We cut through the crowd with little trouble. It was almost as if they could feel Jaxson’s dark aura coming and instinctually pressed out of the way.
All around, the cacophony of languages roared in my ears, too many to even begin guessing where everyone came from. But it wasn’t only the languages—it was the people. A kaleidoscope of humanity surrounded me. Somehow, I’d never felt like I fit in Belmont, where everyone looked and acted so similar, yet among the unimaginable jumble of unfamiliar faces and horns and even tails, a deep sense of belonging welled up in my chest until I felt I would burst. All these ways of being human made me realize I was no longer alone. That there was a place I could fit in, no matter how strange or awkward or prickly I was.
But Jaxson pushed me onward.
We skirted the enormous Ferris wheel, and finally, I had to stop. How tall was it? Forty stories? Fifty? I craned my neck, my mind whirling as it slowly spun.
Crap. It wasn’t resting on the ground. There were no legs or supports. It just spun there in the air, fifty feet up.
I really wasn’t sure how much more my brain could hold. I opened my mouth to ask Jaxson a question, then remembered the barker demons and tried a statement instead. “It’s gotta be hard to get on and off.”
“It floats up and down,” Jaxson said, not bothering to look at me. He was half-distracted, scanning the fair.
“Huh. This may be the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He grunted. “You haven’t seen much. This is just classic one-upmanship. When Chicago held a World’s Fair in 1893, Magic Side mirrored the event. They invented the Ferris wheel, so we built one twice the size. That flies. Mages have big egos.”
“So this really is all part of the World’s Fair, then, still going after a century,” I whispered, really trying to make it not sound like a question.
“When the Chicago Exposition closed down, ours kept going. It brought a lot of business and outsiders to Magic Side, so we couldn’t stop. But the whole thing’s changed—anymore, it’s a carnival of commerce. You can buy everything in the world you don’t need at exorbitant prices.”
Across the way, a man sat at an easel painting revelers. I pointed. “I need one of those.”
Jaxson scowled. “A caricature? We don’t have time.”
“Ugh. Absolutely not. The last thing I want is a picture of me with my sullen, half-feral taskmaster. I want one of those brushes. They’re…alive.”
Jaxson’s eyes narrowed on me, flooding a deep ochre color, but I ignored him and focused on the artist.
As the man worked, a pair of watercolor brushes helped fill in the details. When they finished a section, they jumped off the canvas and into his dirty water. They jiggled around, and once they were clean, they hopped out, shook off, and dipped themselves in the next color. “We should go,” Jaxson said gruffly.
Life was deeply unfair. There were even red velvet funnel cakes nearby.
I really hated Jaxson Laurent. Unfortunately, without him, I would have been completely lost. The floating Ferris wheel was the only landmark, and there seemed to be no form of organization to the pavilions. Ducking behind a tent where Japanese chefs served seared slivers of beef and octopus from a grill, we turned down an alley between whitewashed buildings, then emerged onto a narrow avenue where men and women in robes haggled with passersby over trinkets and golden jewelry. Overhead, wooden balconies protruded over the streets, and scents of spices and sweet tobacco hung in the air.
The Egyptian village?
We passed a tent with racks of garments woven from exquisite iridescent cloth with golden threads running through it. I impulsively reached out to touch one of them.
“Helwani cloth from Egypt. Those garments sell for tens of thousands of dollars,” Jaxson said nonchalantly.
I froze and let the luxurious material slip from my fingers.
Finally, we reached a small, dark red tent sitting at the base of an obelisk. Giant swirling letters spelled Lady Fortune on a large wooden sign. Beneath it, there was a second sign: Palm Readings $20, Tarot $40, Dire Questions Answered $3000.
Holy hell. $3000?
Jaxson had better damn well be paying.
His signature flared. The people around backed away, and we cut in line. Guilt crept along my skin, and I blushed. The whole city treated him as a king, but he was such a jerk.
Finally, a woman stepped out, an ashen expression on her face.
Jaxson held the tent flap open. “After you.”
24
Savannah