Claire smiled at him when Eli grinned. At least he was not too traumatized by the horrible event that he had gone through, or maybe he was good at hiding it. She noticed how Kate reacted to his grin, so she figured it was likely the latter of the two.

“I’m glad you’re both alive.” Claire said, with a guilty expression. “Despite what I said earlier today that it would be fun to see you hit him, it wasn’t as funny as I’d imagined.”

“Oh, isn’t it so wonderful, Kate.” She exclaimed when Kate mentioned what had happened during Claire’s performance. “I could understand Solomon, and Sheila and Scar. Scar has got an excellent singing voice, who knew!”

Claire calmed herself down quickly when someone else approached within earshot. She didn’t want others to hear her talking about how she had spoken with her animals, because then she’d be in an asylum before long.

“Ah, yes, it is indeed strange.”  

She grinned excitedly at Kate with her whole face, when she was sure no one else was looking, but hid the expression as fast as it had appeared. 

Elena had changed the order of the performances so that she was last. Well, next to last if you counted the part where everyone was supposed to enter the ring together, take a bow and perform some basic tricks.

The show had been somewhat unforgettable already with some of the illusions and magic she had exerted upon the acts. Now it was her turn though, and she would be damned if she let her underlings upstage her. No, she had a special surprise at the end, not to mention that the act she had prepared for this show was different than anything she had planned previously.

She entered the ring once more, but she had changed clothes since when she had introduced them in the beginning. Elena was wearing a rather nomadic getup, with pearls, braids and a fur coat. She had visible tattoos and jewellery made of bone. It was more fitting for her personality and her act than the black suit and top she had worn when doing the introduction.

Elena began with some minor albeit extraordinary effects, like setting fire to a napkin and freezing the fire itself, planting a seed and having it grow into a bush in front of everyone, swallowing a hissing snake and then pulling it out of her arm. These all got the audience’s attention like nothing else had that night or maybe in their entire lives. She felt smug and showed it with a confident posture.

“For my next trick, I will have two assistants.” Elena said.

Two young boys that worked at the circus doing a number of different chores walked into the ring to join the magician. She put the boys into two separate boxes, that only showed their heads and their feet, which she locked. Elena picked up a saw and held it so that the audience could see it. She began to saw through one of the boxes. 

At first, it was like any other instance when she had performed the trick, but soon the boy in the box was screaming in pain and crying. There was blood dripping out of the box, forming a puddle on the ground. Elena kept at it until she had sawed the box in half. The boy had gone mad by then, and his friend in the other box was clearly afraid when Elena stepped up to saw his box in half. The same thing happened with the second boy, he screamed in pain, and blood stained the ground beneath the box.

When Elena had finished sawing the boxes in half, the four of them began to move around in a circle before they stopped. The boys had been wearing different shoes, so it was easy to see that it was not their original boxes that had paired up together. However, Elena went through with the act of putting them together, changing their bodies into new forms that combined the two original ones.

She opened up the boxes to reveal that the halves of the bodies had indeed been switched. The audience had mixed reactions to this. There were a few who threw up, thinking the illusion was way too real. There were those who were appalled. The majority of them cheered, whistled and clapped frantically though. The first boy passed out, and had to be carried away. The second one ran away screaming as if death itself was giving chase.

Elena bowed. She pulled out the book that had helped her improved tonight’s show from within her coat, opened it up and read the passage she had been trying to pronounce right earlier that day. Her voice turned into chanting, taking a much darker tone than usual and spouted utter gibberish to anyone listening.

Unfortunately, she didn’t get it quite right this time either. Instead, she sounded as if she’d been possessed by a demon while chanting and a number of shadows began to manifest themselves around Elena. She forced the book to close with pure willpower, but it was too late to contain the shadows. They dispersed into the audience and disappeared out of the big top. 

She got a pale expression on her face, fearing whatever she had unleashed as she had honestly no idea what they had been. Thankfully, the audience thought it was another illusion. Londoners weren’t particularly bright. Elena could finish her act, pretending that everything had gone as planned.

Everyone entered the ring to take a bow to the audience and finish as they always did. The show ended without any further complications.