Nico moved through the crowd at the fair, his eyes darting between the stalls that lined the main square. The sky, in that faint light that precedes evening, was dotted with smoke and black clouds: a dirty sky. The air was filled with the scent of sugar, as at a real fair, and more acrid smells. They passed by a brazier: there, the smell of burnt meat saturated the air.

  A man with yellowed and broken teeth, dirty hands and a filthy face, and unwashed, unkempt hair had set up a small stall. Pieces of burnt meat lay on the blackened and dirty counter. The man pointed skewers at him like blunt weapons, shouting, “Roasted meat!” and “Meat skewers!”

  Leo brightened up and asked the man, “How much for a skewer?”

  “One coin, one skewer. Two coins, three skewers.”

  “Great,” Leo said to the man; then, looking at Nico, he added, “What do you say, want one?”

  Nico shook his head. “They don't look good to me.”

  The man frowned. “They're delicious, kid. Try one.”

  Leo shrugged, then said to the man, “Give me three,” handing him two coins.

  As they walked away and Leo took his first bite, the man resumed shouting about his wares: “Roast meat!” “Skewers!” “Who wants rat skewers?”

  At those words, Leo, with the bite still in his mouth, which he was chewing with gusto, spat it all out and wiped his tongue on his jacket. Nico laughed. Leo looked at him with a frown. “But he didn't say it was rat. What a thief.”

  Nico laughed again. “Well, you only had to look at them to see they weren't edible.”

  They continued walking. Nico saw, like a beacon in the crowd, a little blonde girl in a pink polka dot dress, walking radiantly with her lollipop in her hand.

  The girl passed them; Nico looked first at Leo, who seemed not to have noticed anything, then turned to look for her again. A touch of modernity in that industrial era. But when he turned, he saw Kiah in the crowd, waving at him with an uncertain expression; there was no sign of the little girl. Nico shook his head, thinking that perhaps fatigue was playing tricks on him.

  They passed several food stalls. A man with a steaming pot and a fire underneath stopped them, blocking the passage in the crowded street, offering frog broth complete with thighs at a bargain price, according to him. Next to him, another man was selling lizard soup, offering a taste before purchase and guaranteeing the quality of the product. Nico declined the offers with a smile and a wave of his hand, while Leo, next to him, looked green, probably disgusted by the half-roasted rat he had swallowed a little earlier.

  Nico turned around to look for the others in the group and saw Kiah and Nadia standing in front of a stall cluttered with cheap trinkets, which glistened in the dim light of an oil lamp hanging directly above the merchandise to make it shine brighter. Nadia was pointing at something while talking to the vendor; Kiah was watching. Gareth followed them a few steps behind, like a shadow.

  As he walked, Nico also looked at the strangest stalls. A man with a hat on his head and enthusiasm painted on his face pointed to his stall: a chaos of trinkets hanging and piled up on a table covered with a bright red sheet. The man shouted, gesturing wildly, as if the whole world should notice every single piece. And with his shouting, he managed to attract people of all different dress codes: street beggars, elegant women with high collars and neat but modest clothing, men and women in modest but clearly festive attire.

  “Come, ladies! Come, all of you! For those who want wealth in their homes!” cried the man, pointing to a dried-up, shriveled mouse painted gold. “Take this and hang it on your door!”

  Nico saw some women approach and observe the object in the man's hands with incredible devotion and interest.

  “And for you men who want to be attractive to a partner...” Then the man winked and added, “And even more than one,” bursting into an incredibly cacophonous laugh. “Here's for you: rooster beaks!”

  Many of the men around the table seemed attracted. However, the people crowding in front of that stall were of various kinds, so the man turned to a woman with a child of about twelve years old next to her and continued: "And for protection against accidents at work, my dear lady: the amulet of amulets, the white rabbit's foot. Rub it every morning and every evening and you will be protected! But be careful..."

  He raised a finger in warning and continued: “It only works for one person. So, if you want protection for the whole family... five members, fine... I'll only charge you for four!”

  Then he changed his tone, pointing to some white feathers. “I also have stork feathers, for those who are trying for a baby!”

  Suddenly, he turned his gaze to Nico, waving his hand almost in front of his eyes. “And you, boy! Want to impress a girl? Here, take this!” He handed him a rooster's beak. “Women will fall at your feet!”

  Nico shook his head and smiled, trying to ignore him. Leo, however, remained there, motionless, staring at the beak with a mixture of curiosity and fascination. Nico grabbed Leo by the shoulder and said, with a crooked smile on his face, “Who do you have to impress?”

  Leo shook his head. Nico's eyes widened: for a moment, he thought he saw Leo's shadow turn behind him, as if he were spying on someone. He squinted.

  Maybe it was just the light playing tricks on him.

  They moved on. Some stalls sold scented smoke and sparkling liquids; others sold small useless objects, and still others sold pots and pans and household odds and ends. Nico heard in the distance ding-ding, bang-bang, carousel music, sounds, distant memories of a funfair, mingling with the indistinct voices of all those throats around him. He looked for the source, but saw nothing: only a group of bards he had passed a while ago, performing.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  But that wasn't the sound he had heard, and after a while it faded softly until it disappeared.

  A little further on there was another man: an absurd character with grizzled, tousled hair, an emaciated face, and a dark swallowtail jacket over a worn shirt.

  He was selling tiny clockwork mechanisms that, according to him, ran on potatoes, guaranteeing that punctuality was assured by changing the potato every hour.

  On one side of the square, slightly away from the other stalls, a man with an oversized hat and tousled hair was trying to attract people by promising to amaze them. He didn't have a real stall: he had placed a series of reels, wires, and metal plates on the ground, which rose up high. Nothing spectacular, but all around him he had created, with clearly visible wooden poles, a sort of drapery of bright red sheets and curtains that attracted attention.

  Someone approached, and Nico also moved in that direction with Leo. The man was standing next to a cluster of rusty metal and dented wood with intertwined wires; a crank protruded from the side of the mechanism, and Nico guessed that someone had to turn it for something to work.

  As the crowd grew larger, Nico spotted Kiah a few steps away, explaining something to Nadia, who nodded intently, watching the man as he pointed to various parts of the counter. Gareth stood behind them, arms crossed.

  The man opened his arms. “Thank you all, kind audience, for being here today! Today I will reveal a secret to you, something that will change our lives forever.”

  He waited, perhaps expecting applause. Someone clapped half-heartedly, but nothing more. The rest of the people stood there, like Nico and Leo, in astonished and perplexed silence. Someone tried to walk away, but the man shouted, “Stop, ladies and gentlemen! The show hasn't started yet! I was telling you that this is what will change the fate of our society forever: here is an electricity generator!”

  People muttered around the stall, and some, really bored, turned around and left, seeing nothing interesting. Leo whispered in Nico's ear, “What do you say we leave? I've seen this stuff before in...”

  Nico laughed softly. “Come on, let's see what it does.”

  “Dear friends, I am now going to extinguish our oil lamp, the only thing that gives us light, but you will see that light will come.”

  The man blew out the oil lamp and began to turn the crank frantically. The metal panel, arranged on a series of coils and gears, began to shake; at irregular intervals, small bursts of sparks lit up the interior. There were a few exclamations of amazement from the audience and some giggles from the women.

  Then there was a smell of burning and hot iron, while the generator hummed.

  At the top of the generator, a small light bulb came on, and Nico heard Kiah cheering not far from them, pointing out the electricity to Nadia. The man smiled enthusiastically and continued turning the crank, euphoric from the applause and cheers of the crowd. Then Nico saw the sparks: perhaps too many, jumping here and there. A burst reached the wooden poles; a small fire broke out among the exposed wires and the red curtains burst into flames.

  People screamed and fled. Nico found himself pushing Leo, who was laughing nervously; Kiah pulling Nadia by the arm; Gareth, quick and silent, guiding everyone to safety.

  When the commotion subsided, they found themselves in a more secluded area of the fair. Nico was breathing deeply, while Leo was still laughing, clapping his hands. “Well, at least it's not boring!”

  “Too bad it didn't work,” said Kiah, his gaze still fixed on the burning bench.

  “Well,” said Leo, shrugging his shoulders, “he said it would light up, right?” He pointed to the bench, still burning amid embers and smoke, and laughed. “It worked. That beautiful fire lit up the whole square.”

  Nico laughed, but he felt strange. His side was itching, and around him, in the uncertain light of the oil lamps, he saw stalls covered with dark, soot-stained tarpaulins alternating with stalls selling sweets and shooting galleries covered with colorful red and white striped curtains, in a strange cacophony. In front of one of them, a man was shouting, inviting children to shoot at targets. There was pink cotton candy in the hands of modernly dressed children, laughter, the clanging of a hammer game, and the hysterical laughter of the moles in the Whack-a-Mole game.

  The smell of burning from the aspiring electricity scientist's stage, mixed with that of soot, mingled with the scent of cotton candy, hot dogs, and roasted corn, while two girls in jeans and T-shirts nibbled on corn cobs not far from them.

  At the shooting gallery, a man with a rusty prosthetic right hand clutched a stuffed unicorn he had won for his girlfriend, a beautiful girl wearing a modern floral dress. Nico felt a lump in his throat: it seemed that his brain could no longer distinguish between past and present, between reality and virtuality. The stalls were the same as when he was a child; stork feathers and rabbit feet were next to gummy candies and sweets, in a strange cacophony that weighed heavily on his head, while the itch on his side grew more intense.

  People were laughing and shouting. Nico turned to look for his friends' faces and saw Leo, Nadia, and Kiah on a carousel lit up by warm electric light. The carousel was spinning and they were laughing on the horses, while strange, metallic, glitchy carousel music made the moment unsettling. His mind was distorting everything, and this distressed him. He felt bile rising in his stomach as he saw Leo on one of the horses, pretending to ride to glory; Kiah, on a white horse, looked at him with an amused smile; Nadia, not far away, invited him to get on. Gareth, in a modern ticket collector's uniform, asked him in a hoarse, guttural voice, “Want a ticket, kid?”

  Nico backed away, frightened by the sight. He stumbled and fell.

  “Hey, are you okay?” said Leo, offering him a hand.

  Nico grabbed it and pulled himself up. He looked around fearfully, but saw nothing: the colorful stalls, the shooting galleries, everything was gone. Even the smells of cotton candy, sweets, and roasted corn had vanished, giving way to the smells of Archivum. Nico looked over Leo's shoulder: the carousel, with its merry-go-round music, was gone, replaced by a dark corner, far from the stalls of the town fair.

  “Nico, are you okay?” asked Kiah, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  And Nadia added, “Do you need to tell us something? Let me take a look at your wound.”

  Nico took a few steps back. Everyone looked at him with frowns. Then there was a flash: Nico saw the people in front of him wearing the same clothes and moving in the same way, but their faces were not theirs, they were smooth, oval, expressionless, like mannequins. Just as it had come, the flash disappeared.

  Kiah moved toward him, murmuring, “Tell us what's wrong...” with tears glistening in her dark eyes. Leo took an uncertain step toward him, saying nothing, his face frowning, his eyes narrowed to slits, as if he wanted to peer inside him. Nadia said, " We're here to help you," trying hesitantly to put a hand on his shoulder.

  Nico pulled away. He didn't want anyone to touch him. Then he snapped, “I don't need anything,” with a harshness he didn't think he possessed. “Stay away.”

  His friends stopped; their hesitant movements froze. Kiah spoke again: “You're not alone,” she insisted. “You don't have to face this alone...”

  “I said no.”

  Leo, arms crossed, face questioning, eyes narrowed, stared at him. Two heavy tears fell from Kiah's eyes; then she rested her head on Leo's shoulder, and he pulled her close. Nadia's gaze darted from Nico to Gareth, while Gareth stared at him; Nico noticed his hand sliding over the hilt of his sword.

  At that moment, Nico felt terribly alone. He knew he had been infected by Erebos and he felt, he saw that his friends feared him.

  He looked at them all with a cold, resentful expression, then turned to leave.