Page 28

When The Music Changed

Every seven years, The Carnival bloomed.

Awaking in forgotten fields and nameless towns.

Hungry for the innocent to feed the darkness.

It waits, it watches, it devours.

The echo of a man whose twisted love did not find him peace.

And yet he still claims.

Chapter 20

They move in perfect synchronization, creating a dizzying orbit around me that leaves me breathless. Tobias trails his fingertips across my shoulder blades as he passes behind me. Each touch sending fireworks that linger on my skin.

“You wanted to know about your sister …” Tobias whispers, his breath hot against my ear. “About Evelyn.”

My heart stutters. “Where is she? Is she here?”

Kenan appears in front of me, his knife catching the pulsing light as he taps it on his chin. “She was. For a time.”

“Was?” I can’t hide the rise in my voice from panic.

Tobias’s hands settle on my shoulders, holding me in place as Kenan steps closer, the tip of his knife lifting my chin. I should fear his blades, but I don’t. I’ve met them too many times now.

“She made a different choice than you,” Tobias murmurs against my neck, his lips grazing my skin. “When faced with what you’re facing now.”

Kenan’s eyes glitter with something like regret. “Death or service. She chose death.”

The words hit me like a physical blow. I try to step back, but Tobias holds me firmly, his chest pressed against my back.

“You’re lying,” I whisper, but deep down I know they aren’t. There is no point lying to me, not now. I’m branded ... marked as theirs for three more days. But she wouldn’t, would she …

I think back to when we were kids, how she got burned once. It made her realize how she never wanted a tattoo, and she was petrified of fire. Yeah … it all might have been too much for her. While she would have walked through the flames of Hell for me, I can’t be sure she would have done the same thing for herself.

But what about her calling to me the other night? Another illusion?

“We never lie,” Tobias says, his hands sliding down my arms. “Deception is unnecessary when the truth is so much more ... effective.”

Kenan moves closer, his bare chest nearly touching mine, the black designs seeming to writhe. “You chose life.” He leans down and kisses my neck. “You chose us. The brand on your arm is binding.”

“I didn’t know what I was choosing,” I protest, my breath coming faster. I thought she was here ... she should have been here.

“Didn’t you?” Tobias’s lips brush the shell of my ear, sending an unwelcome shiver down my spine. “Something in you wanted more than what you had. Craved it. The mirrors showed it to you the first night you came to my tent. I showed you what you could have, a mirror I don’t show often.”

His hand splays across my stomach, holding me against him, with Kenan in front of me, his knife still at my chin. The heat of being trapped between the two of them is suffocating.

“This is what it will be like for you in the In-Between. It’s where we truly exist.” Kenan explains, his knife tracing the outline of my jaw, not cutting, but threatening. “Time feels like it stretches endlessly there. Days pass in what feels like years at times.”

“And what happens there?” I ask, my voice barely audible. If they are giving at least some answers, I’ll take what I can.

Tobias’s laugh rumbles through his chest and I feel it against my back. “Entertainment. Pleasure. Pain. Whatever the Patrons desire.”

My blood turns to ice. “Patrons?”

“The ones who feed from The Carnival,” Kenan says, his free hand coming up to brush a strand of hair from my face. “Those who paid more than money to the darkness that surges.”