It wasn't the first time Marie-Fey had attended a Midnight Troop show. She has seen them twice before, both when she had been much younger. Once, all the way back when her mother had still been alive and healthy enough to attend with them, the second time when she had been around ten years old.

She had loved both shows.

She had been charmed by the ringmaster.

She had believed him around twenty back then.

And she believed him around twenty now.

She frowned at his printed image on the show's flyer as the to-be-audience milled about around the imposing gates that encircled the encampment of The Midnight Troop.

The Big Top was created out of deep purple and gold, with the golden stripes shimmering in the moonlight. Smaller tents throughout the encampment were various shades of purple, gold, silver and black.

A path of what looked like crushed crystallised snow snaked away from the gates – which were spiked black steel with a smiling ballerina juggling flaming torches at the top – all the way to the Big Top.

"Beldon was saying you've been before."

Marie-Fey neatly folded the flyer and passed it to Zaydan who had his arm casually slid under her cape and draped around her waist, tucking her tight against his side in the night-time chill.

"A long time ago, yes."

"With your mother?"

She glanced up at him as absently span his golden pocket watch, watching the glitter of the snowy carpet.

"Yes," she said, slowly.

"Were you very young when you lost her?"

"I was young enough."

"What was she like?"

"Why on earth do you care?" she asked, confused.

He glanced down at her, eyes shadowed by his top hat. "Naturally because I care about you," he said, his tone saying that was obvious. "I'm interested in what impact she might have had upon your life in the time she had. Was she an attentive mother? Was she absent? Did she prefer to spend all her time with his children or at parties? Was she in the middle?"

"She was headstrong and a great believer in the world of magic," Marie-Fey said and Zaydan looked down at her again.

"Magic... like spiritualism?"

"No. like fairytales. She believed there was a reality in them."

"Well there is, in as much as they're all moral lessons."

"No, not quite like that," Marie-Fey said.

Zaydan frowned. "As in... fairytales, the actual stories, are real?"

Marie-Fey's eyes flicked to where Beldon and Luka were stood talking to Avery and a gentleman from court, then to Rosalia and Braydon who were holding their sons and chatting with Antoinette as she straightened the bow in her daughter's hair.

She watched her niece and two nephews for a moment, then looked back at Zaydan. "Something like that," she said.

Zaydan looked back at her for a moment, then looked away, seeming to ponder that statement.

"And what of your father?"

Zaydan blinked, then looked down at her, startled.

"Your father passed when you were still young. What impact did he have time to make on you?"

"My father was absent from my upbringing for the most part," Zaydan said. "He spent much of his time at The Sultan's court. You remember I said he married into the family, he had to prove himself worthy of his title and wealth. I think he cared for my mother. My brother saw him a lot more than I did because he spent much of his formative years at the court. I was not of great concern to him, but I preferred my mother anyway. How did you mother pass?"

Marie-Fey stared at him, slightly sunned that he could talk about his own dismissal with such ease, but he was looking at his watch again, so she simply said, "An illness. It came on quite suddenly and she died within months. Your father?"

"Killed at court. He was assassinated but they never located the killer."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too."

They glanced at each other, then Zaydan smiled and squeezed her tighter against him just before music began to drift through the air.

Zaydan's watch struck midnight and the gates swung open, the audience pouring through as excitement rolled through the crowd that made its way to the Big Top – the tent flaps opening up as people approached and flooded through to take seats around the huge circular stage.

The stage was at the lowest level, surrounded by a low wall that separated it from the first row of seats that rose up and up and up, sitting far more people that appeared possible from the outside.

The rafters above were hung with silk and Marie-Fey thought she spied movement up there for a split second when she looked but there was nothing to be seen in the shadows when she focused once she's taken her seat.

Once everyone had found their seats and settled, the lights flickered, then died as the tent flaps slid closed, plunging them into darkness until a spotlight bloomed in the middle of the ring.

Smoke, which smelt like... was that cake? drifted through from the walls of the stage, sliding along the ground until it was like a lake.

Music started to play, different from outside, this was haunting.

Still there was nothing to see though.

Or was there?

Marie-Fey, like most of the audience, leant forwards as one when they spotted something moving in the mist.

The smell changed.

It was the scent of a snowy forest.

They would smell the frosted pine, the purity of freshly fallen snow.

And the mist continued to ripple, something moving just outside the bright of the spotlight, moving in the dimness, sleek and streamline, like a water serpent.

Then the spotlight started to grow, widening and widening until it filled the entire stage and they could see there was something until the surface of the smoke, but it was too dense to see through.

The just continued to ripple and shift, shimmering like liquid silver.

And then fire rained down from the rafters making people gasp and cry out as the flame plunged into the mercury mist, the creature below the surface darting and weaving, dodging the flames.

People started pointing and Marie-Fey looked up to see a woman swinging from one of the highest platforms, tangling herself into a length of red silken ribbon so she was suspended by only her legs, her hands free to rain fire down into the mist as her golden gown shone like the sun.

Below, as fire continued to pour, the mist was starting to thicken, until it really did seem to be made of mercury, then it began to spin, a whirlpool forming in the centre, and from the eye, another women rose from the depths, her gown as silvery as the water she swam in as she lifted an arm, water rising with it like silver ribbons and she threw them upwards towards the women in red who swung through the air with the grace of a bird, swinging right out over the audience, trails of silver racing after her, spiralling over people's heads and weaving through their seats as the women in rival tried to catch her rival while the woman in red continued to rain down fire until the final attack.

The two women, one above, one below, drew forth all their fire and all their water and the two weapons crashed into each other and exploded, the force tearing out over the audience, blowing their hair out behind them as the elements rocketed passed and they were drowned in darkness.

And a million stars.

Marie-Fey's mouth opened in silent awe as the night sky settled around them, bringing sudden peace and silence and an endless expanse of stars.

They could have been sat in the sky.

She stared at down at her hands and arms, which glittered like diamonds, Zaydan's soft fingers reach out to see if he could brush the stardust from her wrists and laughing softly when he couldn't.

Instead the stars drifted away in their own time, hovering around everyone, lazily spinning around the Big Top, that they could no longer see.

And then soft laughter drifted down to them, slipping through the stars and drawing eyes up to the high rafters.

But the rafters were no longer there.

Instead, the moon hovered above them, huge and full and brilliantly bright.

It could have been real.

It was it wasn't for the silhouette of a man lounging on its surface, his body curling with the curve of the moon, one leg bent up, the other hanging lazily over the edge, his cane resting on his bent knee, his top hat, topped with rabbit ears, tipped lazily to one side as he looked down on his staring audience.

"Well," he said, his voice carrying the grin on his shadowed face, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show."