hit something solid. Moth swore as a large shadow swept down toward them like a big wasp.
Jack flung a blade. It glittered in an arc and struck the shadow wasp, slicing it in half. The creature fell apart in strands of gossamer darkness. Jack snatched up the knife as they continued running.
They reached the arch. She looked back to see that the orbs hadn’t followed, and she breathed out a relieved laugh, watching them hover and spiral, keeping their distance, as if held at bay by an invisible barrier.
Jack turned to her and his eyes were silver. “Don’t make eye contact with anyone. Don’t accept any gifts. Don’t wander off. I’ll repeat that: Don’t wander off. Even though the fair doesn’t move until season’s end, I don’t trust it.”
“It moves?” She studied the landscape of quaint lanterns and striped pavilions beyond that archway.
“Not until winter’s end.”
“How exactly does this whole place move?” She imagined a magic tornado sweeping everything up and setting it neatly down in another location.
“Not the way things usually do.” Jack tugged the hood of her red coat up over her hair. “Whatever possessed you to bring that old camera?”
She shrugged. “It just seemed appropriate, to bring something like an artifact. Like a good luck charm.”
As they walked toward the archway, she felt excitement overwhelm dread. A Ferris wheel glittered, spiky and sinister, against the night sky. Lanterns strung between the pavilions lit banners proclaiming FREAK SHOW, SPELLS AND INCANTATIONS, TREATS OR TRICKS, and WONDERS OF THE TRUE WORLD. A top-hatted man on stilts lurched around, handing out advertisements. Finn ducked her head as he loomed over them before moving on. A muscular man tattooed with eyes held a large hammer and shouted challenges to strike a black metal dragon. When a silver-haired boy accepted the hammer and struck, lights flamed in the dragon’s eyes and its mouth opened to drop a glass apple into the winner’s hand. A carousel of mythical animals—a golden gryphon, a silver sphinx, a manticore, and a unicorn—rotated in a circle of lights and music that sounded like the lullaby “Hush, Little Baby.” The old-fashioned exhibits of taxidermy creatures, the steampunk mechanisms of the rides, and the Fatas themselves in their neo-antique fashions, created a dream-dark atmosphere. Some of the Fatas seemed to shift in and out of shadow and light.
Fairies, she thought as they passed a makeshift stage where a young man in jeans, tattoos, and a headdress of ram horns was performing a sword-swallowing act. She shivered.
Jack said, his voice low, “Need I remind you to pretend as if you’ve seen all this before?”
“I have.” Moth frowned as they approached a vine-covered stall where two black-haired men with gold hoops in their ears were selling fruit from crates and baskets. The fragrance of the fruit—tart, sweet, fresh—went right up Finn’s nose. Her mouth watered. Her stomach felt as if it had grown teeth and was eating its way out of her. She reached for a peach—
Jack’s hand covered hers. He bent his head.
He kissed her with lush deliberation. When he let her go, she wobbled a little, but the ferocity of that unexpected kiss had burned away the desire for the fruit. She wished he’d stop using that strategy. She scowled as whistles and good-natured laughter came from some of the Fatas. One of the rakish fruit sellers, his thumbs in his jeans pockets, said, “Well, that’s one way to satisfy a young girl’s appetite.”
“Better than your way,” Moth retorted.
The fruit seller winked and grinned. His teeth were sharp.
Jack murmured in Finn’s ear, “You still wear the silver?”
She pulled back her coat cuffs, revealing her sister’s charm bracelet. It hadn’t even tarnished. “Maybe it’s not real silver, if it should have rotted here.”
“Nevertheless, don’t brush up against anyone.”
She squinted at him. “Someday, that kissing thing isn’t going to work.”
“Then I’ll have to think of something else.” He swaggered onward with a grin.
They passed three young men in red bowler hats, slouched against a gypsy wagon painted black. Within the wagon were birdcages, all of them empty. Finn turned in place when a girl in an aviator’s cap and leather dress strolled past, her silver eyes as reflective as a cat’s.
“Most of those who come here are changelings,” Jack told Finn. “Or aislings. Mortals, stolen away, who’ve become strange and inhuman. This is a place to purchase Fata things that delight or terrorize, help or harm.”
“Jack,” Moth whispered, “we need to keep out of the light. Finn’s shadow . . .”
Finn