The smell of smoke slowly crept into the elaborate blue and silver tent to mingle with the sweet incense that was burning there. Alexandra looked up from boiling a kettle of water on a small stove that she used to make tea for the next client who wanted their future read in tea leaves. She paused, lifting her head in curiosity at the strange smell and pulling back the curtain to peer out at the rest of the circus. When Alexandra saw the smoke she leapt out of her chair, almost overturning the table, and raced to the balloon that was in flames.
"Marguerite!" Alexandra cried when she saw her friend covered in soot and staggering away from the burning balloon, "Marguerite, are you all right?""No," she said. "I hope the animals are, though.""Where are-" Alexandra had placed a hand on Marguerite's arm, near the pocket with the lions, who had begun to poke their heads out the corners. "Oh, oh my. Did you get them all?"
"I think so." Marguerite tugged on the pocket cover, pushing the lion's noses back into the pocket. "Find me somewhere to put them, please. I am afraid some of them may hurt each other, or themselves, if they stay in here too long."
The fortune teller helped Marguerite slowly rise to her feet and lead her friend to the storage vessel and found a bunch of old lidded baskets and boxes to hold the animals. When they had safely rescued the last one out of the pockets of the lab coat, Alexandra handed her friend one of the many scarves attached to her person. As Marguerite used it to wipe the sweat out of her eyes and the soot and ash off her face, “What happened?” Alexandra asked as she watched the smoke continue to rise from the wreckage.
“I don’t know. I was inside my room taking care of the animals but they were restless and hard to handle. Then the room shook and the ceiling caught fire and all I was concerned about was saving all the animals.” Marguerite sank slowly onto a heavy crate.
Alexandra placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder, “Rest here for a moment and then make yourself at home in my ship. Also, I have a kettle of freshly boiled water in my fortune telling tent if you would like to make tea; your favorite is in the light green canister on the second shelf.” Her blue eyes took on a steely glint, “I’m going to go find out who did this.”
With one last squeeze to her friend’s shoulder, Alexandra turned and headed back towards the wreckage. The fire was under control but Marguerite’s room and balloon had been reduced to smoldering wreckage. She saw Asmodeus and Marie in a chain of circus workers passing buckets to put out the last embers of the fire. The rest of the circus crew was checking the nearby balloons that had been singed and were making sure sparks hadn’t spread to any other vessels.
Alexandra walked to a clearing a short distance away from Marguerite’s ship and crouched in the grass. She spread out one of her scarves onto the ground and pulled from within her dress a piquet deck, a stack of 32 handmade cards that she used in fortune telling, encased in a velvet bag. After shuffling the deck, Alexandra laid out five cards, one in each cardinal direction and one card in the center. She slowly flipped them over going counter clockwise: a reversed knave of diamonds, a seven of spades, a reversed king of spades, a nine of spades and finally an ace of spades. Alexandra frowned; the appearance of so many spades was an ill omen. The message she read from the spread of cards was not a good one, either. It spoke of a quarrel with two men of evil intentions, destruction, sabotage and an old rivalry.
Alexandra frowned; if she interpreted the cards properly then the destruction of Marguerite’s room was deliberately sabotaged by a pair of twins who not only had their own motivations but also a greater approval. She could think of only one such pair that wanted revenge on the Cirque de la Vapeur, especially after Asmodeus’ confrontation and foolish threats to them.
With a quick motion, Alexandra quickly swept up the cards that she had placed on the scarf and made her way to where Colette was directing the cleanup of the wreckage. She touched the ringmaster’s shoulder and drew her aside. “Colette, my cards tell me that the twins from the Cirque de la Hirondelle are the ones responsible for this.”
Alexandra knew that some did not believe in the power of the cards but she found them reliable for divinations of the past and present; although the future was too variable for the cards to chart accurately.
Colette, however, had always trusted her readings and her eyes widened with anger at the news. “They would dare come within our camp and try to harm a member of our family! They will pay for this!”
The fortune teller took a step back at the venom in her friend’s voice. Alexandra had seen her like this before and knew that things were not going to end well tonight.
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