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He points at Kenan and me, and suddenly agony explodes through every nerve in my body. My back arches involuntarily, joints bending at unnatural angles. I bite down my lip to keep from screaming and taste blood.

“— you must choose which one takes your place.”

“No!” Emerson screams, and through my pain, I see the horror in her eyes as blood begins to seep from my pores, dripping onto the glowing golden symbols and threads beneath me. The Carnival’s magic responds to Joshua’s command.

“Choose,” Joshua demands, and I feel his power intensify. My vision blurs at the edges as my body contorts further. “One soul for yours to be used as the Patron’s wish. That’s more than fair, since their souls are already tied to The Carnival.”

Through the haze of pain, I see Kenan look at Emerson. “Choose me, Kitten,” he gasps. “I can deal with it.” The beautiful idiot.

“No!” The words leave me quickly. I won’t let him deal with the pain that I saved him from before. I won’t let either of them be a part of the agony, the twisted pact between Joshua and the dark magic that I should have fought harder against so long ago. I force my eyes to look into Emerson’s that swirl with green and brown, the weight of centuries pressing down on me. “It should be me.”

Joshua laughs, his voice like nails on a chalkboard. He kneels beside me, gripping my chin roughly, his fingers digging into my jaw. My nostrils flaring at the smell of rot on him.

“How touching. Both of you volunteer for her.” His face hovers inches from mine, his eyes are pools of darkness. “But why should it be you, dear friend? You’ve already sacrificed yourself once for him. You’d go through it again for her?”

I glare back at him, defiance burning through the agony. “We were supposed to change things, Joshua. Remember? Long ago, when we first founded The Carnival? The real Carnival.” My voice cracks with emotion and pain. “We were going to bring joy, happiness ... travel the world.”

“She was stolen from me!” Joshua hisses, his facade cracking. Black veins spread across his face like cracks in porcelain.

“She wasn’t stolen from you! She died, Joshua!” I spit back, blood spraying from my lips. Memories flood through me — her illness, her suffering, Joshua’s desperate bargain. “She died, but because of your selfishness, you wouldn’t let her go.”

I see Emerson staring between us, the pieces falling into place in her eyes.

“You ... helped start The Carnival?” Her voice is barely above a whisper. She might have known I was a part of Joshua’s inner circle, but she didn’t realize how long I have truly been here.

Joshua releases my chin, circling me. “Oh yes. Tobias and I were going to revolutionize entertainment. Create a magical show never seen before.” His voice drops to a dangerous whisper. “But then ... When I needed him most, he refused to help. Guess we still did change entertainment, though.”

Another wave of pain wracks my body, and I groan through clenched teeth. “That’s not what happened. I was trying to save you ... from this."

“LIES!” Joshua roars, and the entire Big Top shudders with his rage. My ears ring from the force of it. “When she died, you should have helped me bring her back properly! Instead, you tried to stop me!"

I gather my remaining strength and shout back, “Because what you were doing was wrong!” My voice breaks with the emotion I’ve carried for centuries. “And look what happened — you didn’t save her, she’s still gone! Instead, you trapped us all!”

Joshua turns to Emerson, his face now barely holding together, darkness leaking from every crack like oil. “He was the first I cursed, you know. My former friend, my betrayer.” He points at me, and fresh pain blooms in my chest. “He’s been here since the beginning, watching me take soul after soul, powerless to stop it."

* * *

“Some things aren’t meant to be cheated” I had screamed at Joshua last night as he made a pact with the shadows between the paces of breath. His only answer was, “Then I’ll become a fraudster.”

I remember how I grabbed him, wanting him to prevent tapping into the dark magic that the old one’s only whispered of.

Now, I sit in the middle of the Big Top, staring at him. The face that is no longer the same as he paces around me. Pissed off that it didn’t work like he thought it would. Adelaide is still dead – and she will be forever. She died, and that’s the end of it, but not for Joshua.

When he made the bargain and reached into the depths of the darkness, all that was produced was a promise – a promise he didn’t understand. A mask of white and gold porcelain that was a destiny we never asked for.

“We need more,” he says simply as he paces again. “More people. I need more people. The voices – the bargain made. They scream at me now.”

He turns his attention to me, his eyes searching as if he no longer has an anchor. “You’re still here even though I begged for your help … begged you to help me bring her back. Why?”

I swallow hard. “Because you’re my best friend. I didn’t –”

“Didn’t want to help me?” he says as he runs his hand through his long dark hair, just a few hours ago it was blonde.

“It wasn’t that, Joshua. You know it wasn’t,” I say, but it’s the same thing I’ve said over and over since he put on the mask.

“Then stay with me. Help me now,” he says, walking over and kneeling beside me.

It’s been this way for hours. Adelaide’s body still rests over in the corner, and I make the note to bury her because I don’t think he will. Something’s changed in him since he made the bargain. A bargain I’ll probably never understand, the truth, because when the darkness erupted –