The red lacquer of the Boss's wagon seemed to glow like a dying ember in the twilight as the magician stepped down the folding wooden stairs.
He was wiping greasepaint from his forehead with a rag that was more charcoal than cloth.
He looked at Faust, his eyes still wide with a mix of suspicion and greed.
"So," Faust said, leaning against a stack of hay bales with a casualness that suggested he owned the ground beneath him. "When can I begin working?"
The magician stopped, his rag frozen mid-air.
He let out a dry, rattling breath.
"You truly have a nerve for a magician, don't you? Most who come seeking an apprenticeship are trembling or tripping over their own feet. They think mystery is about hiding. But a real performer? We're always in a rush. We're in a hurry to look mysterious, to trick the eye before the brain can catch up. You... you're too still. It's unnerving."
He reached into his vest pocket, intending to pull out a pipe, but his fingers hit something cold and hard.
He paused, his brow furrowing, and slowly withdrew a gleaming gold coin.
He stared at it, then at Faust.
"First payment," the magician muttered, his voice dropping an octave as he tucked the coin away with a sharp nod. "The Boss says we can use a 'barker.' But he doesn't want a loudmouth. He wants a 'Junior Magician-Seer-Clown.'"
Faust raised an eyebrow.
"And what kind of position is that, exactly?"
"It's the most exhausting job in the El Gloriosa," the magician explained, gesturing toward the surrounding stalls. "You're the hook. You stand by the selling stalls or the main entrance. You perform simple tricks—palming coins, making cards dance—to keep the marks from getting bored while they wait. You offer 'divinations' for the ladies and 'fooling' for the children. You're a magician because you do the tricks; you're a seer because you read the tarot; and you're a clown because you have to make them laugh while you're stealing the attention away from their heavy purses."
He stepped closer, the smell of cheap tobacco and stage-powder clinging to him.
"But you don't begin tonight. You'll need to learn the rhythm of this place. For now, stay. Watch the main show from the shadows. Understand the 'Job'—how we move, how we breathe as one."
The magician leaned back, his gaze turning reflective.
"Everyone here calls me Wunder. Just Wunder. No one cares who you were before you walked through those gates. The circus is a graveyard for old lives. We have criminals fleeing the gallows, homeless wanderers, orphans, and even ex-aristocrats who lost their lands to the wars. We even have miners who got tired of the dark and wanted the lime-light."
He pointed toward the heavy, gilded wagon of the Boss.
"It doesn't matter here. Your past is a ghost. Your fate and your only destiny is to give happiness to the miserable, and you must never look back at the life you left. That's the philosophy the Boss hammers into our skulls every dawn."
Wunder took a long, searching look at Faust.
"The first lesson is this: a good magician is only as good as his name. 'Faust' sounds like a man who reads too many books. It's heavy. It's slow. You need something that sounds like silk and silver. Come up with a great name, kid. Something the children will whisper and the old men will fear."
He turned on his heel, heading toward the back of the stage where the lanterns were being lit for the evening performance.
"Welcome to the circus, El Gloriosa," Wunder called out over his shoulder. "Try not to get lost in the smoke."
Faust stood alone in the gathering dark, his hand instinctively going to the silver-encrusted Tarot cards in his pocket.
"E'en hell hath its peculiar laws."
A name, he thought. He looked at the graves in his mind—Elena, Wilhelm, his parents.
He was a doctor, a Herzog, and a son of a slaves and scientists. But here, under the canvas of a 17th-century traveling show, he was a blank page.
"Hell? Ha-ha-ha. Well, El Gloriosa is kind of heavenish hell you'd imagine. Don't worry, you'll quickly get used to everything."
"A name," Faust whispered to the shadows, a small, dangerous smile touching his lips. "I think I know just the one."