The circus looks abandoned and empty. But you think perhaps you can smell caramel wafting through the evening breeze, beneath the crisp scent of the autumn leaves. A subtle sweetness at the edges of the cold.

Though I have seen a great deal of the sights, traveled a number of the available paths, there are always corners that remain unexplored, doors that remain unopened.

Scent is often underestimated, when it can be the most evocative.

We cannot go backward,' Marco says. 'A great deal is not how it used to be.

The silence that falls between them is a comfortable one. He longs to reach over and touch her, but he resists, fearful of destroying the delicate camaraderie they are building. He steals glances instead, watching the way the light falls over her skin. Several times he catches her regarding him in a similar manner, and the moments when she holds his eyes with hers are sublime.

How are you managing to keep everyone from aging?” Celia asks after a while. “Very carefully,” Marco answers.

Everything I have done, every change I have made to that circus, every impossible feat and astounding sight, I have done for her.