The Phantom Flea Circus

Arthur stood in the center of the Great Hall, a space so vast and intimidatingly polished that it felt less like a room and more like a very expensive executioner’s block. He clutched the red velvet box to his chest with the desperate white-knuckled grip of a man holding his own soul together by a single thread. A bead of sweat made a daring escape from his hairline, plowing a furrow through the nervous dusting of theatrical powder on his brow, before finally plunging toward the marble floor. In the absolute, suffocating silence of the court, Arthur imagined the drop hit with the thunderous finality of a gavel. Before him, perched upon a throne upholstered in gazelle hide, sat the Sultan. He was a man of magnificent, terrifying gravity, currently occupied with twirling the end of a mustache so substantial it appeared to have its own political ambitions. The Sultan’s eyes glittered with a dangerous, childlike curiosity—the kind of look that usually preceded either a shower of gold coins or a very sharp blade to the neck. There was no middle ground in the Porcelain Palace. The silence stretched, thick and sticky, until the only sound was the treacherous growl of Arthur’s stomach. It…