What the cat dragged in

[Marek]

Their trailer felt too full tonight, too loud with the clatter of Tereza's annoyance and Sámiel's disruptions. The conversation about the sisters didn't sit right with him either; the Caravan looked after its own, and disappearing without a trace was just another line that could snap. When lines started to snap, the whole thing collapsed.

He moved toward the big top, the main tent, its silhouette a looming, familiar beast against the low, starless sky. The rest of the carnival was half-asleep, the muffled laughter from the firepit near the Ferris wheel distant. Marek preferred this quiet. He preferred the sound of bolts tightening to the sound of voices, and right now, the silence of the tent felt like an invitation to burn off extra energy.

He needed to check the main rigging again. Jaro had taught him to anchor the tent so it could outlast the weather, and with the wind picking up, the cables needed to be taut. Two years ago, when the storm tore through the Carnival, Jaro went up the central rigging to cut a tangled line. Lightning struck the mast, and by morning, Jaro was gone. Marek had simply taken his place, doing the work without saying he wanted the post. Now, he was the invisible skeleton holding the Carnival upright.

His muscles moved like machinery as he approached the mast. The cold night air didn't bite as deep through his worn work clothes, and the lingering scent of grease was a comfort. He reached out, his calloused hands finding the familiar hemp and steel. The rope felt slightly slack beneath his grip. Unacceptable.

He started the climb. It was second nature, a vertical walk up a familiar friend. Up here the faint sounds of the Carnival receded. He could feel the small vibrations of the wind in the lines, reading the weather like a book, just like Old Jaro could. Jaro had taught him everything, and sometimes, when Marek was tightening the ropes, he'd catch himself listening for Jaro's old whistle in the wind. He tightened the line with a practiced, powerful pull, testing the tension. It was perfect.

He heard the faint, distant sound then: a strange, high-pitched clamor, almost like a wail or an uncontrolled laugh, quickly swallowed by the night. It was too raw, too loud for the subdued evening quiet. It didn't sound like the merrymaking near the fire, but something wilder. He paused, his hands still gripping the cold cable. He knew that sound. It was Sámiel. And if that high, slightly deranged laughter was Sámiel, the other sound had to be Lalitha.

Lalitha.

The name itself was a tremor that ran through him. She was light and colorful, and he couldn't stop thinking about her, not in any gentle way. She made him feel both alive and sick.

He was high up now, peering out through a gap where the tent met the ground. He could see them, two figures in the half-light near the empty popcorn stand. They were moving, spinning, their limbs a chaotic, beautiful blur against the shadows. It was a dance, but not a graceful one; it was manic, consuming, almost a fight against the cold ground.

He watched Lalitha drop to the dirt, her body sprawling, and a tension of emotion strung Marek's muscles as taut as the tent cables; Sámiel standing over her. The wildness of the sound had gone, leaving an unnerving silence. Marek gripped the line harder, his knuckles white. He was nothing here, not handsome, not charming. Just the man who kept the ropes from slipping, the man who preferred the sound of tightening bolts to voices. He was the one who just watched, pretending he was fixing something when she passed.

He saw Sámiel drop down next to her, sharing the bottle. The sight was like a bolt of cold steel through his chest. He didn't understand that kind of carelessness, that easy intimacy of shared laughter and madness.

[Sámiel]

He lifted his head from the cold ground, the rush of blood momentarily dizzying. He let his gaze drift across her face, the way the inadequate carnival light caught the shine in her eyes, still high and wide with eagerness. Her hair was a wild tangle against the dirt.

He rolled from his back onto his side, settling close enough that the lingering scent of her mingled with the weed smoke clinging to him. He reached out, his serpent-tattooed finger finding the sweat-slicked hair near her temple, gently sweeping the strands back behind her ear, exposing the delicate curve of her neck. His movements were languid, almost impossibly slow, drawing out the moment.

He leaned in, his lips just brushing the cool skin of her ear, close enough for his breath to tickle. This was the point where the air grew thick, where the game tightened. He could feel her anticipation, the profound, the mystical, the word that would unlock him. She wanted a piece of his darkness.

He paused, letting the silence stretch, savoring the small, satisfying tremor he sensed in her stillness. The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a full smile, but the barest hint of one. He took a shallow breath, holding the air in his lungs. Then, he finally whispered, his voice a husky rasp against the chill air: “The thing I call you, the thing I whisper to myself when you’re being most demanding… is ‘Colossal pain in the ass.’”

He pulled back just enough to watch her reaction, a flash of pure mischief in his eyes. The truth of his pet names the real ones, the ones that spoke to the strange, untethered thing she was to him was too precious, too potent to be tossed out like a drunken offering. She’d need to work harder than this. Getting him high was easy; truly getting a secret from Sámiel required more finesse, and certainly more sincerity.

He gave a genuine, soft chuckle, the sound settling around them in the dark.

[Lalitha Vero]

She was addicted to the heartbeat tension of moments like this. Playing the provocateur or the audience, enacting the story or watching it unfold, Litha never minded. Sámiel was a master. She masked none of her reaction, lips parted, eyes intoxicated by the closeness of him – and that was part of the joy of it, waiting to see which side the coin would land before unravelling the mystery of what might happen next. Litha adored every moment, but it never made it less of a game to her. Not because she lacked sincerity or conviction – it was what she was made of, that kind of unapologetic rawness and honesty – but because she always saw performance. Especially with him.

The whisper of the words brought an irrepressible smile to her lips. She met his eyes as he leaned back, and let him watch all of her reaction. Litha enjoyed the teasing, didn’t mind how he pulled her strings; she never had. There was never any self-consciousness in how fully she lived moment to moment. What was the point holding back? Not least when she was in that liminal space between drunk and not drunk.

She laughed, a bubbling sound, and crooked a playful finger. “You should be careful how you speak about witches. Especially the wild ones. We have long memories, Sámi.” It was a curse perhaps a little ruined by the effervescence of her mirth. Though she did harbour the giggling long enough to lean a little closer. Mischievousness did not lessen from the glisten of her eyes, though her tone next was largely sincere. If he wanted Litha the pain in the ass, she could surely oblige. “You were watching the Vas wagons,” she said, in question more than accusation. Her head tilted to the side, thoughtful. She wanted to know why. Or, at least, she wanted to hear him say it.

[Marek]

“I’ve been watching the Vas wagons,” he said, voice low and rough. “I heard the girls were gone. Foolish girls. They won’t last out there. There was something personal in the way he said it like he knew first hand. Like he'd been swallowed once himself, and spat back out only partially whole. “I might go after them,” he said. “Just to see.”

The world had just started to quiet again when Marek stepped out from the dark. Sámiel saw him before he could react—a tall figure approaching slowly from the edge of the midway, all tension and shadows and the slight crunch of gravel beneath his shoes. His hands were shoved into the deep pockets of his canvas coat, and his walk had that odd rhythm of someone who hadn’t planned to interrupt, but had decided to anyway.

“Hi,” Marek cleared his throat. “Sámi. Pop wants to talk to you.”

Sámiel rose with exaggerated slowness, brushing down his trousers, then his coat. He didn’t look at Marek right away. His eyes lingered on Lalitha, catching hers for a final moment. The expression on his face had changed from less wild and wicked. Thoughtful or maybe even concerned.

Marek shifted beside them, and Sámiel finally looked at him, as if just now remembering he was there. He gave a quiet groan, rolled his eyes.

“Fine. I’ll see what Pop wants,” he muttered, brushing past Marek with a squeeze on his shoulder that said he best be careful.

Then he was gone. His silhouette swallowed into the dark, coat trailing behind like the tail of some nocturnal predator.

Marek stood there, momentarily rigid. He watched the space Sámiel had vacated for a beat too long, jaw clenched. Then his gaze shifted back and forth until finally settling on Lalitha.

“I brought something,” Marek said. His voice was softer now. Less sure of itself.

He stepped closer and pulled a small bundle from his coat pocket. Delicate silver chainlinks unraveled in his fingers. At the center of it was a pendant.

It was just a shard of bone, no longer than a thumb joint, cleaned and polished smooth. Twisted copper wire wrapped around its middle like a cage, warm even in the cold air. On the flat of the bone was an etched mark, but not immediately noticeable. And the pendant hung from a leather cord, stiff with use, braided in places where the strands had snapped and been re-tied.

He held it out toward her—not dramatically, not even with ceremony. Just... offering.

“I made it for you,” Marek said. “For luck,” he added. But part of him knew it was protection or something else entirely.

His mouth worked slightly, like he wanted to say more. Instead, he knelt, lowering himself to the same level as her. He wasn’t graceful like Sámiel, but he was solid.

“I used the copper from the rig line that snapped near the fire tent last week,” he said. “The same one you nearly tripped on. I figured... well, maybe if it tried to take you once, it owed you something.”

“The bone’s from an old stew rabbit. Cleaned it myself. The sigil’s... one my mamaie used to draw on door frames when the rains came early.” He hesitated. “She said it kept spirits from walking in. Maybe that’s all nonsense. But I figured it couldn’t hurt.” He started to hand it over but then snatched it back at the last second.

“I know it’s not your style,” he said. “And you don’t have to wear it.”

[Lalitha Vero]

He sounded surprisingly bothered, which Litha found curious and absolutely something she wanted to prise loose to see what lay underneath. Not from cruelty, just from curiosity. The carnival was protective of its own, but Sámiel always seemed apart somehow: one of them, but also not. If anything she’d thought he’d be pleased for them. “It’s hardly a surprise, though. Renáta was never going to accept them,” she said, half in surprise. She didn’t smother the bitterness when she spoke the name.

But she didn’t have the chance to pry more. Still warm from the booze, and searching for secrets in the lines of Sámiel’s expression, Lalitha didn’t notice any intrusion until the quiet timbre of a new voice broke her thoughts. She shifted to sit cross-legged as Sámiel stood for the family summons, noticing the cold for the first time as he vacated the spot beside her. If she made anything of his quiet look before he left it did not permeate deeply, though she’d met it for every second.

“It’s love, Sámi. Let them enjoy it,” she called out after him. While it lasts, she might have added, but it felt mean. The thought dropped a little like a stone, exactly the sort of weight she had been seeking to escape at the bottom of a bottle. It was mostly empty now, though, and her mood for it evaporated.

It took for Marek to speak again for her to realise he was still there. She blinked at that. Not unkindly, just in surprise. She often caught the edges of his eyes glancing away, but he rarely ever spoke to her, nor spent any time in her company. Or anyone’s really. She’d assumed he’d follow on his brother’s heels the moment the message was delivered. Instead she watched as he pulled something from his coat.

“For me?” she repeated. She sounded both confused and curious. Whatever he held in his palm was hard to see clearly in the dark – she caught the glint of silver chainlink, a pendant wrapped in a spiral of wire, which didn’t immediately translate to anything meaningful. It looked like bone. Her eyes glanced up to Marek’s, but he wasn’t looking at her exactly, like the moment was something he must arrange carefully not to spoil it. He knelt, and tentatively unspooled more words than she knew he was capable of. Litha’s inquisitiveness warmed quickly to the unexpected more than she questioned the oddness.

“You saw that, huh.” She smiled easily, a little rueful, but not remotely embarrassed. The rest she listened to with actual interest, and a glittering wide-eyed attentiveness. It wasn’t the kind of beautiful and vivid explanation his brother would have woven, yet Litha was not hard to capture. Superstition prickled her skin in a pleasant way when he spoke of spirits, and admittedly she liked the story more than the pendant itself, which seemed crude and a little ugly. But he was wrong to think that didn’t make it valuable.

“Can I see?” She held out her palm, looking at his face rather than the offering clutched back in his hand. The moment felt strangely surreal, like maybe Marek was one of the ghosts summoned from the shadows.

[Marek]

The pendant still rested in his hand, rough bone wrapped in copper wire, the sigil barely visible beneath his thumb. He hadn't expected her to actually want it. He hadn’t even expected her to listen.

If he was honest, he’d thought that she’d laugh. Or say something teasing in that light way of hers and then toss the thing into her pocket, forgotten by morning. That would have been easier. But Lalitha was watching him now. Marek stared at her hand like it might close around his wrist and pull him somewhere he wasn’t sure he wanted to go.

The night pressed in colder now, as if noticing Sámiel’s absence had left a vacuum in the air. The heater crackled a few paces off, but Marek felt cold anyway. He shoved his free hand into his coat pocket, shoulders tense.

“I, uh...” He cleared his throat and immediately hated how awkward it sounded. She was still looking at him. “It’s nothing fancy,” he said, eyes darting somewhere over her shoulder.

He uncurled his own fingers slowly. The pendant shifted in his palm, catching the light. He set it gently into her waiting hand. It didn’t look like much, not here in the dark.He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he pushed the other deeper into his coat pocket, boots scuffing the dirt like he wanted to dig his way out.