15-year-old Ori is an average small-town boy. Or so he thought, until a strange circus appears in his backyard. Accepting an acrobat's invitation to join the Cirque de Reverie, he is swept up in a whirlwind of wonder. Unbeknownst to him, the circus...
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ORI
"Blithe, please," Ori begged.
He had been trying to coerce her into letting him go their entire walk, but she wasn't having any of it. Her eyes were as flinty as a comet, and her grip hadn't loosened at all. She wasn't giving up, and he was running out of ideas.
"You won't ever find out your zodiac if you don't unhand me right now!" he shouted, but his threat fell on deaf ears. "Please, I just want to say goodbye to my dad," he said, changing tactics. Maybe he could appeal to her sweet, sensitive side, if any of her vulnerable moments had been genuine.
"Stop whining," she snapped.
Ori gulped.
Blithe's temper frayed even more, and he didn't want to witness her blazing wrath a second time. She pulled him into a large room. The arena. Blithe's performance already felt like eons ago. She had been a completely different person then, and so had he. She had been an angel, and he had been a gullible fool.
It was creepy walking through the deserted stands. Stray pieces of popcorn and wispy tufts of cotton candy littered the ground like dusty jewels, still leftover from last night's show. What had previously seemed opulent and extravagant now seemed garish and menacing, and Ori didn't know how he had ever been so blind. Blithe had pulled the wool right over his eyes, smothering his common sense with glitter and gold.
She hauled him down the stands' steps and into the center. Sand, a simple contrast to the evening's glistering gems, sifted through his bare toes.
They walked up the steps on the other side and out through a door. A door marked the end of the hallway, its only distinguishing feature a circus tent carved into the wood.
They marched right up to it.
With one hand, Blithe twisted the door open, still manacling his wrists together with the other. She threw him through the door, and he had a panicked flashback to the dark, cramped initiation room.
It was a different fear that awaited him.
His head hit grassy ground. She hadn't thrown him hard enough to break anything, but the impact left a blossoming bruise. He raised his head, praying they would be back in his backyard.
No, definitely not.
He had witnessed many impossible things in the last night, but his mind refused to accept what his eyes were seeing, desperately clinging to the hope that this was just a twisted dream. Instead of idyllic rooftops and chimneys, there were rows upon rows of tents for as far as his eyes could see. The cheerful colors filled him with dread.
Coming back to his senses, Ori scrambled away from Blithe. She towered over him, but an idea struck him. They weren't alone anymore.
"Stop!" he shouted. Blithe cocked her head. "I'm safe now. If you try to touch me, I will scream the stardust out of my lungs."
