Page 34 of Chaos Carnival (Cirque de Sanguine #2)

Chapter 33: Priestess Unleashed

Tess

The tea in my cup had gone cold. I watched it with detached fascination, sensing how easily I could now unmake it. Scatter its atoms across a thousand realities with barely a thought. The ceramic felt fragile against my fingers, like everything else in this world that had suddenly become so... breakable.

Maverick's hand rested on my knee, a familiar comfort tethering me to this singular time and place. Poor, sweet Maverick, still believing he could protect me. His presence erupted beside me like a faithful star, unaware of what I was now.

Addie kept offering cookies with trembling hands, her fear, a delicious snack itself that made something ancient and hungry stir within me. Lux paced—back and forth, back and forth—like a pendulum counting down to something inevitable.

“Well, this is certainly more entertaining than that dreadful production of 'Lady Windermere's Fan' I saw in '89,” Oscar's crystalline voice cut through the tension. “Though I must say, dear Tess, you're giving new meaning to the phrase 'seeing double.'“

“Oscar,” Maverick warned, his grip tightening on my knee.

“Oh please, let's not pretend this situation isn't absolutely absurd,” Oscar continued. “Our dear witch here has become a walking paradox, Stone's adopted a demon goat, and you're all tiptoeing around like she might unravel the fabric of space-time with a sneeze. Which, granted, she might.”

I couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up. “At least someone's addressing the elephant in the room.”

“Metaphysical elephant, darling. Much more interesting than the regular kind. Though I must say, your new... condition... makes my crystalline prison seem positively mundane in comparison.”

The webs whispered their agreement, dancing across my vision. Oscar wasn't wrong—the situation was ridiculous. Here I sat, simultaneously existing and not existing, while my friends watched me like I might either explode or disappear at any moment.

But only Lilith seemed to grasp the magnitude of what I'd become. She sat across from me, dark eyes gleaming with something between awe and terror as she regarded the product of her handiwork.

“You were consumed by the threads,” she said, her voice carrying the burden of prophecy. “Every strand of reality converged on you, devoured you... and then bowed to you.”

The truth of her words resonated through the infinite possibilities now woven into me. I could feel them all— every timeline, every choice, every death and rebirth spanning countless universes. They whispered to me in languages older than time, teaching me secrets that would drive gods mad.

“No one has ever come back,” Lilith continued, her composure cracking just slightly. “Not in the history of existence. You are the first.”

The air grew heavy with the weight of revelation. Addie's breath caught in her throat. Lux's footsteps faltered mid-stride. Even the dust motes hung suspended.

Maverick's grip tightened on my knee. “Why didn't you tell me?” he demanded, his voice sharp with fear masked as anger.

I almost smiled. His protectiveness was endearing, in a quaint sort of way.

“Because we never would have gotten her back if I did,” Lilith replied, her eyes pinned on mine.

“Relax, it’s not true anyway. It has happened several times,” I explained.

Lilith and I both knew they hadn't gotten me back at all. I had returned fundamentally changed. I was now someone who could walk between worlds and had emerged crowned in darkness.

I lifted the cold tea to my lips, tasting possibilities in its depths. The others watched me with wary eyes, their concerns so small against the vast symphony of existence now spread before me. They feared I was fragile, worried I might break.

They didn't understand that I was no longer something that could break. I had become the thing that breaks others. Or could, at least.

I searched for the appropriate response to their concern—gratitude, perhaps, or reassurance—but my feelings were like a limb awakening from deep sleep, present but not quite functional. I could see the shape of what I should feel, knew intellectually that I loved them, but the sensation itself remained distant, humming just beyond my reach. Like static building before a storm, I sensed those emotions slowly returning, pinpricks of feeling penetrating the vast emptiness that surviving between worlds had left behind.

As I set the mug down with deliberate care, ripples formed in the liquid, each one a possible future, each ending in blood or triumph, or both. “It won’t happen again,” I said, my voice carrying the inevitability of fate.

“Tess...” Addie's voice quavered, giving me that maternal look she always gave.

“There’s nothing to be worried about anymore,” I replied, lifting my gaze to meet hers.

They exchanged glances. I drew in a breath, tasting the infinite possibilities on my tongue.

“We need to talk about the circus.”

“No,” Maverick snapped, his authority laughably cute now.

“We don't have to—” Addie started, but I silenced her with a look that made her jaw snap shut.

“Yes, we do.”

Lux crossed his arms, trying to maintain his composure even as his aura flickered with unease. “It's not the right time, Tess. You just came back from who knows where. We need to focus on—“

“I’ve seen everything,” I cut through his words like silk through shadow. “Every path, every choice, every death. We take the circus. That's not a prediction. It's already happened across a thousand realities. We're just catching up to the inevitable.”

Silence fell like a guillotine blade, sharp and final.

“My dear,” Oscar's crystalline voice chimed in, “Your newfound cosmic enlightenment has done wonders for your dramatic timing. Though I do wish you'd kept some of that old self-deprecating charm. Omniscience can be such a bore at dinner parties.”

I shot the crystal skull a look that could have shattered lesser vessels. In fact, in three alternate timelines, it actually did. But here and now, with his trapped soul swirling within that crystal prison, he remained unshakeable.

“We don't need to do this yet,” Maverick coaxed, almost begging. His hand on my knee like a child trying to hold back an avalanche.

I turned to him, brushing his hand with fingers that could unravel him now. “We do,” I said, watching him lean into my gaze. “The lines have already woven it into being. Fighting it will only make the weave tighter, and the price steeper.”

Lilith lounged back, dark satisfaction playing across her features. “She's probably right,” she purred. “Threads have a way of strangling those who resist.”

“This is insane,” Addie whispered into her hands, but she didn’t mean it. She was trying not to get excited yet.

“Sanity is relative,” I said, a smile curving my lips as the air rippled in agreement. “When you've seen every version of existence, madness becomes clarifying.”

Maverick's sigh carried the burden of all his centuries. “You just came back to us. We don't know how long it will last.”

“I'll come and go,” I said, certainty ringing in my voice. “The strands will call, and I'll answer. But I'll always return,” my smile widened. “Where else would I keep my collection of favorite realities?”

They finally stopped looking at me like I might disappear and looked at me like I might make them disappear instead. Which was just plain silly.

Maverick leaned back, his hand never leaving mine. “What are we going to do with a circus?”

As his question hung in the air, I smiled, the air rippling around me. “A circus,” I said, energy buzzing beneath my words, “is the perfect cover. People expect to see impossible things. They want to believe their eyes are lying to them.” I traced a finger through the air, leaving a trail of dark glitter. “When something truly supernatural happens, they'll applaud.”

“You could feed on their willing surrender to illusion,” Lilith added, understanding dawning in her eyes. “Their fear.”

“Exactly.” I leaned forward. “They'll line up to be frightened. Pay us for the privilege. And the hunters?” A laugh escaped me, echoing across the room in all directions. “They'll never spot the real alchemy hiding behind the fake.”

Addie's excitement was infectious, even as she unconsciously leaned away. “A haunted big top! We could have acts that blur the line between performance and... and...”

“Reality,” I finished, my smile widening. “Oh, we'll blur more than lines. We'll make them question everything they think they know. And they'll love us for it.”

Lux had stopped pacing entirely, transfixed. “The energy from willing participants...”

“Is sweeter than anything torn from unwilling victims,” I confirmed. “I've tasted every flavor of fear across a thousand realities. Trust me on this.”

Maverick's hand tightened on mine, protective as his magic responded to mine. “And you're sure about this? You know this works?”

“The universe shows me everything, love.” I turned to him, letting him see it in my gaze. “Every outcome. Every path. And in the ones where we succeed?” My voice dropped to a whisper. “We become legends.”

The room fell silent, but their resistance crumbled like sweet shortbread. They'd follow me into this new adventure I was crafting for them. I'd already seen them do it a thousand times.

Before anyone could speak, Lilith leaned forward, glee reflected in her eyes. “It can be warded,” she purred, confidence dripping from her words. “I'll weave protections so deep into the circus's bones, the hunters won't even notice us, as long as we keep moving.”

“A moving target,” Lux mused, his strategic mind catching up to the possibilities. “Never still enough to pin down or track.”

Stone's frown deepened, power rumbling beneath his words. “You're suggesting we build a fortress of nightmares.”

“A labyrinth of willing sacrifices,” Lilith corrected, her smirk sharp enough to cut. “The best deceptions are the ones people choose to believe.”

Addie's excitement bubbled up like blood from a fresh wound. “The costumes, the sets! We could make them brilliant and terrifying!”

Maverick's gaze bore into me, still trying to protect what was now beyond protection. “And you, Tess? Is this truly what you want?”

I met his stare, letting him see the vastness behind my eyes. “The fates have already decided. This circus will rise, whether by our design or fate's cruel hand. I prefer to be ahead of destiny than its victim, don’t you?”

Silence fell like a fog as my words resonated. They all considered whether I was crazy or powerful, or both. It was both, but they didn’t need to know all the facets of my new shell. I was going to bask in it though, joyfully, while I could.

Finally, Maverick exhaled, surrendering beautifully. “Then I'm with you. Wherever you lead us.”

“Into darkness and beyond,” I smiled, atoms shivering at my satisfaction. “We'll build something that makes the shadows themselves afraid.”

Lilith stretched like a predator after a feast. “Well then, my darling harbingers of chaos. Shall we begin?”

Oscar's crystalline voice cut through the planning session. “Darling, if we're going to run a circus of horrors, we simply must do it with style. None of that garish carnival nonsense—we need elegance in our entropy. Think Wilde meets Lovecraft, with better wardrobe choices than either.”

I couldn't help but laugh. Trust Oscar to keep me grounded in his uniquely theatrical way, even as I floated between realities.

Something stirred inside me. Not hope, I’d evolved beyond needing that. This was certainty.

The hunters could chase us across every realm, but they'd never catch what they couldn't comprehend, and that was what I had become. We would turn their threats into our triumph.

After all, every circus needs its clowns.