finished adding a few clean pieces of ice, then took a long pull, emptying half the contents of the glass. He closed his eyes and swallowed. “I can only imbibe after a possession,” he told Nero. “Something about the joining adds to my own form’s cohesiveness for a bit.” He smiled, and the smile stretched a bit too far on either side of his face. “I can’t tell you how much I miss this stuff when I can’t drink it. You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone, am I right?”
He put the glass to his lips and took a second drink, finishing the Scotch off. Then he placed the glass on the counter and turned to fully face Nero. His hands slid casually into his suit pants pockets as he leaned against the bar’s counter.
“Lane has been having visions,” he told Nero. “These are different from her usual peeks into the future. These are far worse. Ultimately, they will draw her to a certain location.” He pushed off the counter and paced slowly to Nero. “We will be there when she arrives.”
Nero digested that, but said nothing. It sounded good to him.
Sort of.
Something about the Entity was giving him misgivings. Really? He asked himself quietly – very quietly, for fear the Entity might hear his thoughts. What could be causing those misgivings, Nero? Maybe the pure evilness of the being before you? Maybe the fact that as a Nightmare, you can see just how deep that evil goes?
Shut up, he told himself. This was his chance. Never before had he possessed the advantage of someone powerful working on his side. The fact that the Entity had his own goals to gain was immaterial. The ultimate reward was the same.
And this was Nero’s last opportunity. The introduction of a queen was changing everything. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was because now… now the King had someone to protect him full time. Just like she did on a chess board. And maybe the Nightmare King only had so many rebirths to begin with. Maybe it was time for him to start living life with a healthy fear of mortality.
Maybe, just maybe, it was simply that nothing lasted forever. Entropy eventually won every time.
So this is it, he told himself firmly. Shut the hell up and play the game, and you might survive this turn. You might get to stay here. You might get to live.
And if you’re really damned lucky, you might even get the girl.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Adelaide sat on the top of a picnic table, chewing the Snickers bar she’d obtained from the candy stand. It was her dessert. There were hundreds of candies she didn’t recognize for sale in the booth – and in the countless booths beyond that one. But at the moment, she decided she needed something familiar, even if it was something as small and insignificant as a candy bar.
“You said no one could come here unless invited,” she said around her mouthful of peanuts, caramel, and milk chocolate.
“They can’t,” he replied coolly before he bit down on the end of a Laffy-Taffy and began to pull. It stretched a good foot before it broke off in his mouth, and he grinned as he chewed and the taffy in his hand slowly wilted.
“So… you invited all of these thousands of people all at once? In the span of a few seconds? You know them all personally?”
He chuckled. “Yes and no. I do know them all personally. Live long enough, and you get to know a good many souls. But as to the first half of your question, they’re not exactly… here,” he said. “They’re dreaming.”
Addie blinked and lowered her bar. “What do you mean?”
He gestured to the people nearby. “These are all real people,” he said, “but they aren’t actually here right now. Each of them is currently fast asleep wherever they come from, dreaming of The Carnival of Night.” He smiled. “Their dreams become our reality.”
She process that. “Is that how you ‘invite’ all of the people you bring here?”
“Is that what I did with you?” he asked, clearly indicating that it wasn’t.
“Honestly, sometimes I feel like I am dreaming,” she admitted. “Or that I’m dead.” She crinkled up the Snickers wrapper and looked for a trash can.
“Here,” he said, taking it from her. He held it in his hand palm-up, and it burst into flame, burning away within seconds to leave nothing but a small bit of ash that the wind caught up and blew away.
“Not big with recycling, I see,” she joked softly.
He smiled, but she could tell that he could tell she was distracted.
“Okay Addie,” he told her. “Now’s your chance. Ask me anything.”
She took a deep breath and sighed. “Okay, fine. Back there on the cliff, when you had your wings,” she said, glancing at the space where his wings had been before he’d simply willed them to vanish, “you said I could have them too. You said I was the Nightmare Queen.” She indicated the world around her with her arms in a general shrug. “Why me? I’m barely now learning that all of this is real. Shouldn’t the queen of your realm be someone from your realm? Someone a bit more accepting of all of the magic?”
“Are you able to accept it?” he countered.
“Yes!” she suddenly shouted. Her eyes widened. Because she realized it was true. She was accepting it. After all she’d seen – how could she not?
“Yes,” she repeated, this time more softly. “But what I don’t understand is still t
he same. I don’t understand why you’ve chosen me.”
Nicholas regarded her a long, silent time. The metal of his gaze shifted, melting into silver, hardening into steel, and back again. She was transfixed by it. Finally, she realized no one had said anything for too long, and as her cheeks grew hot, she looked away, choosing a spot on the stone ground to stare at.
Nicholas burned away his Laffy Taffy just as he had the Snickers wrapper and sat down on the picnic table beside Addie. He reached up and curled his finger under her chin, pulling her gaze inexorably back to his. “I didn’t choose you, Adelaide Lane,” he told her. “Fate did. But now that I’ve met you, I know I would have done the same. You’re special. Far more special than you believe.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she quipped.
He chuckled. Then he jumped off the table and offered her his hand. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
“Something more than this?” she asked, looking at the world of thrill rides and blinking lights around her.
“Oh yes,” he said, and something in his voice, and something in his eyes made her put her hand in his and climb down from the table.
He lead her from the picnic area and back into the crowd of the Carnival. Adelaide allowed him to gently guide her as her gaze slipped to the activity around her. All through the fair, children laughed and ran as parents looked on winsomely and glanced at one another, hoping to never forget. Addie had the feeling some of these parents were no more. They were their loved ones’ memories, their loved ones lost. Hugs squeezed tight, and kisses lasted forever, and the Carnival never stopped playing.
Ferris wheels turned, carousels spun, and lights blinked, and music played. Vendors handed enormous plush prizes to children smaller than their newly won toys, the darts and baseballs never ran out, and there were no cruel tricks here, no inside secrets to filching fair goers. There was simply the Carnival, which pulsed like a mighty, living beast.
When they came to a slow stop, Adelaide returned her attention to her companion. He turned to face her. “This is the heart of the Carnival of Night,” he told her. “The Crystal Carousel.”
He stepped aside, revealing what his body had been hiding.
Adelaide felt her fingers and toes tingle, her mouth drop open, and her eyes expand. The sight filled her vision with prisms of beauty reflecting the entire spectrum of light. There was a chiming sound, like the tinkling of a glass wind chime. And the rest of the world went still.
Dozens of animals graced the enormous carousel, from Earth-bound mammals and reptiles to mythological creatures of lore to monsters Adelaide had never seen or heard of. Each was meticulously – probably magically – constructed of crystalline glass down to the minutest detail, from a Clydesdale’s eyelashes to the feathers on a set of Pegasus wings.
A life-size yet completely see-through mammoth carved with a million facets glittered where it reached its trunk to the heavens. Its long, long tusks swept the floor in front of it, majestic and impossible. A lion with a perfect mane of glittering crystal roared so perfectly, head up and eyes shut, she could almost hear it rattle the clouds in the night sky. A dragon with wings folded at its back belched a cloud of fire that shone before it like ice. Addie gazed at them all as the enormous Carousel slowly, slowly turned. Unicorns, dolphins, the Sphinx, rhinos, narwhals, manticores… her eyes widened as the Carousel’s turning revealed the largest and most impressive of the ride’s magnificent beasts.
It was a creature straight out of a deep and dark dream. Its massive wings were cast wide on either side, so colossal they formed a glass shelter over the other animals. Its visage was unlike anything Addie’d ever beheld, neither dragon nor ghost, not quite terrifying demon, all fangs and eyes that seemed to glow despite being carved of glass. It was larger than life and stunning.
The entire Carousel was.
“Breathe,” Nicholas whispered in her ear.
Addie jumped a little and inhaled sharply. She had actually stopped breathing. The realization made her laugh. She felt slightly giddy. “It’s the most wondrous thing I have ever seen,” she laughed. She wanted to touch the animals – but thirty-some years of being a human had taught her that some things were for seeing and not touching, so instinctively, she held back.
“Get on,” he told her next.
She glanced up at him. Really? her expression begged.
He grinned. “Choose one,” he instructed as he gracefully boarded the Carousel with long, strong legs and slowly moved between the beasts like a dream within a dream. “I’m partial to the great cats, myself.”
The monster, she thought winsomely. “I really like that monster.”
He stopped beside the largest of the creatures, and something secret flickered on his handsome features. He placed a hand on the creature’s mane and looked at her over his shoulder. “Then he’s all yours.”
“Oh man,” she whispered. What am I waiting for? she asked herself.
Suddenly, she was bursting into motion, running to the Carousel and jumping on as if she were afraid it would suddenly break free from the bonds of gravity and fly off without her.
Chapter Thirty
Nicholas laced his fingers together and leaned over, creating a cradle for her to place her boot in. She hesitated only a second more before doing just that. He easily hoisted her atop the massive beast, settling just below its shoulders. She gripped the monster’s wild fur, and glass though it was, it gave her purchase.
She turned in her make-shift seat and took in the turning, glittering glass of the Crystal Carousel. “This is amazing,” she said. It was a lame thing to say in the face of something so extraordinary, but she meant it. Deep down. The Carousel was other-worldly, and yet they had it all to themselves.
“That’s not the best part,” Nicholas told her. He mounted the monster beside her, some kind of cross between a three-headed dragon and a lion with a massive stinger-tipped tail that curved up behind him, and turned to smile at her.
“What is?” she asked, wondering what the heck could possibly be better. “The fact that none of the other people here seem to notice it exists?” She gestured to the Carnival goers who ran to and fro, here and there, laughing and screaming, but never climbing aboard the crystalline heart of the fair.
“They know it’s here,” he assured her, glancing at the dreamers. “But they see it only at a glance, in the periphery of their vision. It’s that unattainable center that keeps their dream alive. They wouldn’t mess with it if they could. Because then they might stop dreaming.”
Addie stilled in her seat as his words went through her. She knew them intimately. She knew what he meant. She’d been in dreams she never wanted to end, she’d feared that if she tried too hard, focused too long, the illusion would dissipate, dissolve around her, and be gone. Like fog on a hot day….
Addie looked down at her monster and ran her hand slowly over the glass of its fur. “I understand that,” she said softly. “Sometimes dreams are better than reality. In fact,” she said as she turned back to him. “I’d say that’s usually the case.”
Nicholas was quiet for a moment, and it felt as if he were listening to more than her words, but her feelings… even her experience. Then he nodded, and said, “Maybe. But not this time.”
He grinned and looked over the animals, addressing them as if they were alive. “Let’s go, fellas. The lady would like a ride.”
Addie’s brow furrowed. She looked from him to the unicorn in front of her, then turned in her seat to look at the lion behind her. None of them moved any more than they already had, their glass figures fixed by equally crystalline poles to the roof and floor of the Carousel. So, at first, she was confused as to why things felt different. Then she realized a breeze had picked up and was moving her hair. And the glass of the animals seemed brighter, as if they were now reflecting more than Carousel lights.
She watched the eyes of each creature begin to glow, coming to life like headlights. The music of the Carousel st
rengthened in volume, like a giant music box chiming out a favorite song. Pixie dust seemed to come off the fur and out of the manes of the creatures to be caught on the wind and carried away, filling the air with the glitter of magic all around.
Addie let her gaze lift from the animals around her to the world beyond the edge of the Carousel.
The Carnival was gone. The ground was gone. Clouds floated past, and the stars were bright. Open air, vast night, and a full moon were all that greeted the no-longer-Earth-bound ride.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “We’re flying.”
Nicholas chuckled beside her. It was as beautiful a sound as the music pouring from the Carousel, as the pixie dust magic floating all around them. “I was seven when I first left the ground in the Carousel. I was riding a Pegasus,” he told her, his voice winsome, his expression filled with the past. He glanced up at her, and she found herself fascinated by him. All at once, he was more compelling than a flying Carousel made of glass.
“I was made to be the Realm’s King,” he explained. “Though I was never born as a mortal would be born, I was nevertheless created as a child. The Realm wished for me to experience every aspect of life, deciding that no sovereign could ever truly rule in just fairness without having done so.”
He leaned back against the crystal tail of his monster and laced his hands behind his head, propping his booted legs up on the head of the beast. He appeared utterly relaxed, completely in control, and it was obvious who owned the Carnival – and its glass heart.
“Minnaea and Andros raised me. They were made by the Realm as my guardians, and over the years, they’ve become my friends.” He smiled as a memory clearly overtook him. “One day, I threw a temper tantrum in the middle of a history lesson Minnaea was trying to teach.” He laughed. “Andros seemed to know exactly what I needed, exactly what was wrong. He said the pressures of what was expected of me were getting to me. And that I needed to just be a child.” He looked over at her. “So they brought me here.”