Page 19 of Cracked Doll

I've heard this time more times than I could count if I tried. I let the silence sit until he finally runs out of anything else to say, and only then do I speak.

"I have to get back to the shop."

I don't wait for a response. I walk out and return to the counter, to the safe, ordinary business of ringing up toys for strangers, and I don't look back to see whether he's still sitting there or not.

I'm halfway through restocking the shelf of glass eyes when the bell rings and Amara bursts in like a small, gorgeous storm — dark denim jacket studded with pins over a slip dress the color of dried blood, her afro pulled up into a great soft crown, gold hoops swinging at her ears.

"There you are!" She practically sags with relief. "I lost you completely last night — where did you go?"

"I'm sorry," I say. "My father was — he was in the street, I had to get him inside, and I couldn't find you in the crowd to tell you."

Her face softens instantly. "Having the town drunk for a Papa. That must be so hard, Ophelia. I'm sorry." She says it plainly, without pity dressed up as anything else, which somehow makes it easier to bear than most people's sympathy.

I nod, unsure what else there is to say.

"Anyway." She recovers quickly, eyeing me up and down. "That dress is stunning, by the way — as gorgeous as you are." My dress today is deep plum, the bodice laced tight over long sleeves that flare slightly at the wrist, a high lace collar at my throat that, thankfully, hides most of what's beneath it.

"Thank you," I manage. "You look lovely too."

"And yet," she says, tilting her head, "you still won't look me in the eye."

I don't have an answer for that. I never do.

Mercifully, she barrels straight past it. "God, you missed it, though. The owner of The Midnight Menagerie was there last night." She fans herself dramatically. "Absolute walking sin, that man. Tall as anything, built like he does something violent for a hobby, jaw you could cut glass on. The kind of fit that makes you forget your own name."

"He sounds like a dream," I say, my voice coming out strange even to my own ears.

"Rhys Castellan," she says, savoring the name like a sweet. "That's him. Owns the whole bloody carnival."

I repeat it under my breath. Rhys Castellan. It sounds exactly the way he looks — sharp, deliberate, expensive.

"But honestly?" Amara leans in, conspiratorial. "What actually caught my eye was who he was standing with. The succubus."

"A succubus," I say slowly. "Like — the mythological demon that seduces men in their sleep?"

"Not mythological in the slightest, love. Very real. Very hot." Amara grins. "She's part of the VIP experience — people pay an absolute fortune to have her seduce them, manipulate them, make them properly fall for her, just for the thrill of it. Heard she's terrifyingly good at it."

I don't know what to say to that either.

"Out of everything that carnival offers," Amara says, "that's the one thing I'd get a black ticket for. A woman that beautiful and that dangerous? Devil in a dress, that one."

"What's a black ticket?"

"A necklace," she says. "Has the carnival's logo on it — skull, roses, the whole gothic bit. Costs an absolute fortune, gets you into all the VIP stuff normal punters never even hear about."

Something cold settles low in my stomach.

The necklace. I never wore it last night — left it sitting in its music box on purpose, some small, stubborn act of defiance against a man who'd pressed a blade to my throat and expected obedience for it. I remember him at the gate with that camera. I remember the Dracula room reflecting him and no one else — as though it had been built, somehow, to see him and only him. Could a mere photographer have that kind of influence over an attraction? Or was the man I met last night never simply staff at all?

Rhys Castellan.

Could it be him?

I don't get to finish the thought. Amara's eyes drop to my throat, narrowing.

"Wait." She points. "Is that a hickey?"

My hand flies up on instinct, covering the mark before I can stop myself. "No — it's just a rash."