The familiar scent of the Carnival hung in the air—roasted nuts, sweat, sawdust, and hints of greasepaint. People commented on the pleasant air, grateful the hot sun did not beat upon the large striped tent that stretched over the entirety of the center green. They bought their tickets and surrendered them in anticipation. They sat and ate caramelized popcorn and roasted peanuts. White horses rose on their hind legs and waltzed. The Mysterious Bernie folded himself into a painted cracker tin, and Silessa, The Snake Mistress, captivated the audience with her sinuous dancing while draped in serpents of all shapes and sizes. As the crowd roared with applause, the ringmaster cracked his whip, shouted his introduction, and pointed to the ceiling of the tent, where Amelia was perched.

The Vampiress hissed at the audience, baring her fangs and claws. Her high-collared cape only aided in her fearsome display. After several daring feats on the trapeze bar, she prepared for the final vignette of her act. The crowd’s electrical energy was drowned out by the sudden roll of drums. With a sparkling strip of cloth tied to her face, Amelia waved to the crowd below, blind and smiling. The ringmaster removed his hat and called for silence so that Amelia could concentrate. The empty trapeze bar swung once, twice, in huge calibrated beats in sync with the drums. The Vampiress dove from her platform with her arms stretched wide, narrowly missing the shining trapeze bar.

The crowd shrieked in horror as Amelia plummeted to the earth.

The shrieks of horror quickly turned to gasps of amazement as Amelia shrugged off her high-collared cape, allowing her massive bat wings to extend from her back, catching the air with a slow, confident grace. She swooped through the air with theatrical menace. The crowd gasped as she twisted and dove. For them, she was “The Vampiress”—a creature of mystery and danger. But Rainer knew her real voice, softer than her act allowed. She glided safely to the ground, her smile hidden behind painted lips and crimson fangs.

The crowd roared in approval.

Amelia skipped to the audience seated in the front rows, baring her fangs and claws and hissing wildly. Some audience members screamed, some fell out of their seats, while others just tried to run. The rest laughed and applauded, lost in the illusion of the night.

From the shadows beyond the tent flaps, Rainer watched. He didn’t know why he stood just outside the light, watching rather than stepping forward. Maybe it was because he wanted to see her like this again, exactly like the first time he had: blazing under the spotlights, weightless and beautiful, her wings spread like a goddess of the dark sky.

He remembered flying.

He had no wings now. He didn’t know how he knew, but he remembered what it had been like to fly—to ride the warm thermals above mountains and dive like lightning into the sea. The memory had no shape, no image, just a hollow in his chest where something used to live.

And yet here was Amelia. A human with wings.

The crowd still cheered. Amelia took her final bow and skipped backstage, breaking character just before she vanished behind the curtain.

[Behind the Main Tent | Later That Night]

The night after the performance was quiet, the Carnival hushed and winding down like a music box at the end of its song. The crowds had long since dispersed, laughter and applause now only faint ghosts in the distance. Amelia sat on a low wooden platform behind the main tent, her wings folded neatly around her shoulders like a shawl. She cradled a tin mug of tea in her hands, the steam curling in lazy spirals around her face. She hadn’t changed out of her costume yet—too tired, maybe, or too lost in her thoughts.

A faint clicking sound approached—porcelain on gravel.

Hildy appeared first, small and deliberate, the four-foot porcelain doll lit by the moonlight. Her glass eyes blinked, and something in her posture spoke of curiosity. She wore a blue pinafore, carefully stitched, with a ribbon at the waist. The faintest hum of static accompanied her like a breeze through wires.

She stopped a few feet from Amelia. “You were flying,” Hildy said, her voice tinny and hollow, echoing slightly as though coming from a great distance. “That was very beautiful.”

Amelia smiled gently. “Thank you, Hildy.”

Rainer followed close behind, slower, quieter. He looked tired. Not physically—physically, he looked the same as ever, broad and imposing in his gleaming bronze scales—but inwardly, like someone carrying a story that hadn’t found the right page yet.

Amelia stood when she saw him.

They hadn’t spoken since he returned. A few days ago, the Carnival had paused as Hildy walked through its gates—a living doll, her expression frozen in place but her voice and thoughts painfully aware. All eyes had been on her. On the unnatural, tragic curiosity of her.

In the strange and sorrowful air that had followed, Amelia and Rainer had exchanged only a look—something that passed between them, unsure and full of everything unsaid.

Now, she stepped forward. “Rainer,” she said quietly.

He exhaled. Her voice said his name like it mattered.

“Amelia.” He offered a small smile. “You haven’t changed.”

Another beat of silence passed, filled only by Hildy’s quiet humming. She had turned away, inspecting a moth caught in the light of a nearby lantern.

“I wanted to talk to you yesterday,” Amelia said.

“I know,” Rainer replied. “Me too.”

Amelia’s fingers twisted the fabric of her cape. “But she needed you.”

“She still does.” Rainer’s voice softened. “But I couldn’t let another day pass without coming by to see you.”

Her eyes searched his. “Is she… alright?”

Rainer glanced at Hildy. “She’s not what she was. But she’s still herself. Just… changed.”

Amelia nodded slowly, eyes drifting toward the little porcelain girl humming to herself in the lamplight.

“Changed,” she echoed. “Yes. That’s the right word.”

The night pressed around them, soft and thick. The tents in the distance flapped gently in the breeze. Somewhere, a calliope played its final broken notes before winding down. The Carnival slept.

Amelia took a sip of her tea and sat down again on the platform, patting the space beside her in quiet invitation. Rainer hesitated—then joined her. His claws curled gently against the wooden slats as he settled down. For a long while, neither of them spoke.

Then, quietly, Amelia said, “I thought of you. While you were gone.”

Rainer turned to her, surprised by the vulnerability in her voice. She wasn’t The Vampiress now. She was just Amelia—soft-voiced, winged, real.

“I thought of you too,” he said.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come back,” she admitted. “Or that if you did… you’d be different.”

“I am,” he said.

Amelia’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t look away. “So am I.”

The words slipped out more quietly than she intended, not with drama but with truth—raw and plain. They hung there in the air, suspended like the silence before a trapeze fall.

Rainer waited.

She looked down at her tea, watched the steam spiral away into the night. “When you left, I thought it wouldn’t matter. That I’d just… keep going. Another act, another night. The Vampiress never pauses. She doesn’t get attached.” She gave a small, bitter laugh. “But I did. I missed you. I didn’t know I would. And when I did, I didn’t know if I was allowed to.”

Her wings shifted behind her—unfolding slightly, like the motion of someone stretching after holding still too long.

“I’m not used to missing people,” she said. “In the Carnival, you learn not to. People leave. They vanish into the mists, or they disappear between acts, or they’re taken by things we can’t name. So you stop looking. You stop hoping. But when you were gone, I kept looking.”

She finally turned to meet his gaze.

“I kept watching the crowd, wondering if you’d be there again, just outside the tent flaps. I kept turning around backstage, thinking maybe I’d hear your voice. You left this space behind, Rainer—and it made me look at what was really there. What I needed. What I was too afraid to want.” Her voice quieted again. “You made me see that I don’t want to perform for everyone. Not all the time. I want someone to see me. The real me. And when you left, I realized it had been you.”

Rainer looked at her—really looked at her—and something flickered in his chest. Recognition, not of memory, but of understanding. Of kinship.

“You were beautiful out there tonight,” he said, his voice thick.

Amelia flushed under her pale paint. “You always say that.”

“Because it’s always true.”

A silence stretched again, gentler this time. Familiar. The space between them no longer felt full of things unsaid, but of things they were still learning how to say.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she said.

“I wasn’t sure there’d still be a place for me here,” he said softly. “After everything.” He hesitated—then smiled, small and real. “You didn’t move on. You didn’t forget. I’m glad you waited.” His voice caught, just slightly, at the end. “That means more than you know.”

The moth landed on Hildy’s outstretched porcelain hand. She watched it with curious intensity, the mechanical whir of her joints almost imperceptible. In that moment, she looked like a child again.

Amelia and Rainer sat together in the quiet, their shadows long in the lantern light, their lives complicated and strange—but no longer entirely separate.

Above them, a breeze stirred the canvas of the tent, and for the briefest moment, Rainer could almost feel wind beneath his wings.

Even if they were no longer there.