The Immortal Circus: Act Two by A. R. Kahler

jaw.
    “Know what?”
    One of those emotions burns bright, and I push myself to
sitting and scoot back to stare at him. I hadn’t expected anger to win out, but
it flares through my body like a warning beacon.
    “What am I not supposed to know, Kingston?” I ask again,
biting off each word like a curse.
    When he looks up at me, his dark eyes are haunted.
    “You’re not supposed to remember you were in love,” he says.
Then he presses his palms to his eyes and mumbles, “We need to get Mab.”
*
    Not much has changed in the shadowy interior of Mab’s
trailer.
    She opens the door the moment Kingston knocks, almost as if
she were waiting on the other side for him to call. It wouldn’t surprise me.
She knows more than what she’s letting on about everything.
    We sit in her office. She lounges behind her desk, wearing
fishnets and leather, her cleavage accentuated more than Elvira’s in those
cheesy horror flicks I vaguely remember seeing. The shelves surrounding us are
filled with old books and crystal sconces and skulls—some of glass, some of
bone, some inlaid with gold. On one corner of her desk is her top hat; it rests
on a cast-iron cat, the ruby on the satin brim glittering with its own light.
This place makes me feel like I’ve stepped into an oddities museum. The wolves
howling in the distance don’t help.
    Kingston hasn’t looked me in the eye since he brought me
here, and for my part, I don’t want him to. Because right now I feel like a
cheater or like I’ve been cheated on—or some sick mix of both. I keep
remembering Austin and the concerned look in his eyes. I keep trying to recall
some sort of emotion toward him, something that would signify a relationship.
But I feel nothing toward him. Absolutely nothing. And that makes me feel a
whole hell of a lot of something else toward Kingston.
    Rage isn’t an emotion I enjoy. Especially not when it’s
directed at the man I thought I was in love with.
    “Tell me,” Mab says as she props her heels up on her
mahogany desk, “besides Sheena’s death, what other brilliant news do you two
lovebirds bring me this evening?”
    There’s a twist to her words. She knows precisely why we’re
here. There’s no other reason she’d be looking at me with that little smirk on
her lips. Lovebirds.
    I open my mouth and find I have no idea what to say. I
stutter and hope that Kingston will say something in my place. He doesn’t. Did
he know? Did he know I had a boyfriend before this? Was forgetting Austin his choice or mine? Because I know Kingston was there when I signed my
contract. Kingston was the one who found me in the first place.
    Finally, I say the words that feel like venom in my throat.
    “I met someone tonight,” I say. My voice is flat, dead. “A
guy. Claiming to be my boyfriend.”
    “And this surprises you?” Mab asks. “I don’t mean to be
crass, but my dear, it’s not as though you are the ugly duckling. I’m sure you
had many lovers before coming here.”
    Is she really giving me a pep talk?
    “What surprises me,” I continue, “is the fact that I
don’t remember him.”
    Mab’s smirk increases as she raises an eyebrow.
    “Must I remind you, Vivienne, about the parameters of your
contract?” She makes a lazy gesture to the bookshelf behind her and the large,
leather-bound volume resting above her head. I know that book well; it’s what
caused all the destruction when Penelope went off her hinges. The book of
contracts doesn’t dislodge itself from the shelf, not like the last time. She
knows I remember. There’s not much she’s let me keep, but I do recall that aspect
of my contract all too well: I’m not supposed to recollect anything from my
past. But what happens when my past starts remembering me?
    I know that this isn’t the conversation we should be having;
I should be interrogating her about Oberon, about the new crew and their rigged
contracts. I should be asking about the war. I shouldn’t care about a boy from
my