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Aiden takes a step forward. “Watch it.”

Mama squints watery eyes up at him. “You’re still here? Don’t ... don’t you have ... where’s my purse?” She locates the green tote hanging off the crook of her elbow and digs out the silver case holding her cigarettes. “Girl, where’s my lighter?”

I start to slide off the table. Aiden sets a hand on my leg.

“Find your own lighter. Sera’s coming with me.” Without taking his eyes off Mama, he scoops my discarded top off the floor and presses it into my hands. “The carnival is leaving soon. You might want to tie this place down.”

My jaw drops the same time as Mama’s, only, despite her alcoholic haze, she snaps out of her shock faster than I can.

“She’s not going anywhere. She’s going to keep her ass in the trailer and get ready. That girl does nothing around here.” With a huff, she stumbles to the drawers under the sink. She yanks open the top one and rifles through the cutlery. “Why do I even keep her? She’s not good for anything.”

I try not to feel the stab of hurt. It’s not the worst thing she’s ever said to me, still, it cuts deep as I drag my shirt down over my head.

“This is the last time you will ever speak to her. She is never coming back. You will stay away from her.” Aiden glances over his shoulder at me. “Get your things, sweetheart. I’m not letting you stay here.”

“You can’t take her! She swore her life to me. So did you.” She locates an old lighter and straightens with it clutched in her gnarled hands. “Because of you, she’s been a stone around my neck. A worthless maw I’ve had to feed and care for, for the last twenty-four years. You should be worshiping the ground I walk on, boy.”

Aiden ignores her and faces me. “You can leave everything and we’ll get you new things.”

“I’m telling you she’s not going anywhere.” Mama lights a cigarette and blows a plume of gray smoke into the trailer. “Without a trailer to anchor her, she’ll be stuck here in whatever shit hole town we’re in. You both will be. You know the rules of the carnival.”

I peer up into Aiden’s face, uncertainty a claw scooping out my insides. “Aiden?”

The warmth of his fingers brush my cheek. “It’s okay. Trust me. Get your things.”

I don’t have much. The handful of clothes I own, a few books, my secret tin of cash I’d been hiding in a box of sanitary napkins.Everything gets stuffed into a duffle that Aiden takes from me once I finish zipping up.

“Ungrateful whore,” Mama mutters around the cigarette perched on her bottom lip. “After everything I’ve done for you. Go. Just remember that the apothecary is mine. You’ll have to sell that cunt of yours. That’s the only thing you’re good for now.”

I feel his rage before he even turns his head to me. It coils off him in tendrils of heat that unspools through the trailer, choking the air and sucking every drop of light.

“Find Mags,” he tells me with an eerie calm that sends chills down my spine. “I’ll be right behind you.”

I want to beg him to come with me. To let it go. But there is no reasoning with Warrick. He’s in control now. The red swirling across Aiden’s irises, the boiling hatred so thick it could be carved with a knife. There is no appeasing him now that he wants blood.

Mama may be drunk, but I know she can sense she’s gone too far. There is fear in the pallor of her complexion. Her murky gaze is fixed on the man planted firmly between us with the trepidation of a prisoner facing the gallows. I think for a second I might feel something, but I strangle it before it can take root.

Aiden presses a kiss into the side of my head before letting me descend the steps to the door. I don’t look back as I let myself out into the sweet warmth of a beautiful afternoon. I draw in a breath laced with pine and the cool whisper of freedom. My gaze drifts to the skeletal remains of my home, the bustle of crew members moving through the chaos, dismantling the park. It’s a beautiful and comforting kind of madness as I move in the direction of the ticket booth.

Halvard glances up from the screw he’s twisting out of the narrow box. His large hands pause in their task, and he hastily nudges the dark glasses on his face higher to shield his eyes.

Given the day I’m shaping to have, I’m grateful; I really don’t want to get turned to stone.

“Hey, Halvard, have you seen Mags?”

The gargoyle lifts his head and glances around us like he might spot Mags hiding somewhere behind a storage bin.

“Kitchen?” he guesses.

I thank him and make my way to the yellow tent. The kitchen is usually the last to get dismantled, but Cook has the chairs collapsed and most of the food packed up when I slip inside.

“Hey Seraphine.” Cook smiles at me from over the grill he’s scraping clean with a metal scraper. “Aiden isn’t here.”

I start to shake my head when Mags hobbles in behind me with an armload of dishes.

“Found these, Cookie,” she sing-songs.

Cook beams, sets aside his scraper and hurries to take them from her. “You’re an angel. Thank you.”