1
“You were right again, love,” Criminy said.
Tish rolled over in bed to face him, her eyes hazy and still smudged with yesterday’s kohl. After a long night’s glancing, she usually slept deeply until afternoon, and she still didn’t understand how a man as busy as Criminy Stain always managed to be there when she woke up.
“You’re the one who says glancers are always right,” she answered, stretching and sighing under the quilt of patchwork silks. “In my world, the only way to learn the future is with a Magic 8 Ball.”
“You slay me, pet,” he said. “You and your fantastical imaginings.”
The gypsy king sat at his desk in nothing but breeches and argyle stockings, his hair loose and skimming over the pale skin of his chest like ink spilled on parchment. The newspaper in his hands had been found after last night’s show, probably dropped by one of the Clockwork Caravan’s uptight and paranoid Pinky customers. No matter how many signs and certificates they posted assuring the visitors that it was perfectly safe, the silly humans still carried their parasols like weapons and jumped whenever they were addressed by someone not laced into layers of fashionable clothing. And they dropped all manner of odd objects, including piles of newspapers.
Since Criminy himself avoided cities like the plague and didn’t trust the Coppers to leave his carnivalleros unmolested within the high, guarded walls, they didn’t get news as often as Tish would have liked. Accustomed as she was to the Internet and talk radio when at home in Atlanta, she found it frustrating that fascinating things happened all over Sang that she wouldn’t learn about for several months. For example, it had taken an entire year for Criminy to learn that the Blud princesses of Freesia had disappeared, and he was still furious whenever the topic came up. As far as Tish could tell, they were the Bludmen’s version of the British royal family and much adored, especially the youngest princess.
“Has there been news of Ahnastasia—” He looked up, cloudy eyes sharp, and she stopped herself just in time. “Never mind. Just tell me what I was right about so I can act smug.”
“I seem to recall you telling our Maestro that loss would be his salvation or some such rot, yes?”
Tish smiled and allowed herself a moment to feel wistful over the Maestro, who had left the carnival when Tish chose a vagabond life with Criminy over a settled marriage with the talented musician. She had first met Casper Sterling in her own world, where he was an unresponsive patient on her nightly rounds as a hospice nurse. And meeting him in Sang, awake and devastatingly handsome and most very responsive, had definitely been a shock. When she had touched Casper and glanced on his future, she had seen dizzying greatness followed by a fall from glory followed by hard-won redemption. Now she had to wonder which part of her glance Criminy was referring to.
“Something like that,” she murmured.
With his usual flair for the dramatic, Criminy flicked the paper around to show her the front page, which featured an ink drawing that perfectly captured Casper, right down to his nimble fingers, flowing hair, and dimples. Unfortunately, it also showed him vomiting into the strings of a harpsichord while wearing a woman’s bonnet on his head.
She grinned. “And to think that I passed that up for you.”
“Turns out our lad has just been tossed out of the London Opera,” Criminy said. “The Magistrate canceled his appointment due to disgraceful behavior and conduct unbecoming a professional.” He peered close, sharp eyebrow raised. “He’d have done better to stay here.”
“What, so you could gloat?”
Criminy’s roar of laughter filled the wagon, and Tish grinned. It was one of her favorite sounds, that wild, unselfconscious barking. Even now, after two years with him in the caravan, it still felt as if she had won a prize.
“No, love,” he answered. “So he would remember his place. Give a weak man the world, and he’ll just make a mess of it.”
“Well, I feel sorry for him,” Tish said. “He might not have been the right man for me, but there’s someone out there for everyone. And he’s so very—”
“Good-looking?”
“Talented. Much better than that ridiculous goof we’ve got on the calliope now.”
“Carnivalleros come and go, my love, but to hell with the Maestro. He’s a lot better off here than he was in your world, anyway.” He folded the paper fastidiously, rolled it up, and stuffed it into one of the pigeonholes in his desk before standing to stalk to the bed with his usual predatory grace, and Tish smiled and scooted over to make room for him. When she became tangled in the mess of sheets and blankets, he pounced on her, pinning her wrists on either side of her head.
“Besides, he could never have tickled your ivories as I do, my delicious little pianoforte,” he whispered in her ear. “I know just where to put my fingers . . .”
A shiver ran over her as he began kissing his way up her neck. Before he could reach her mouth and claim her in one of those desperate, fiery kisses she loved so well, someone knocked on the door of the wagon.
“Bugger off!” he yelled. “We’re busy studying musical theory.”
He licked his lips and smirked at Tish, showing pointy teeth.
“Now, where were we, my little harp that needs plucking?”