It's a wonderful sort of feeling when people want to spend more time in a world you created.

Secrets have power, and that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them.

Perhaps it is controlling the chaos within more than the chaos without.

Are we going to discuss whatever it is you are here to discuss instead of dancing around it?” he asks. “I was never a particularly good dancer.

It's too late. It was too late by the time I arrived in London to turn your notebook into a dove; there were too many people already involved. Anything either of us does has an effect on everyone here, on every patron who walks through those gates. Hundreds if not thousands of people. All flies in a spiderweb that was spun when I was six years old and now I can barely move for fear of losing someone else.

Marco moves to close the distance between them, kissing away her tears before catching her lip with his own. As he kisses her, the bonfire glows brighter. The acrobats catch the light perfectly as they spin. The entire circus sparkles, dazzling every patron.

I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held. Trying to control what cannot be controlled. I am tired of denying myself what I want for fear of breaking things I cannot fix. They will break no matter what we do.