Her head spins as she pours the dark liquid into the thin, white mug clutched in one hand. Vera had woken up with a horrid headache which had pestered her ever since.

The headaches aren't uncommon, in fact within the past few months her headaches have gotten increasingly worse. No amount of Tylenol could cease the pain behind her eyes - the headaches only stopped when they wanted to. Perhaps it is because Vera had disobeyed the curse and so it frequent with her at nasty times as punishment in doing so.

The black coffee overflows the rim of the glass and spills across her fingers. With a small yelp and a hiss of pain, Vera sets the cup onto the countertop and hastily grabs a towel from the metal rack.

"Ah, ah, ow." An angry burn stares back at her from within her palm.

"Child, must I tell you to be careful? You almost dropped the glass, again," murmurs a woman with wire rimmed glasses, from behind the cashier. Her dyed green hair is tied into a tight ponytail and sways like a plastic toy snake as the the woman turns around and shoots Vera an irritated look, one that makes Vera want to cover her face with embarrassment. "You're pouring coffee. It can't be that difficult, can it?"

Vera ducks her head and pretends not to hear her coworker's snide comment. She walks to the coffee cabinet and crouches down to reach for the black coffee. Her fingers graze the cool surface of the glass, barely within reach. With a little more effort, she extends her arm and grasps it tightly before standing up - and nearly falling back down.

The once dull pain now hammers behind her eyes and at her temples. For a second, the café is stretched by its corners, along with all of its contents. The tables and chairs seem to tilt and blur, tea cups and coffee mugs spilling, splattering, and shattering against the hardwood floor. In front of her, customers are standing up from their seats and running out the doors in muted hysteria. She blinks. Shakes her head several times.

Everything is normal, all except for her mind. A sick curse groaning in her brain, its numbing pain ebbing inside her thoughts. Cursed. Cursed. Cursed. The word taunts her mind, though its secret has already woven her lips shut. 

Vera exhales and rises to her feet with more patience this time. Someone is snapping at her. Vera raises her head timidly and barely raises her voice to reply. "...Yes?"

"-And your feeble mind couldn't even comprehend the mess you've made."

"I didn't...." Vera glances down at the wreckage that she had created, broken pieces of clear glass mixed with black powder lay scattered upon the grey marble floors. "...see that. But I could have sworn-" She stares back down at the pile, dumbfounded, and furrows her eyebrows. "I-I'll clean that up, sorry," Vera says hastily before leaving to get a broom and a trash bag.

After attaining the house appliances from the cafe's closet, she begins to sweep up the expenses of her clumsiness. Carefully picking up the glass while trying to disregard the annoyed glare the green haired girl was giving her, Vera places each piece into a white plastic bag. A dagger pierces through the side of her temple. She drops the remaining piece of glass. Clang, it sings off-key, as it makes contact with the marble floor.

At the same time, a throbbing pain shoots up the sides of her head, the ghastly stabbing driving into her ears. She squeezes her eyes shut and prays, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop.

The pounding headache stops, to her relief. Vera cracks open her eyes and gasps aloud at the sight in front of her: a stark, white feather lying in a puddle of black grins back at her. Ink. The pool of thick darkness starts to spread around the feather, swallowing up the marble around it in a black gulp. It soaks into tips of her sneakers just as someone calls her name.

"Vera, you're staring at a pile of coffee beans. I'm really starting to question your mental state," a friendly voice says from behind the counter.

"Starting to question her mental state? I've always questioned it, Kaela. It's hard not to when she goes around staring at inanimate objects for hours," Green-haired woman says from somewhere behind her.

Vera takes a shaky breath and blinks several times, then acknowledges her friend with a brief nod of the head. "Kaela, what are you doing here?" Vera frowns and blinks the disturbing image of the feather away. She takes in the sight of her one and only friend, the image of ripped thrifted clothing and blonde hair sinking into the back of her mind. 

Vera can never quite understand why Kaela chose to befriend someone like herself, whom held so much silence in her eyes and in her throat. Surely her friend, who wears the word naiveté on her smile so proudly, must find a more suitable companion who has equally matched the oblivion with their eyes. 

Yet day by day, the brilliant blonde naiveté wanders into the café, her optimism bolder than any of their finest coffee (though Vera can attest that the coffee has always been weak, not bitter enough to wake her of her wretched headaches.)  The naiveté begin to speak in rivers, her words pouring, overflowing, all so much more than Vera has ever uttered. And although Vera had at first found so much talk distasteful, she begin to favor the warmth in its hum, its familiarity that wore away the fear in her heart.

"Earth to Vera!" Kaela raises an eyebrow and waves her hand away. "Vera, you've been crazy distracted this entire week. It's Friday, you could seriously use a break ... like Infernum perhaps?"

Vera's mind reels to where or whom she might have heard it from. She briefly remembers the soft singing of whispers flying past her ears as she made her way through a faceless crowd of walking people. Although she has yet to see it for herself, she has heard of the many rumors shrouding the mysterious magical circus act held within a grand hotel, all of which appeared on a single, unsuspecting day.

"The magical circus show that everyone has been talking about?" The one that has only spelled trouble, she wants to say instead. There is nothing beautiful about trickery. Yet she cannot deny the way her heart heaves at the thought of being swept away in the art of lies. Amongst liars of the eyes and hearts, her terrible secret has a home.

Her friend beams. "Yes, that's the one."

Vera sets down the broom and places the bag of broken glass onto the countertop, before crossing her arms across her chest. "I suppose it would not hurt to go, but I have so much to do..." She trails off, uncertainty lingering in her voice. She wants to be persuaded, so she cannot blame herself as much as she would.

Green-Haired woman flicks a blue note into the space between Vera's crossed arms and mutters without glancing back,"One plain black coffee, no cream, no sugar."

Vera peels the sticky square from her shirt and tapes it onto the side of her arm, wishing there is something she could do about her forgetfulness and mindlessness, but as of the moment, there isn't anything that could resolute that problem except tape sticky notes and write messy reminders on herself.

As she's preparing the coffee, Vera glances up at Kaela and watches her rummage through her backpack to pull out a worn out grey book, all whilst speaking non-stop. Her friend continues to relentlessly convince Vera to go, the reasons like chiming in her ears. "-Besides, it could be fun! How many times have you seen real life magic before?"

"Never."

Her friend bobs her head excitedly, her brilliant hair flashing beneath the white lights. "And that's exactly why we should go. This could be a new experience, this could be liberating."

The strong scent of coffee fills the air around her the moment she twists the lid off of a brand new jar of dark-roasted coffee beans. It's the distinct smell of airborne caffeine-laden renewal. Vera reaches behind her and clutches a silver measuring spoon and a metal cup in one hand.

"Okay, fine, I'll stop using that as a reason. Let's see...what's a way I could convince Vera Adelaide, the one and only girl, who refuses to interact with any other living object besides her best friend and little cousin, who is in desperate need of any other human interaction-"

Vera buries the metal spoon an inch deep of the jar and scoops out three tablespoons into the cup. "-I'm not anti-social, if that's what you're hinting at. I'm just tired, I guess."

From behind the coffee bar, her friend peeks over from her book and gives her an unconvinced stare. "Really? You go on about your day nodding, shaking your head, and basically communicating in any way that doesn't involve using vocal chords."

Vera starts up the mini-stove beside her to steam the water. "Maybe I'm simply tired of using my vocal chords with people. Talking is physically exhausting." Although talking no longer fazes her, Vera still found her words a little too awkward for the society growing around her. Every time she speaks, she finds herself drawing out each syllable as though she has only begin to test them out. But she cannot tell if it is her lack of speaking or her lack of faith in her own voice.

Once a voice holds a secret, every word is another threat to the balance in her mind. Another reason she finds herself enjoying Kaela's company is that she never points out Vera's eloquently strange use of language. 

"You talk to me and Remi without breaking a sweat."

"That's because I know you two," she says in such a way that made it sound factually-evident. Her hand turns the knob of the machine from steam to boil in a sharp twist. While waiting for the water, Vera leans against the counter, eyes drifting to the grey book held within Kaela's hands. "What is it that you are reading?"

The cover of the book is scratched in a hundred different places, tears and scribbles decorated the front and back of it, covering the letters of the title.

"Julius Caesar. I picked it up at a thrift store, because I thought it looked vintage, that's all." But Vera knows the real reason why her friend had gotten the book, although she would never tell Kaela. Secrets upon secrets build friendships after all. "It's not that bad actually. As much as he's overrated, he's kind of brilliant. I mean I didn't appreciate anything he wrote until I was in English class and spent two months trying to figure out what a single page meant. Props to him." She sets down the book, pages face first, and looks at Vera with a determined stare.

"But as I was saying," Kaela continues, "you keep to yourself too much. If your little cousin and me are the only two people you've had an actual conversation with for the past three years, you're pretty much antisocial."

"What does that have to do with the magic show you speak of?"

Her friend breathes out an exasperated sigh and flicks her blonde hair out of her eyes. "There's going to be so many seniors at the showing, since it's a high school bonding thing. It's the perfect opportunity for you to make friends."

The water begins to boil, small bubbles rise to the top one at a time. "I already have a friend, which is plenty enough for me. Plus, I'm a junior so I don't see the point in going." Her tongue glides over the modern lingo smoothly, although she cannot deny the unsettling feeling that they have never truly belonged on her lips. After all those books on languages Vera has read, from English, to Vietnamese, French, Greek, Slovenian, and countless others, not one could fix the oddity embedded into her voice. 

If only lies were their own language, then it will be the only language she spoke fluently. Not from the tongue (her learning skills have always been quick), but from the soul. 

She sneaks a glance at her companion, who is unsurprisingly, still rambling. "No, Vera, you're senior that's technically a junior. Just because you skipped a grade doesn't mean you're not considered a senior - we're graduating at the same time, which means that even though you're a junior at heart, you're made to be an older, more wiser person."

Vera wipes a hand on her apron. "What? That doesn't make any sense." More bubbles float to the surface at a disturbingly slow pace.

Kaela lets out a frustrated groan and crosses her arms. She fixes her blue eyes and lips into a small scowl. "This year is going to be your last year of being in high school-"

"Isn't that supposed to be a good thing?"

Her friend shoots her a dark look. "Which means you should live it out to its full potential before you leave. You're a teenager, Vera, it's about time you make memories and reckless decisions. We should start this year right by going to this show, along with everyone else in our grade, and making some friends and participating in social activities."

Vera chews on her bottom lip, contemplating on whether or not to go. She flicks the off switch on the stove and presses the coffee powder filled cup against the lever. Boiling water pours itself into the container and she shifts the cup away from the lever when it fills to the brim. Gingerly, she sets the cup onto the counter and stirs it with a thin wooden stick.

The once clear water blossoms into a black dahlia before disintegrating into a completely black shade. Strands of steam curl above the cup, swirling into intricate barely visible patterns. Each strand seems to wrap around another, Vera notices, attaching themselves end to end in an unusually fascinating way, a way that she's never seen before.

Letters. They are forming letters, she thinks with a startling realization. C-a-v-e-a-t, they spell to her in a lazy cursive. Without hesitation, Vera slams a plastic lid onto the cup, purposefully crushing the imaginary letters as she does so.

"Woah, careful Vera. What did that coffee ever do to you?"

"You didn't see that?"

"What are you going on about? Are you trying to change the topic here, because you're not doing a very-"

She struggles to hide the trace of horror in her eyes. "The words, woven in smoke. I can't remember what it had said..." Vera pauses, very much aware that she sounded absolutely crazy. "Perhaps you are right. I do need a break at the moment."

In her chest, her heart beats twice as fast as it had before. Vera reminds herself to calm down and stop freaking out over her own imagination. "Something just hit me. I think. Whatever. We should head on out now, actually. I don't want to be late." Her words come out rushed and she hopes that her friend doesn't detect the fear that had crept into her voice.

Kaela tilts her head back and studies Vera for a second before shrugging. "Well, uh, okay, let's leave for the show then. It starts in about twenty minutes, which is plenty of time for us to walk downtown."

Relief floods into her body and she suppresses the urge to give her friend a smile of gratitude for not questioning her strange behavior. "Hold on a sec, let me just get out of here." Vera moves to exit the café bar when something catches her eye. She stops mid-step and pivots on her heel.

On the ground is a coffee jar, perfectly intact, containing every single bit of coffee that she thought she had dropped. Vera takes a step closer and inspects the jar from a feet away, puzzled. Then bewildered. And quite frankly, frightened.

In the jar, pressed between the coffee beans and the glass, is a white feather. Vera picks up the jar from its lid with two fingers and strides over to the trashcan. She drops it in without a single ounce of mercy and listens to the satisfying sound of it shattering. Lies upon lies, secrets upon secrets, and a curse above it all.

➳➳➳

The city of Reno is a pretty sad place, Vera thinks as she walks with Kaela downtown. Her eyes take in the dull, worn-down walls of each building. The area that she lives and works around is muted and lifeless in a way that some people would find kind of pathetic. The casinos and motels are decorated with chipped paint and oil stains, while the streets are littered with empty boxes of cigarettes and broken glass.

Even the air is drab. The musty and stale smell of cigarette smoke burns the back of her throat with every breath and ever so slightly stings her eyes with every blink. The two of them stop at last as they arrive, staring at the magnificent sight, bright red tickets in hand.

"Wow." Kaela gasps quietly beside her. "This place is so ... wow."

The building itself towers above the other ones, grazing the sky, majestic and strange compared to everything else in Reno. The outer walls of this hotel aren't like the others either, not concrete and covered in cheap paint, but made entirely of thick, blackened glass. It's beautiful in a way that Vera couldn't seem to describe. She could have sworn that she had never came across this building once, out of her whole life.

How very, very peculiar that this out of place building could materialize out of absolute thin air.

Agonizing pain squeezes at her temples. Vera pinches them in attempt to lessen her headache.

Before them is the entrance, grand and spectacular, apart from everything else. Infernum, is printed above the doorway in golden cursive letters. In her palms are the two tickets digging into her skin. Vera takes a small step forward before withdrawing her foot abruptly. The hairs at the back of her neck stand on end, something in her gut claws at her. She feels her body hum with energy and consciousness and adrenaline all at once. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, everything screams at her.

"What's wrong?" Kaela asks.

"Nothing, nothing at all," Vera says. She ignores the voice that's telling, screaming, begging her to leave and yanks the door handle open.

Inside is nothing she could have expected. They step in and are immediately greeted with the sound of delicate music and bold laughter, ringing around the halls. People in rich velvet dresses and startling black tuxedos stand around with wine glasses raised in their hands, all speaking to one another in loud tones, like they're part of something she's not.

They're all beautiful, she realizes with a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach. A man and a woman, both very alike, walk past her. Their eyes are a vividly bright shade of gold and their skin is unrealistically flawless and pale, something that should be odd in a place like Nevada.

How?

Their gazes settle on Vera for a split second and she quickly averts her eyes, but not before she catches a glimpse of their thin, peculiar smiles. It's the kind of smile that makes her regret ever coming to the magic show, the smile that makes the uncomfortable feeling in her body magnify a thousand times. It's like they know something I don't. Like they're hiding something.

"Oh my Lord, this place is gorgeous. I wish I knew we were supposed to dress all fancy," her friend says. Vera almost forgot that Kaela was ever there with her. She doesn't reply.

Together they stand on a long strip of rich black carpet, one that led to another gold and black door on the other side of the large ballroom. This place is nothing like she's ever seen before. Grand columns the color of obsidian line the elusive gold walls. Above her head is the same milky-black color that seems to extend on to forever, decorated with tiny little patches of gold stars.

One of the stars catches her eye and an unmistakable feeling of nostalgia overwhelms her. She tilts her head slightly and squints at the odd shape, now noticing that it is not a star, but a glowing symbol of some kind.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

"Excuse me, young girl with black hair." Vera turns to find an elderly woman sitting behind a table that was draped in blue velvet. Immediately she is taken aback by the youthfulness that radiates from the woman's voice, though all is betrayed by the fine lines of age carved into her cheeks and the snowy white hair that hung down her shoulders in unnaturally perfect curls. She, however, stands apart from everyone else in this place. More human, in a way.

Vera straightens up. "Me?"

The woman gives her sweet smile, but Vera could see it flicker around its edges. It's a saddened, crumbling smile that is glued together by layers and layers of molasses. "Would you like to see your future?"

She casts a panicked look at Kaela, who only nods approvingly. "You don't get your fortune told everyday. And we still have five minutes till it starts, so why not?"

"Your friend is correct. There is nothing holding you back from doing so. It will not take long, I assure you."

Once again, Vera is struck by her voice. Every syllable is softly spoken, gentle, yet it held so much more, it was filled with something she couldn't quite identify. "I guess it wouldn't hurt."

The woman's brown eyes twinkle. Vera opens her mouth to explain that she has no money on her but is stopped by the elderly woman's voice. "I don't charge new customers. Take a seat and lay down your palm for me, my child."

Vera hesitates for a second. It's not going to hurt...and it'll probably take a minute or two. She shuffles forward and places a hand on the stone chair that looked so out of place amongst the gold and black lavishness that Infernum emitted.

"Other hand, my child."

"But I write with my left hand."

The lady stares at Vera, unblinking. A forlorn expression crosses her face and for a split second, her brown eyes shine with a glint of confusion.

"Perhaps that will do." She takes out a silver container, embellished in an array of unreadable symbols. Then she lifts up the lid and dips a finger inside. Crimson stains the tip of her index finger.

Vera pulls her hand back and springs from her chair, nearly knocking over the container in the process. "What is that?"

"Nothing of importance to you, my child, now please refrain from such movements. It may ruin this reading." The woman doesn't even look up.

"Tell me what's inside the silver jar."

"Whether you want to do this or not is up to you. You may leave if you wish."

Kaela rests a hand on Vera's shoulder. "Jeez, Vera, stop flipping out. It's just showbiz stuff that's meant to freak out little children. This is probably just some cheap act." She gives the woman an apologetic glance. "No offense."

"Do not worry, none taken."

Slowly, Vera sits back down and slides out her palm. "Go."

The woman closes her eyes, purses her pale lips, and ever so lightly taps Vera's palm with the same finger she had dipped into the dark substance. Vera sucks in a breath as the drop of ruby travels along the cracks of her palm. It spreads as if it was a wildfire of scarlet and the cracks are the branches catching onto the flames.

When the woman's eyelids flutter open, her brown irises are replaced with iridescent blue crescents. This is part of the act, Vera tells herself. Her hand quivers, like the rest of her. In her chest, her heart is frantic, erratic, ready to flee from her ribcage, ready to tear itself through the maze of bones to escape her body.

"Are you ready, Vera Adelaide? "