Page 30 of Roma King
My gaze rises, and for a full four seconds I allow my mouth to hang open in amazement. High overhead, the vaulted ceilings, complete with gothic ribs, are stunning. At first I think they’re painted a royal blue and that the stars glimmering and shining across the vast expanse are the handiwork of someone extremely talented with a paintbrush, but as the flames from hundreds of candles, placed, balanced and stacked on nearly every available surface, sway, the light sways too, and I note the brilliant flash of white that travels over what turn out to be tiles. The entire roof is covered in tiles—a mosaic so brilliant and complex, the colors so vivid, striking and rich in depth that it’s a breathtaking thing to behold. Each tiny star is a tile of its own, silver and gold, carefully placed in a way that it might catch at the light and shine. The candles flicker again, guttering on a warm breeze that sighs out of the darkened subway tunnel to my far left, and the light cascades across the tiles again; it looks as though the heavens are on fire. It’s far too beautiful to be hidden away down here, unseen and unacknowledged by the outside world. There’s something special about it, though, as if the masterpiece of a ceiling is a gift, a secret and a surprise that only a chosen few are lucky enough to see.
“Welcome to the Midnight Fair,” Leo says. “Go on in, now. We’ll have a line forming behind you otherwise, and Patrin doesn’t like the entrance getting clogged up.”
Garrett’s eyes rove over every inch of the place. As we walk down the pathway between the stalls, he studies everything we pass with the blatant awe of someone who has never visited a fair before. His wonder is completely justified, too. I’ve never been to, seen or heard of a place like this before.
Unlike the ceiling, there are no tiles covering the floor as we press forward into the crowd; there’s nothing but bare, compacted earth beneath the soles of our shoes, which doesn’t really make sense since the station must have had a foundation when it was built, but at the same time it feels kind of right. Like all of the stalls and tents are organic things that magically shot up out of the ground and are supposed to be here.
“I guess now we need to ask around about Corey,” I mutter under my breath.
Garrett nods, but he isn’t really paying attention. He’s still busy devouring everything that’s going on around us with his eyes. I approach a stall to our right first. An empty stall, with nothing laid out on its bare, unfinished wood. Behind it, a gnarled man in his sixties with a shock of wiry steel grey hair and a black silk waistcoat drums his fingers across his kneecap. His dark eyes come to life as we approach and stop in front of him.
“Well, well. If it isn’t you.” His face becomes seventy percent grin as he flashes a row of surprisingly perfect, wolfish teeth at me.
I frown. “I’m…I’m sorry, have we met before?”
He cocks his head to one side. Assessing. “No. Should we have?”
“It’s just that you said, ‘if it isn’t you,’ like you know me or something.”
“Alas, I’m almost one hundred percent sure I haven’t had the pleasure of making your acquaintance. But still. Youareyou, aren’t you?”
“Oh. Well…yeah. Obviously.” Jeez. The conversation has barely even started and it’s already giving me a headache.
“Excellent news!” The man beams. “For a second there I worried I might have got the wrong person.” He places the side of his cupped palm against the side of his mouth and whispers around it, winking, as if he’s sharing a secret with me. “Would have been pretty embarrassing, no?”
I can feel Garrett’s eyes on me. When I glance at him, he’s wearing a highly perplexed, questioning look on his face that speaks a little too loudly. He doesn’t know what the fuck’s going on, either.
“You’ve come to try your luck with me then?” the wiry man asks. I’ve decided that, with his narrow shoulders and the slightly calculating tilt to his head, he’s more fox than wolf. “All you need to do is follow the coin. Simple. A child’s game.” From somewhere underneath the table, he produces three small scuffed wooden cups. Each has a letter carved into its side—the first an M, the second an E, and the third a C. He upends them, placing them down on the table in front of him, and then he reaches into the small pocket in his waistcoat where a pocket watch might have otherwise lived, and pulls out a shining silver dollar. He rolls it across the back of his knuckles, canting his head at me questioningly.
I smile politely. “We don’t have time to play any of the games tonight. I was actually just wondering if I could ask you a question?”
The fox snaps the silver dollar out of the air, fingers closing tightly around it in a fist. His smile is gone in the blink of an eye. “What a thing!” His tone is icy enough to make me realize that I’ve done something wrong. I have no idea how, but I’ve managed to offend him. Fuck.
“I’m sorry. I just—”
“No apologies here. Move along to the next table now. I don’t have time to waste oncuriouspeople.”
Curious? What the actual fuck?I bite back an exasperated sigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’d love to play your game. I just meant that—”
The fox’s smile returns, blazing a path across his face. He hasn’t let me finish speaking, doesn’t know that I’m just trying to explain our situation. Obviously, the only words he’s heard from me are the ones where I said I would love to play his game. “Excellent news!” he declares again, rocketing to his feet. He gets up so quickly that the stool he was just sitting on topples over behind him, though he doesn’t seem to notice or care. The silver dollar has returned, skipping over the back of his knuckles. Leaning over the cups, he picks up the cup marked with a C with a flourish, places the silver dollar ceremoniously on the table, and covers it with the cup. “You know how this works?” he enquires.
“I do. But seriously—”
The fox’s face wrinkles with disgust. “No, no, no. We don’t do serious here. If you’re looking for serious, you’ll need to go and find Shelta. Now, are you ready?”
For. Fuck’s. Sake.Maybe it would be easier to just play along with the man, get his sleight of hand trick out of the way, feign amazement, and then he might be inclined to be a little more helpful. Trouble is, even as a child I was unimpressed by sleight of hand magic tricks. Other people were amazed, gasping, ooh-ing and ahh-ing in all the right places, but my eyes have always been too sharp. I’ve always caught the moment when the ball or the coin, or the wallet or the watch disappeared into the magician’s hand, only to reappear in the most unlikely of places moments later, where it wasn’t supposed to be. I can pretend here for a second if it means we made progress, though. “All right, all right. Yes, I’m ready. Wait, what’s the prize if I win?”
The Fox narrows his left eye, nodding quickly. “You’re a smart one. Always best to figure out the stakes before entering into a wager. Why don’t you make a suggestion?”
“A suggestion? About what I’ll win?”
He nods once with a curt jerk of his head.
Weird. Usually, you win a stuffed teddy bear at a game table like this. Or more game tokens. I’ve never been given the chance to negotiate my prize before. “Okay. If I win, I want to ask you my question.”
The fox’s smile sours a little, but he considers my proposal. “Is it a hard question?”
“No.”
