The Nightingale Circus by Ioana Visan

to begin with. Cielo pushed the sketches away to make
room for his soup, greeting him with a smile. There couldn’t have
been more contrast between the two girls, Anya with her
chin-length, dark hair, fair skin, and sophisticated look, and
Cielo, blonde and tanned and still looking in her teens. Still,
both brown and green pairs of eyes betrayed them as being older
than their years.
    “You don’t look well,” Anya said, though
she’d barely glanced at him.
    Nicholas leaned back in his seat and stirred
his soup. “I’ll be fine.”
    “You don’t deserve to be fine.” Anya glowered
at him.
    “Anya!” Cielo gasped, her eyes opening
wide.
    “Not for saving her,” Anya muttered with a
roll of her eyes. “We all need to be saved at some point.”
    That struck a chord because she had brought
Nicholas to the circus and possibly saved his life back then.
Nicholas lowered his gaze.
    “But did he have to bring her here ?”
Anya stabbed the table with a long finger.
    “That was not my call,” Nicholas said
quietly.
    “And now she gets the third headline, and
Serioja follows her around like a lost puppy.” Anya tossed her
hands up in the air. “She’s ruining everything!”
    Cielo fiddled with her glass. “You can have
my headline if you want.”
    “It’s not about the headline!”
    No, it was about Serioja, the lost puppy who
used to follow Anya around until recently.
    “She’s going to hurt him,” Anya said,
lowering her voice. “I know her type. She doesn’t want him, but
it’s convenient, so she’s going to take him. And then she’ll dump
him, and he’ll hurt because he doesn’t understand her game. And it
will be on you .”
    Anya’s dark eyes pierced right through Nicholas’s soul. Ever since joining the
circus, the Russian ballerina and aerialist had been an item.
Riella’s involvement was going to disturb that, but Nicholas found
he cared more about Anya’s grief than her brain-damaged
boyfriend’s. Unfortunately, it was too late to help either of them.
He’d seen Riella and Serioja together, and Anya had good reasons to
be concerned. Riella had stuck her claws into Serioja, and she was
not going to let go. Just like Anya’s eyes wouldn’t let go of
him.
    “Anya…” Cielo said in a pleading voice.
    “Right.” Anya straightened her back without
looking at her friend. “Don’t mind me, I’ll be fine.” She sniffed
theatrically and got up. “Please make sure she doesn’t get better
costumes than me,” she told Cielo before leaving the table.
    Nicholas followed her progress along the
length of the car, and a small sigh left his lips once Anya passed
through the door.
    “She didn’t mean it, you know,” Cielo said,
stacking up her sketches.
    “She kind of meant it,” Nicholas said.
    “Okay, maybe a little.” Cielo laughed. “But
it’s not truly you she’s mad at. She’s just frustrated she can’t
protect him.” She paused. “Your soup is getting cold.”
    Nicholas could have stirred the molecules and
brought the liquid to a boiling point, but it would have been a
waste of his power. Besides, Anya’s speech had cut what was left of
his appetite. He tilted his head. “Is this what you are doing?
Protecting?”
    “The circus protects me, and I protect the
circus.” Cielo rolled a shoulder. “This is how it works. Now eat.
Don’t make me make you.” Her smile was playful but also
challenging.
    They had been sharing this life for a couple
of years, but still, they had never come to blows. What would have
happened if they had? This wasn’t a good time to find out, so
Nicholas picked up the spoon.
    It felt strange to be taken care of by a girl
who most of the time still looked like a child while he was a
grownup—granted, not one as well adjusted as her. “Does it ever get
easier?” He meant the remorse. Attacking was easy, what came after
though…
    “No.” Cielo crossed her arms. “But you get
used to it.”
    She stayed with him until the last drop of
soup