That’s the beauty of it. Have you seen the contraptions these magicians build to accomplish the most mundane feats? They are a bunch of fish covered in feathers trying to convince the public they can...

This womens skin is shimmering and pale, her long black hair is tied with dozens of silver ribbons that fall over her shoulders. Her gown is white, covered in what to Bailey looks like looping...

It has to kill one of us,” Celia says quietly.

He reads histories and mythologies and fairy tales, wondering why it seems that only girls are ever swept away from their mundane lives on farms by knights or princes or wolves. It strikes him as...

The finished clock is resplendent. At first glance it is simply a clock, a rather large black clock with a white face and a silver pendulum. Well crafted, obviously, with intricately carved woodwork edges and...

Is magic not enough to live for?” Widget asks.”Magic,” the man in the grey suit repeats, turning the word into a laugh. “This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very...

It’s not a real name,” she says. “Not one that he’s carried with him always. It’s one he wears like his hat. So he can take it off if he wants.

You will be fine,’ the fortune teller says. ‘There may be decisions to make and surprises in store. Life takes us to unexpected places sometimes. The future is never set in stone, remember that.

It is likely to make us think we are not caged. We cannot feel the bars unless we push against them.

Old stories have a habit of being told and retold and changed. Each subsequent storyteller puts his or her mark upon it. Whatever truth the story once had is buried in bias and embellishment. The...

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. Writing them down is worse,...

There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need of rescue. Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth...

You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows that they might do because...

Wine is bottled poetry”- from The Night Circus

This is, in part, why there is less magic in the world today. Magic is secret and secrets are magic, after all, and years upon years of teaching and sharing magic and worse. Writing it...

You believe you could not live with the pain. Such pain is not lived with. It is only endured. I am sorry.

There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound....

I have tried to let you go and I cannot. I cannot stop thinking of you. I cannot stop dreaming about you.

I miss you,” Isobel says as he leaves, but the sentiment is crushed by the clatter of the beaded curtain falling closed behind him.

I’ve missed you,” he whispers softly. The air between them is electric as he leans in, gently brushing his lips against her neck. In the next room, the guests complain about the sudden increase in...

Memories begin to creep forward from hidden corners of your mind. Passing disappointments. Lost chances and lost causes. Heartbreaks and pain and desolate, horrible loneliness. Sorrows you thought long forgotten mingle with still-fresh wounds.

Taking his time, as though he has all of it in the world, in the universe, from the days when tales meant more than they do now, but perhaps less than they will someday, he...

She turns her head, Bailey catches her eye, and she smiles at him. Not in the way that one smiles at a random member of the audience when one is in the middle of performing...

A label assigned to identify you either by this institution or your departed parents is neither of interest nor value to me. If you find you are in need of a name at any point,...

Tsukiko sits on the floor in the center of the room, wearing a red kimono. A beating crimson heart in the pale chamber.

I tried to explain as much as I could,” Poppet says. “I think I made an analogy about cake.””Well, that must have worked,” Widget says. “Who doesn’t like a good cake analogy?

It is important…Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup...

Follow your dreams Bailey. Be they Harvard or somehing else entirely. No matter what that father of yours says, or how loudly he might say it. He forgets that he was someone’s dream once, himself

I have had affairs that lasted decades and others that lasted for hours. I have loved princesses and peasants. And I suppose they loved me, each in their way.

Prospero the Enchanter’s immediate reaction upon meeting his daughter is a simple declaration of: “Well, fuck.

Have you tried the cinnamon things?” Poppet asks. “They’re rather new. What are they called, Widge?””Fantastically delicious cinnamon things?

I suppose there will never be a lack of things to say, of stories to be told and shared.

Something about the circus stirs their souls, and they ache for it when it is absent.

And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep going on, they overlap and blur, your story is part of your sister’s story is part of many other stories, and there is no...

Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang...

Widge can see the past.” Poppet says suddenly. “That’s why his stories are so good.” “The past is easier,” Widget says. “It’s already there.””In the stars?” Bailey asks.”No.” Widget says. “On people. The past stays...

And there are really never endings, happy or otherwise.

And I built you tents you hardly ever see. I have had so much of you around me always and I have been unable to give you anything in return that you can keep.

I am haunted by the ghost of my father, I think that should allow me to quote Hamlet as much as I please.

Es probable que haya que tomar decisiones, y sorpresas te deparan. La vida nos lleva a lugares insospechados a veces. El futuro nunca está escrito en piedra, recuerda eso.

Follow your dreams, Bailey,” she says. “Be they Harvard or something else entirely. No matter what that father of yours says, or how loudly he might say it. He forgets that he was someone’s dream...

I mean only that I hope they find darkness or paradise without fear of it, if they can.

Be they Harvard or something else entirely. No matter what that father of yours says, or how loudly he might say it. He forgets that he was someone’s dream once, himself.

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

They seek each other out, these people of such specific like mind. They tell of how they found the circus, how those first few steps were like magic.

You’re not destined or chosen, I wish I could tell you that you were if that would make it easier, but it’s not true. You’re in the right place at the right time, and you...

Look around you, he says, waving a hand at the surrounding tables. Not a one of them even has an inkling of the things that are possible in this world, and what’s worse is that...

The false face had been handsome, yes, but consciously so. As though he was too aware of his own attractivensss, something she found distinctly unappealing.

Grow up, Bailey.””That is precisely what I’m doing,” Bailey says. “I don’t care if you don’t understand that. Staying here won’t make me happy. It will make you happy because you’re insipid and boring, and...

Is something wrong?” he asks, when he realizes that she is trembling.