Minerva's pitch black tent was hitched in the shades furthest from the Big Top. Even with the dragon's flames, Leanna would have missed it had she not known where to look. Light and shadow conspired, and in the darkness, the surrounding shrubs and tent were one and the same. Following the beads of dew on the ground—a gleaming path of pearls under the fire—Leanna approached it hesitantly, her footsteps crunching in the quiet.

A stake was stabbed into the ground at the entrance, curved to a loop at the tip. Dangling from the hoop was a silver bell. Leanna stared at the bell and paused. No light shone from within the tent. Was Minerva still asleep? Leanna rubbed her skirt between her fingers in thought, which reminded her: Kioyo had stolen the garments she presently wore. What would she tell Minerva? More, would Minerva be cross? Leanna exhaled sharply. How badly she wished Kioyo hadn't gone beyond the crystals. If not, he'd be there beside her, ready to meet Minerva. If not, he'd be there beside her... safe.

Leanna swallowed away the thought and stepped away from the bell. It would be best to change and then return, she decided.

"Are you going to stand there all night or are you going to ring the bell?"

Leanna yelped and whirled to the feminine voice behind her, to the older woman standing a slight up the path. Though her face was shrouded, Leanna quickly noticed her pleated red skirt, various shades of the color added in layers. A coined belt adorned her waist, and sang a dangling song in her approach. Upon closer inspection, a violet bandana covered her head, but a rigid bun at the back told Leanna the woman's hair was silvery white. When beside her, Leanna saw the same coins dangled from her puffed sleeves. Romani, she deduced, like Vicente. Leanna smiled kindly. It would be like him to have such a beautiful wife given the lovely music he composed.

Leanna let out a nervous giggle and stepped away from the bell. "Oh, I intend to ring, but I can't tell if Minerva is there, or if she is asleep. I would hate to wake her. Though Bertrand say she sleeps during the day lest she turns to a ball of fire in sun light. He even told me not to prick my finger while here." Leanna laughed lightly and turned back to the tent. "Come to think of it, they make it sound like she's a—"

A gust of wind whipped Leanna's hair over her face to the sound of jingling coins. Brushing it away madly, she spun to look behind her, to where the woman stood. She was gone.

"Make it sound like she's a vampire?" the woman's voice whispered in the winds.

Dread pooled at Leanna's joints. Turning slowly to the voice at the tent, the woman—no doubt Minerva, stood at the door. A catlike smile spread on her ruby red lips. It was a mischievous and slightly inhuman smile.

Leanna swallowed, Minerva's direct gaze making her shiver. "You're not Vicente's wife," she murmured.

Minerva shook her head slowly. "But I am a vampire." She lifted the tent flap aside, her perfectly sculpted brow arching. "Now that that's been sorted, shall we?"

The first half hour was spent in polite silence as Minerva prepared tea and Leanna searched for topics of conversation that avoided her blunder from earlier. All she found were long spaces of discomforting quiet, of watching smoke as it curled from her cup, of moaning squeaks as she fidgeted in her chair, and staring. There was lots of staring. As politely as she could, Leanna stole glances from under lowered lashes at the woman who presently sat at a drafting table beside piles of fabric and streams of ribbon dangling from the desk.

Minerva was striking, in a cold way. Not timeless like Finvarra. Her skin was paler than his, or perhaps the same, only the contrast of her silvery hair, coal black eyes and blood red lips made it appear blancher. In all, she looked frozen... dead.

Lowering her sights away from Minerva, Leanna trailed it about the dim room. Her sisters would have died with delight in such a place, with so many fine fabrics for their choosing, Leanna thought. She forced herself to think many things, all in hopes to keep her eyes from looking back to Minerva. But it was hard business as she too could die in such a place if the rumors about Minerva's kind were true. She'd read of the vicious creatures from the northern lands, from Transylvania, and about how they killed innocents—usually maidens—for their blood. Leanna shivered and forced her eyes down altogether to the rippling reflection in her tea cup. She reached for it, grateful that it would force her trembling hands to ease for the sake of not spilling tea.

"You're late," Minerva spoke a sudden. "Two days late."

Leanna jumped at the sound. Tea waved from her cup and sloshed onto her saucer and the white lace tablecloth. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I'm—"

"Frightened," Minerva injected from over her own tea. She took a sip. "Your fears are futile. And if we are to work together, you must be unafraid." She set down her cup with a graceful ease, and rose, unsmiling. "Bertrand is an idiot," she said, her accent sharper as she tossed her napkin onto the table. "I've not desired human blood in over a century, if that will ease your fears some."

Leanna lowered her head, wiping her spilled tea as best she could with her napkin. "I don't mean any offense. I'm not frightened, just terribly embarrassed about what I said and I'm sorry—"

Minerva brushed before her, a blur of dangling coins and red fabric. Leanna bolted to her feet. Yet feeling Minerva's icy hands cradle her shoulders, Leanna pressed her lips together and didn't dare move.

Minerva did move: closer. She held Leanna tightly, boring coal black eyes into hers. "I have not fed in more years than you have been alive. But though I may not drink blood, I can hear it, and it doesn't lie. Do not tell me you are not frightened when your blood boils with fear, pounding so hard, it threatens to leave me deaf." She moved closer still." If you are going to jump whenever I speak, the only blood you will shed will be from pins sticking you, and it will be your fault." Nearing Leanna's ear, she repeated familiar words, "No fear."

With that, Minerva moved back, but did not release Leanna. A heavy silence burned, where she scrutinized her, slowly.

What she wanted, Leanna didn't know, but after several moments of being held like this and nothing happening, Leanna released the breath gathered in her chest, and then another. By and by, with each inhale and exhale, her heartbeats slowed from their manic gallop.

Minerva nodded approvingly, a small smile curling her lips. Finally releasing Leanna, she walked to a circular platform and motioned for Leanna to join her. Knees still a bit weak, Leanna willed her feet forward, met Minerva, and stood on the platform. On display, she held herself still.

"Now, Finvarra told me you were a small thing, but heavens, you're tiny." Pacing around the stand, Minerva's heels tapped a slow, steady beat on the wood floor. Coming full round, she didn't stop. Rather, she walked past Leanna, her chiffon skirt swishing behind her as she went to her drafting table.

Retrieving a cloth tape measure, she shuffled through papers absently. "I tried to sketch some different designs based on what Finvarra has told me of you. He said you had lovely eyes, brown with specks of gold," she murmured, staring down at some sketches that she then tossed down onto the table. She walked back to Leanna and lifted her head a touch toward the light. She hummed. "But he never mentioned how pale you are. The gold gown won't do. I'm afraid none of them will. They will either wash you out or swallow you whole. Tsk, what a shame. They would have been radiant."

They probably would have been, but Leanna could not bring herself to care about gowns, or paleness, or even vampires. She pressed a hand to her burning cheeks, caught by Minerva's words,

He said you had lovely eyes...

Leanna's heartbeat peaked. The simple thought of Finvarra thinking her eyes lovely made fire of her blood, her head a little light. She extended a blink, his effect on her alarming.

Minerva turned slowly, a smirk on her cherry red lips. The smile told Leanna she'd not only heard her thoughts, but more, understood them. However, in her eyes, there was only pity.

Minerva sighed. "He is charming, but you should think no more of it."

Blushing, Leanna lowered her head. "I don't know what you're talking about. I—"

"The blood never lies," Minerva warned under an arched brow. "He has woken something within you, but for your sake, think no more of it. Finvarra is trouble that can only be solved by Finvarra himself, however much he wishes you to save him."

She abandoned Leanna to her confusion and turned to the sketches again. With a gnash of her teeth, she moved them aside and spun her chair to face the platform. With pencil and notebook in hands, she sat down and settled back into silence, a thoughtful line marking her brow. After a few low hums and taps of her pencil, Minerva set off on a feverish sketch, her speed and the shadows of the room making her hand appear like a haze of black smoke.

Within seconds, she set down her pencil. Rapt by her work, she pursed her lips in scrutiny. "Yes, I think this will work. When I am done with this new gown, you shall be a fairy goddess, indeed."

"New gown?" Leanna echoed dumbly. "No, no. Surely I can wear Ellie's costumes. It would be much easier to adjust them rather than to make them entirely new. I am the third daughter. I'm used to hand me downs and quite frankly, don't mind."

Minerva scoffed, waving her hand airily. "Nonsense, child. I am immortal and my pleasures are few. Give a woman something to live for, at least before the wrath of the elders or of Machina takes that away," she added as a bitter afterthought.

Though the room was cold, it was hearing the name Machina that sprouted goose bumps along Leanna's skin. She rubbed her arms for warmth and for the courage. "If you don't mind my asking..."

"You want to know about Machina," Minerva said, and flicked her eyes to Leanna with a knowing smile.

Leanna nodded. "Ellie said learning of her would only lead to fear, but I daresay I already do fear her. It appears that by joining this circus, I not only gained a new life, but a new enemy. Problem is I don't know who this enemy is." Leanna shrugged. "How am I supposed to know what to look for or what to fight against, if I don't even know who she is?"

Minerva looked at her for a long while. She let out a slow breath and put down her notebook. Looking back at Leanna, she shook her head and stood, approaching with the tape measure. "You're nothing but a child and look at this mess he's gotten you into," she said, stepping up onto the platform, behind Leanna.

"Oh, but you're mistaken. This isn't Finvarra's fault—well, not entirely. You see, I snuck onto the fairgrounds of my own free will." Leanna sucked in a breath as the tape measure came around her waist, the intense coolness of Minerva's touch piercing through the thin muslin. Leanna had to look down to believe it hadn't burned through her dress.

"I've heard," she mumbled, and after a series of measurements, she walked back to the table, scribbling notes on the previous sketch. "But why on earth would you do such a thing?" she asked, genuinely dumbfounded. "Surely your life was not so bad you'd subject yourself to a dying circus and its cursed Ringmaster of all things."

Memoriesof forced marriages and metal contraptions came to mind, but Leanna ignored these, caught by, "A dying circus?"

Minerva tilted her head, brows furrowed. "Look around you, child. What circus is a circus without acts? Without an audience? Forgiveness—which used to happen once every few years—has now left the Ringmaster without eight acts in less than six months. In turn, attendance has dwindled. If it weren't for Ellie's act, we would have folded ages ago. But now she's gone." Minerva made a sound of pity. "At this rate, we'll be lucky to make it another month. Hopefully forgiveness will find the circus before then."

The circus couldn't fail so soon, Leanna thought in dread. More so because, "Finvarra said that his snow will never fall. If you are all forgiven and return to Forever, what will happen to him?"

Minerva only stared, and in her black eyes, the world took to a slow turning around Leanna.

"No," Leanna breathed, averting her gaze. She didn't accept the truth in Minerva's eyes. She couldn't accept it, regardless of how her pulse wished to sear it into her veins.

"Oh, how your heart pounds at the truth," Minerva said, drawing Leanna's gaze back. "But sadly, the curse is that Finvarra must give his heart away before everyone in the circus is forgiven or else he dies. But if the circus fails before everyone finds their forgiveness, then everyone in the circus will die." Minerva draped the tape measure over her chair and leaned back against the table, a grave expression marking her features. "That is why the Ringmaster flees Machina. If she traps him, the circus will undoubtedly fold, and those remaining here will perish."

"But that makes no sense," Leanna struggled to understand. "If Machina traps Finvarra, and the circus fails, Finvarra will die too. She will accomplish nothing by catching him."

Minerva gritted her teeth, waving a strip of sheer fabric she inspected in the air dismissively. "Machina will never let Finvarra die. She will stitch a mechanical heart into his chest so that he lives forever, and belongs to her forever."

All air left Leanna at once. She'd overheard Ellie and Finvarra talk that fateful night, and they too spoke such things. But that was before—before dances on tight wires, before newly forged friendships, before Kioyo... before the confession and kiss of a Ringmaster.

She pressed a hand over her crystal and walked blindly to her chair. Too many questions left her without a word, worry left her without a breath, while the truth left her with all the fear in the world.

"No, this just cannot be." Her nerves and racing pulse muddled her senses, and she let out a humorless laugh. "There is no such thing. I've heard of—of strange things, read of even stranger, but mechanical hearts and iron monsters?"

Turning to Leanna, a hint of frustration touched Minerva's face and voice. "You must quit thinking of this in mortal terms! Look beyond the limitations of this world. Has this circus taught you nothing?"

"But I cannot!" Leanna balled her fists at her lap, her emotions finally settling on anger, disappointment, and denial. "Centaurs and unicorns I accept. Bird people, fiery dragons and pixies! Finvarra being a faerie is... shocking, yet I have come to terms with that as well. But what you are asking me to believe is that Machina will stitch a heart of metal into his chest to keep him alive while everyone else dies! Why?"

"Because she loves him too much," Minerva replied gently, no doubt hearing the heartbreak in Leanna's blood. "What greater madness is there that would drive someone to such extremes as an unrequited love?"

An answer evaded Leanna. She'd never known love, much less unrequited love. But to be driven to such madness over an emotion? The thought was as foreign as love itself.

Minerva exhaled sharply and joined Leanna at the small table. "Bless your innocent heart. Perhaps once you know their fateful tale, of why Machina pines for Finvarra, and why in turn he will never give his heart away, you will better understand."

Numb, Leanna watched Minerva sit. Around her, the night took on a different spirit. Cold clung about her like a fog, but she knew this was not the regular night cold. It was that of looming Death. She'd had felt it come for her many times before. But there, on the verge of all the answers she always wanted, she'd never felt so afraid. 

_____________________________________

Thank you for reading!