The Ringmaster's game E-Book

Oliver Bräuner

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: the ringmaster's game
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 211

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The Ringmaster's Game is a dark, atmospheric fantasy that pulls readers into the shadows of a city where forgotten alleys lead to impossible carnivals and every choice carries a price. Niko, a nineteen-year-old street magician scraping by on wit and sleight of hand, stumbles upon The Midnight Carnival a place that seems to breathe, filled with illusions too sharp to be tricks and dangers too real to ignore. Lured by the enigmatic Ringmaster Amaris and haunted by the fiery tightrope walker Josefine, Niko is offered a place among the carnival's misfits. But survival here demands more than quick fingers. The Carnival feeds on secrets, bargains, and sacrifice and once you enter, there's no going back. Blending gritty urban survival with the wonder and menace of a supernatural circus, The Ringmaster's Game is perfect for fans of The Night Circus and Caraval. It is a tale of magic, danger, and the desperate hunger to belong, even when the cost may be your soul.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Road to Nowhere

Chapter 2: Welcome, Wanderer

Chapter 3: Smoke and Cards

Chapter 4: The Ringmaster’s Offer

Chapter 5: Curtain Call

Chapter 6: Smiles That Don’t Fade

Chapter 7: The Shards of Truth

Chapter 8: The Ring of Shadows

Chapter 9: Tethered in Smoke

Chapter 10: Where Magic Sleeps

Chapter 11: The Weight of Flame

Chapter 12: Beneath the Velvet

Chapter 13: The Silent Audience

Chapter 14: The Carnival Remembers

Chapter 15: Threads in the Dark

Chapter 16: Paper Cuts and Promises

Chapter 17: The Queen’s Warning

Chapter 18: Blood in the Spotlight

Chapter 19: The Trick That Wasn’t

Chapter 20: What the Tent Hides

Chapter 21: Deals With Shadows

Chapter 22: The Fall

Chapter 23: The Card That Cuts Both Ways

Chapter 24: The Ringmaster’s Game

Chapter 1:

The Road to Nowhere

Something wet hit Niko’s forehead.

He flinched, eyes blinking open to a hazy, low-lit sky. Another drop landed near his temple, trailing cold across his skin before soaking into the hood he hadn’t bothered to pull up. Then another. The rhythm was lazy, uncommitted, not a real rain yet, just the city’s warning whisper.

The cement was cold and hard.

Niko sat up, still tired. His spine popped in protest, and his right leg, twisted at a bad angle in his sleep, had gone half-numb. He shifted his weight, wincing as he rubbed at the ache in his lower back. The cardboard under him had long since soaked through, and the edge of it clung to the ground like it didn’t want to let go. He pushed it aside and leaned his head against the brick wall behind him, closing his eyes again for just a second.

Just a second. That was all he ever seemed to get.

Another drop tapped his nose. Fine. He was up.

His fingers were stiff as he reached for the strap of his backpack, his pillow, his closet, his cupboard. Still there. Zipped shut, a quiet blessing. The old alley between the Chinese takeout place and the shuttered laundromat had been quiet last night, but even quiet places had eyes. He no longer trusted the shadows. Not after what happened near Lexington. Not after waking up two weeks ago with a split lip and no cash.

The sun hadn’t fully risen, though the sky had begun that sickly grey brightening that promised another overcast day. The kind that dragged on without warmth, color, or purpose. The kind that reminded Niko that he was wearing the same hoodie he’d slept in, the same coat he’d been wearing since November, and that both were beginning to smell like the inside of a bus terminal.

He stretched, stood, and cracked his neck. His boots, half a size too small and splitting at the sole, squished slightly as he stepped onto the wet pavement. They’d stay damp the rest of the day. So would the frayed cuffs of his jeans. There was no point trying to dry anything anymore. Once it was wet, it stayed that way until the sun came back out, and the sun was shy lately.

His stomach growled.

There was half a granola bar in the side pocket of his pack. He chewed it slowly, making it last as long as he could while walking. No water, not since yesterday. He’d find some eventually gas station bathroom, maybe a church with an unlocked side door. He was used to hunting like that. For food, for warmth, for anything.

People passed him on the sidewalks without looking. Business suits. Headphones. Gloves that cost more than Niko had in total. He didn’t blame them. If he had somewhere warm to be, he’d ignore himself, too.

It was routine now. This wasn’t some dramatic fall from grace. It wasn’t some tragic backstory unfolding in real time. It was just how things were. You slip through enough cracks, and eventually, you forget where the floor was to begin with.

By the time the sky had fully lightened, Niko was already on the move again downtown, this time, where the air always smelled faintly of exhaust and old fryer grease. He passed an empty bus stop, checked the schedule taped to the glass. Nothing he could use without a ride pass, and no one in the right mood to help.

He crossed three streets, took a left into a quieter part of the city. Pigeons scattered as he walked. Steam curled up from a manhole. A traffic light blinked amber over a deserted intersection.

That’s when he felt it.

The wind was wrong.

It didn't move like city wind was supposed to, shoving through narrow streets, dragging cigarette ash and torn paper in its wake. No, this wind curled around the corners of buildings like it knew them. Soft, warm, almost intimate. It brushed against the back of Niko's neck like a hand he hadn’t invited.

He paused mid-step, one boot landing in a slick puddle of city runoff. Didn’t matter. His jeans were already damp, cuffs dark with rainwater and street grime. The hoodie under his coat smelled like two days of sleep he hadn’t had. But that wasn’t what stopped him.

It was quiet.

A silence had bloomed around him, unnatural and full. No cars. No sirens. No glassy laughter from drunk strangers. Just a pressure in the air, thick and expectant. The kind of silence that came right before a magician said, “Watch closely.”

Niko lifted his head.

He was tall but lean, the way poverty makes you lean, long arms, sharp shoulders, wrists a bit too thin. Skin olive brown, bruised under the eyes. The kind of face you remember when something goes missing. A narrow jaw. Crooked nose, broken once in a fight he hadn’t started. Lips quick to smirk, slow to trust. A face that looked older than nineteen, because it had to be.

His hair was black and shaggy, the kind you don’t style so much as let fall. A silver ring hung from his left ear. Cheap metal, but he wore it like armor.

He scanned the street.

Nothing.

Behind him, the row of convenience stores and shuttered laundromats stretched back into the dark. Ahead, just the long mouth of the alley, a corridor of rusted fences and overgrown weeds. But the air was changing again.

And then it came: music.

Just one note at first. High. Thin. A violin string stretched past breaking. He blinked and held still. It didn’t stop.

It wasn’t coming from a speaker. Or a car. Or a phone. It came from the wind itself. A waltz, but broken in its rhythm, uneven, like a dance learned in a dream.

His stomach pulled tight.

He reached into his coat pocket and touched the familiar edges of an old deck of cards. The corners were soft from wear, backs printed with a blue diamond pattern, the kind you find in gas station stores and prison common rooms. Nothing special. But they were his.

He didn’t believe in luck. But he believed in patterns. In the weight of a card between your fingers. In the way people looked away the second before they lied. The way a mark always leaned into the trick.

And maybe just maybe he needed to remind himself that the world still worked the way it used to. Those rules still held.

Niko knelt on the wet sidewalk, right there under the humming yellow glow of a busted streetlamp, and pulled the deck from his pocket. The paper was soft with age, warped slightly from years of handling, but he shuffled it like muscle memory. Thumb to index. Snap. Bridge. Fold.

Then he laid down three cards on the concrete quickly and cleanly.

Queen of Hearts.

Jack of Spades.

Seven of Clubs.

“Let’s play,” he muttered under his breath, to no one.

His fingers moved fast. Too fast. A blur, flipping and sliding the cards like a shell game. Left. Right. Switch. Tap. Fake out. Again.

Then he stopped.

His hand hovered over the cards. They looked the same. Still cheap. Still paper. Still meaningless.

He turned over the middle one.

Queen of Hearts.

He tried to feel satisfaction. He didn’t.

The street was still empty. The air is still too thick. That strange music still drifted through the alley like a whisper he couldn’t quite catch.

Niko gathered the cards and pocketed them. Wiped his hand against his jeans. Stood.

If this was a trick, he was already in it.

If this were a game, it had already started.

And the Queen?

She wasn’t on the ground anymore.

She was waiting somewhere ahead.

Somewhere in the dark, someone was already watching. Maybe not a player. Maybe the one who dealt the cards.

So he walked toward the music.

The music pulled him down the alley like a string caught behind his ribs.

He didn’t hurry. Niko never hurried. That was part of the trick: looking like you belonged wherever you were going, even if your shoes were soaked and your jacket smelled like sleep. He moved like someone who'd been walking all his life, and never arrived.

The alley narrowed, metal fencing pressing in on both sides, the shadows thick and clinging. Overhead, a thin fog drifted in lazy coils. And somewhere ahead, soft but growing, the broken waltz continued. Notes like moth wings. Notes like teeth.

Then, as he turned the last bend, the world opened up.

The Carnival was just… there.

Like it had always been.

A vast empty lot, the kind cities forget, had become a stage. The ground rolled with soft mist. Strange glowing bulbs were strung across wooden poles, green and gold, blinking in no pattern he could follow. Signs hung crookedly. Flags snapped in the wind that touched nothing else.

And in the center, towering above all of it: the tent.

Red. Heavy. Alive with movement. Its fabric shimmered like it was breathing. Gold trim spiraled upward toward a pointed top, too high for logic. A wide entrance flap hung open, dark inside. Letters stitched in curling embroidery arched over the entrance:

The Midnight Carnival

Only One Night. No Refunds.

Niko’s mouth went dry.

People were starting to gather. Silent silhouettes emerged from the mist, drawn the same way he had been. They didn’t speak. Didn’t shout. Just stood. Stared. Some clutched tickets he hadn’t seen anyone buy. Others just waited, eyes glazed, as if their feet had brought them without asking.

Perfect.

His instincts snapped back into place.

He slipped off to the side of the main path, where a wide stretch of broken sidewalk sat beneath one of the string lights. The perfect spot close enough to be seen, far enough not to be noticed by anyone official. If this place even had officials.

Niko crouched, pulled the deck from his coat, and knelt on the pavement.

He shuffled fast. Familiar. Sharp.

Then he spoke. Low, but loud enough to carry. The voice he used when he wanted to sound harmless. A little bored. A little amused.

“Step right up. Test your luck. Find the Queen, win some green.”

He flipped three cards on the sidewalk. Slow, deliberate.

Queen of Hearts.

Eight of Spades.

Three of Diamonds.

“You look like you know a trick when you see one,” he said to the nearest guy, maybe twenty-five, in a suit too clean for this side of town. “Pick her out. C’mon. First game’s free.”

The man hesitated, eyes flicking to the cards, then to the Carnival.

Niko smiled. Easy. Friendly. Just enough teeth.

He started the shuffle. Fast. Smooth.

Left. Middle. Right. Right. Left. Tap. Flip.

Then he spread them out again.

“Where’s the Queen?”

The man pointed.

Middle.

Niko flipped it.

Wrong.

The man frowned. Niko grinned wider.

“Close, but not quite. Still free, though, see? Wanna try again?”

Others were watching now. Two teens. A woman in a fur coat. A man with an eye patch and a velvet cane. They drifted closer. Coins clinked. A few dollar bills changed hands.

Niko shuffled again.

In the corner of his eye, the Carnival loomed huge and still breathing. But for now, this was his game. His rules.

Let the tent wait.

The small crowd thickened like fog curling over cold pavement.

Coins clinked softly on the cracked sidewalk, bills folded and unfolded in restless hands. Faces blurred and sharpened in the glow of the string lights, some eager, some cautious, all waiting for a glimpse of luck or a promise of escape.

Niko kept shuffling.

Left. Right. Middle. Tap.

His fingers moved fast and sure, but his eyes flicked constantly to the edge of the crowd, to the shadows where the real show was waiting.

There.

A flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye.

She was standing apart from the others just beyond the reach of the crowd’s noisy murmurs, by a crooked pole tangled in bulbs that buzzed faintly. Her posture was still, almost too still, like a statue carved from night. The light caught her pale skin, making her look almost like she wasn’t quite real, like a ghost woven into the carnival’s fabric.

Her hair, the color of autumn leaves, spilled over her shoulders in wild curls. Her eyes were bright, alive with a fierce intensity, fixed on Niko. Not quite watching, not quite judging, but something else. Something older than either of them.

Niko felt it, that weight of her gaze. A quiet pulling in his chest. Not fear exactly. More like a warning. Like she knew the pieces on this street were about to fall in a way he couldn’t stop.

He kept his hands moving, but his breath hitched, the shuffle faltering just a second longer than it should have. The man with the clean suit was still staring, waiting for Niko’s move.

Niko forced a grin — bright, easy, practiced.

“Find the Queen,” he said, voice smooth as silk over broken concrete. “It’s easy, if you don’t blink.”

He flashed the cards, fanned them briefly, then set them face-up on the old crate he used as a table: Queen of Hearts. Jack of Diamonds. Two of Clubs.

His hands moved like smoke. Slow when it needed to be. Fast when no one expected it.

The man in front of him — maybe mid-forties, worn jacket, suspicious eyes — leaned in, gaze locked on the Queen. He was trying to look casual, but his fingers twitched with every shuffle, his lips moved silently like he was counting under his breath.

Niko slid the cards across the concrete again. Deliberate. Smooth. He let the corners flutter and catch the light, let the Queen dance just long enough to make people believe they had her.

“Middle,” the man said, tapping the card with more confidence than he had.

Niko flipped it.

Jack.

A low murmur rolled through the small crowd. Someone chuckled. Another snapped their fingers in disappointment. The man frowned and stepped back, already reaching into his coat pocket for another attempt.

“Close,” Niko said, giving him a friendly shrug. “Luck favors the bold. But not always the bold who guess wrong.”

Laughter rippled again — soft, amused, curious. It sounded like leaves skittering down a sidewalk. Nothing loud. Nothing out of place. But enough to keep the energy warm. Moving. Alive.

That’s what mattered.

Niko didn’t look down at the cards as he reshuffled. His fingers knew them better than he knew most people. Each flick of the wrist was rehearsed, honed. Each move gave the illusion of choice. But the outcome was already decided. He let the crowd think they had control. That was the trick.

Because the moment they believed they were smarter than him, that’s when they paid.

He looked up briefly, eyes scanning the small arc of people gathered. Faces blurred at the edges: curious, distracted, half-lost tourists and late-night wanderers. But near the back, leaning against a rusted lamp post, stood someone who didn’t quite belong.

Josefine.

She hadn’t moved. She didn’t need to. Her presence was like a whisper in a quiet room. Arms crossed. Lips pressed tight. Eyes sharp, watching him, not the game. That unreadable expression again, somewhere between disapproval and warning. Like she saw something under the performance and didn’t like what it meant.

Niko hesitated just a beat too long, his hands faltering for the smallest second. But he caught it. Covered it. The grin snapped back into place like armor.

He looked away before she could see the slip.

“Who's next?” he called, louder this time, with a brightness that sounded more honest than it felt.

More people stepped forward. The crowd thickened. A couple of college kids elbowed their way closer, one with a beer in hand, the other clutching a wad of crumpled bills. Someone whistled. A kid, no older than ten, held a sticky coin purse like it was treasure. They all leaned in, drawn by the motion, the voice, the promise of a win they thought they could earn.

He became bigger than — louder, faster, bolder. He laughed easily, teased playfully, leaned into the rhythm of his role like it was the only thing keeping the air from turning to static.

Because it was.

To them, he was a magician. A hustler. A charming rogue with quick fingers and quicker wit.

But it was all a mask.

Every grin, every quip, every sweep of his hands — they weren’t just for the audience. They were for him. To forget the cold in his bones. The hunger in his stomach. The noise of the tent behind him, still pulsing with that strange, low heartbeat. He didn’t look at it directly, but he felt it like a drum beneath the city’s skin.

A woman with painted lips stepped forward, biting the inside of her cheek as she laid down a ten. Niko gave her a wink that drew a flush to her cheeks and shuffled again, slower now. Tempting. Teasing.

Queen of Hearts. King of Clubs. Five of Diamonds.

“Find the Queen,” he said, his voice cutting through the murmurs like a knife through silk. “Watch the hands. Don’t blink.”

His fingers blurred. The cards flipped. Danced. Glided.

The crowd held its breath.

“Right,” the woman said, after a beat, pointing quickly.

Niko smiled — slow, dramatic — and flipped the card.

Queen.

Cheers rose around her. She grinned widely, scooping her winnings, laughing like it mattered.

Coins hit the crate again. Hands reached forward. More money, more eyes.

The game never stopped.

Niko’s fingers kept moving, even as his eyes flicked back once more toward Josefine. Still silent. Still watching.

He didn’t know if she was there to protect him or warn him.

But either way, he couldn’t afford to stop now.

Chapter 2:

Welcome, Wanderer

Suddenly, a shadow fell over the group.

The air shifted. Conversations fizzled into silence. Laughter died. The carousel’s music slowed, its cheerful tune unraveling into a hollow, dragging echo.

Niko’s chest tightened.

Something was wrong. Everyone felt it. The way the light dimmed without the sun moving. The way the air grew still, like it was holding its breath.

The crowd began to part. Slow at first, then with a quiet urgency. Heads turned. Feet shuffled. Eyes dropped to the ground. People stepped back, unconsciously clearing a path they wanted no part of.

Then he appeared.

The Ticket Master.

He didn’t belong to the world like everyone else did. He stood too tall, too thin, like he’d been drawn in ink and left to dry. His coat was long, black, and heavy, shimmering with strange pins and tarnished badges that clicked against one another with every step. They caught the flickering carnival lights like jagged bits of mirror. His wide-brimmed hat shadowed most of his face, but what showed looked unnatural—skin like folded paper, dry and pale, pulled tight over sharp bones. His eyes were narrow, cold, fixed.

He said nothing. Just walked. Straight toward Niko.

Niko’s stomach turned. His pulse jumped. But he didn’t run.

Not yet.

With forced calm, he slipped the deck of cards into his pocket. Then the crumpled bills he’d earned that evening. He pressed the money down with his fingers, as if it might vanish if he didn’t anchor it. He took a breath, shallow and quick, and started to move.

He walked. Casual. Controlled. No sudden movements.

He slipped between a family with cotton candy and a pair of teens arguing over a stuffed animal. No one stopped him. No one looked him in the eye. That was how it worked. No one got in the way.

The crowd thickened, then thinned. He reached the edge of it. Past the rides. Past the blinking lights and funnel cake stands. Toward the rows of storage trailers and empty vendor carts.

No one was watching anymore.

He was alone.

That’s when he ran.

He tore down the narrow path behind the tents, shoes slamming against gravel and dirt. His heart pounded like it was trying to break through his chest. The carnival noise faded behind him. The world narrowed into sound and movement and fear.

He didn’t look back. He didn’t have to.

The Ticket Master would be behind him. Always.

And if Niko stopped now—

He wouldn’t have another chance.

Behind him, he heard footsteps fast, deliberate, closing in.

He didn’t look back.

Only ran.

Niko didn’t trust the silence behind him. Not for a second.

His boots hit the cracked pavement with a steady, urgent rhythm. The soft clatter of coins and the crowd’s fading murmurs slipped away like smoke in a breeze. But those footsteps were sharp, deliberate, and followed closely. Closer.

He darted between scattered tents and overturned crates, eyes darting for escape routes. The carnival was a maze tonight, twisting paths and dark corners that weren’t on any map. The fog curled low, swallowing his breath like it wanted to pull him under.

His hands fisted the deck in his pocket. The bill's warm, folded tight felt like a weight he couldn’t afford to lose. Every muscle screamed to sprint harder, but his mind spun faster, wondering where to go, what to do.

A stall with cracked mirrors loomed to his right. Niko slipped behind it, pressing his back against the cold wood. The reflections fractured into shards, ghosts of himself flickering in fractured light. He held his breath, listening.

The footsteps stopped.

His chest tightened. The silence swelled around him, thick and watchful.

Then a soft click.

The tent flap beside him shifted.

Niko’s heart thundered.

He spun around and ran again, pushing through the curtain, into darkness.

The air inside was thick and warm, smelling of old fabric and something metallic like blood or rust. The carnival’s heartbeat was louder here, a slow drum beneath his skin.

He moved forward, brushing his hands against the velvet walls, trying to find the way out.

Niko stared at him. “Who are you?”

The man’s smile stretched with amused precision, like a magician just before the reveal.

“Amaris,” he said smoothly, giving a shallow, almost theatrical bow. “Ringmaster of sorts. Collector of misfits, marvels... and runners who don’t know when to stop.”

He straightened, hands clasped neatly behind his back as if they were standing on a stage, not on the shadowed edge of a carnival where threats still lingered in the air.

“Don’t worry,” he added lightly, eyes glinting. “I’m not here to eat you. Not unless you ask nicely.”

Niko didn’t respond, still catching his breath, still unsure if he’d been rescued or captured.

Amaris tilted his head, studying him with a kind of interest that felt clinical and personal all at once. Like he was both measuring Niko for a coffin and inviting him to dinner.

“Quite the sprint you pulled,” he said. “You run like someone who hasn’t yet figured out what’s chasing him. That’s dangerous, Niko.”

He said Niko’s name like he already owned it. Like he’d known it forever.

“I was hoping we’d meet under quieter circumstances,” Amaris went on, casually brushing something off his crimson sleeve that wasn’t there. “But chaos has its charm. You’ve made an impression.”

He didn’t move to leave. If anything, he seemed to settle deeper into the moment, as though he’d just lit a fire and planned to stay until it burned down.

“So,” he said, voice light but laced with something sharp, “now that the good Ticket Master has slunk back into the dark and you’ve still got your soul intact... tell me, Niko.”

A pause.

“What exactly where you hoping to do with that trick deck and fast money?”

Chapter 3:

Smoke and Cards

Niko opened his mouth, then closed it. Words tangled in his throat, slipping away before they could form. What could he say? He was just trying to get by. That he didn’t want to be caught. He didn’t even fully understand the game he was playing.

He looked down at his hands, still clutching the worn deck of cards, then back up into Amaris’s sharp, unwavering eyes. The man’s expression was steady, unreadable, like he was waiting for something beyond words.