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My branded skin burns beneath my slip, the mark they placed on me during the “initiation” now heats. I try to dig my heels into the floor as more panic filters through me, but it’s fruitless. The air is thick with the stench of fear and sweat, something rotten beneath it. Whispers flutter through the shadows like moths, fragments of words from souls long trapped here, I realize. Those who chose not to serve. They didn’t die as I expected … they became trapped within the very being of this wretched place.

“... help us ...”

“... please ...”

“... I’m sorry ...”

I recognize one voice among the cacophony, and my heart shatters all over again.

“Emmy,” it whispers, “Emmy, I’m here.”

“Evelyn?” I gasp, scanning the darkness frantically. “Evie, where are you?”

My sister’s voice fades into the chorus of the damned as I’m thrust into the center ring. A spotlight crashes down, blinding me momentarily. When my vision clears, I see him. The whole reason any of us have to do this.

The Ringmaster stands before me, tall and imposing, in his crimson coat and top hat, but something’s different now. His face — that handsome, beguiling face that first welcomed me to the carnival — is changing. Cracks spread across his skin like fractured porcelain revealing not blood and bone beneath, but a hollow darkness that seeps from his essence. His true form emerging.

“Welcome, Emerson,” he croons, the words dripping like poison from his lips. His voice echoes strangely, as though multiple voices speak at once. “I’ve been waiting for this moment since you first crossed our threshold."

I struggle against my captors, panic rising in my chest. “Let me go! Why is my sister still here? She chose not to join!"

The Ringmaster smiles, and the cracks in his face widen. “Your sister? She chose death, of course. But well … not everything is as simple as it seems. So she became part of our ... collection.”

He gestures broadly and the walls of the Big Top shimmer like water. Suddenly, they’re transparent, revealing hundreds — thousands — of ghostly faces pressed against an invisible barrier. Their mouths open in silent screams, eyes wide with terror and despair. Trapped.

And there, near the front, her face thinner and eyes hollow with suffering — Evelyn.

“No,” I breathe, my knees weakening. “No, you can’t —"

“Can’t what?” The Ringmaster circles me slowly, his boots leaving smoldering footprints in the dirt. “Can’t keep her? Can’t use her? Oh, but I can, Emerson. I have for seven long years. Even the souls who don’t serve, The Carnival never lets them go."

The drums grow louder, the rhythm more frenzied. The masked workers release me and form a circle around us, swaying in time with the beat.

She chose death. She chose not to be a part of this life, and yet he’s still refusing to let go of her soul. To let any of them find peace. That rebellion she used to hate beats hard within my heart. I can’t let her be trapped. She made her choice, and while it was different from mine – she deserves to have that honored.

“What do you want from me?” I demand, my voice stronger than I feel.

The Ringmaster stops directly in front of me, leaning down until his fractured face is inches from mine. “The same thing I wanted from her. The same thing I’ve wanted from every innocent soul who’s wandered into my carnival for centuries.” His breath smells of smoke and decay. “Sustenance."

He straightens, throwing his arms wide. “You see, I wasn’t always this way. Once, I was Joshua, a dreamspinner, a creator of wonders. I traveled with my beloved, whose performances brought life and joy to our little carnival. And she was innocent!"

His expression twists with ancient grief. “But she was taken from me. Disease, so quick, so merciless. I couldn’t bear it — couldn’t bear to lose her.” He touches his cracking face. “So I made a pact. A desperate bargain to bring her back."

The Ringmaster laughs, a hollow sound that echoes through the Big Top. “But dark magic has a way of twisting your desires. Instead of her spirit returning, this —” he gestures at The Carnival, “—was born. A hungry thing, needing souls to sustain itself. To sustain me.”

A commotion erupts at the edge of the ring. I whirl, and for a moment the strange lights blind me, but even half-blind I’d know his silhouette anywhere, the way he moves like a beast born from shadows and power. Kenan. He’s fighting his way through the masked workers, his eyes wild. The crowd closes in, but he splits their ranks with brutal force: an elbow to the throat, a jaw cracked sideways, a knee driven so deep into a stomach I hear the air escape the man’s lips.

My hands tremble at my sides and I can’t help the tears that escape. He came for me. He’s fighting for me.

Then I notice, the workers don’t fall like normal men. Even as he lands blow after blow, they only stagger. Reforming their movement like marionettes pulled by strings.

Kenan still keeps moving, knives in both hands now, flashing in the strobe light madness that seems to be happening. His blades find their marks and blood spatters to the dirt, but for everyone he drops, two more surge up, recovered from his assault. Because those of The Carnival can’t die.

He catches sight of me and roars, “Emerson!”

He fights toward me, not a second’s hesitation, not even when one of the workers swipes at his cheek, raking bloody lines down his face. He tears himself free, hurling his knife in a straight shot that buries itself in the mask of the man holding my left arm. The grip slackens, and I wrench away, just as Kenan closes the distance.

For a split second — one heartbeat — he’s almost at my side, reaching for me with bloodied hands. Then the air warps, a fist of invisible power slamming him backward. He hits the ground so hard I feel it through my feet; dust and blood arc upward in a halo around him. He tries to rise, muscles bulging, veins standing out like cables under his skin, but whatever holds him is absolute. It pins him spread-eagle, face contorted in agony, his knives skittering away across the sawdust.