Unlike Audrey, she couldn’t lock off an entire part of herself in a desire to be normal. Plus, her mother never would have left her trapped in a circus as the human patron. And so she had resolved to get her mother out. She’d arrange some deal with Althacazur to take the circus. She knew from Esmé that he wasn’t popular with the other daemons. She’d use that to her advantage if she had to. As she’d plotted this, she hoped that maybe Teddy would join her, the three of them sharing the human patronage work, kind of like Hell’s time share. They were powerful half creatures, she and Audrey, and didn’t have to live solely in one world or another. Christ, that sounded dull. She hated dull things. In the past year, she’d painted her whole house with the wave of her hand, just like a combo of Samantha Stephens and Martha Stewart. Is this what she was going to do with her magic? What next? Tiling a wall or installing drapes when she couldn’t reach them?

No, she was done with all that. It was time to embrace who she was—the Last Lady of the Secret Circus.

“I don’t know if this is going to work, Teddy.” Lara stared ahead at the field, empty as usual. She could hear his breath as he stood in lockstep beside her.

“When you were gone in Paris,” said Teddy, “Ben said that all we had to do was get him near you and he’d find you.”

Lara smiled. If she ended up stuck on the other side, she hoped that Ben would forgive her. He knew her well enough to have suspected that she would do exactly this—and he’d be mad at her, but he knew her better than anyone. “Well, he may have to come and find me all over again. Gaston, too.”

“That’s quite a love, Lara.” He looked back at the farmhouse. “Are you sure?”

“It’s because of that love, Teddy. I won’t be half a person anymore. No one can love that for long. He deserves the best version of me. And I’m going to try to give him that.”

Focusing on the clover, she held the dried sprig in her two fingers, emotion welling up inside her.

“I can’t promise that we’ll come back. You know that.”

“I know,” said Teddy, his voice low. “I’ve said my goodbyes.”

“I also can’t promise what he’ll do to us when we get there. You may be selling your soul.”

“I agree to the terms,” said Teddy, staring out at the empty field, his chin raised. “Le Cirque Secret has called to me, Lara. Just as it called to you.”

She smiled. She’d known what his answer would be. Anything for the scholarship.