The Cirque Du Freak was in England, whereas we were in Japan. Perfect. At least I could recall how to speak a few different languages. I don't know where I learnt them from though.

When we were resting for one night somewhere in Russia (Suijin couldn't teleport to a whole different continent in one go) I asked him the question I wanted.

"Why are we going to the Cirque?" I asked.

"Long story short, so you can learn how to be a Regalia," Suijin answered.

"Huh?" I frowned.

"Regalias have to train so that they can be useful." He said. "There's someone there that can train you. At least, I hope he's still there."

"Will you be staying there as well?" I asked.

"No, I'll go back to Japan and earn as much money as possible. I'll become a more popular god and then I'll come back and get you." He said. I nodded and said no more. I thought over that.

So he was basically abandoning me because I was useless. "Why don't you let me have any presence?" I asked sadly.

"Hm," he said.

"It's getting lonely. I can't have any friends because people don't even know I'm there! And it's your fault! I'd prefer to be a phantom; I'd rather live a corrupt life than one of loneliness." I said sadly.

"Don't," He said sharply. The anger in his tone surprised me. "Don't say that. Ever. Phantoms feed on the good in a person's heart; they can drive people to suicide. Those people don't even get the chance to live again. You did, you were lucky enough to have a second chance. So don't complain."

"I-I'm sorry," I muttered.

The Cirque Du Freak was amazing! It was a massive camp with something like fifty people walking about. The camp was set up in the middle of a field, by a river.

Suijin expertly weaved around the different trailers, caravans and tents until we got to a particularly large trailer. He raised his hand to knock on the door but before he had a chance the door swung open revealing a massive man.

He was easily three times the height of me and wore a dark suit. His eyes were the scariest though. They were small and were as black as coal. He smiled down at me, but that just added to my fear. His teeth were crooked and yellow.

"Suijin," he said in a low voice, "It is good to see you again. Rinha, I am glad to meet you."

He didn't put out his hand, he just bowed, which I was thankful for and gladly returned. He stepped to the side and gestured to the inside of his trailer.

It was pretty much bare; it had plain walls and a bare wooden floor. There wasn't much furniture, just a desk, a bookcase and a few chairs. He asked if we wanted to sit down, to which Suijin and I declined.

Suijin introduced me first, "This is Mr. Tall," he said, "He is the owner of the Cirque Du Freak, and has power that exceeds most Gods." Without waiting for an answer he turned to Mr. Tall and spoke "I don't have the money to care for Rinha, and I don't want to release her. I think that with the right training and experiences she will become an amazing Regalia, but I can't train her myself. Can she stay here at the cirque and train with him?"

"Him?" I asked.

"Shush," Suijin hushed me. I raised my eyebrows in a surprised manner. Okay then, that was rude.

"He is not here at the moment," The man said. Suijin's face fell.

"Oh," He murmured.

"But he contacted me and he says that he is on his way." Mr. Tall said, Suijin smiled. "He also has an apprentice with him."

"Brilliant, what's the apprentice's age?" Suijin asked.

"Twelve." Mr. Tall answered.

"Even better, and will he?" Suijin asked.

"Yes." Mr. Tall nodded.

"Whoa whoa whoa," I said, interrupting angrily, "What are you two talking about? I have no idea what is going on. I understood that you needed to leave me here for whatever reasons you had, but who is 'him' and who is this 'apprentice'?" I asked.

Suijin opened his mouth to speak but Mr. Tall talked instead, "I will explain later. For now, Suijin, you should leave and get to work."

"Right," He nodded, "See ya Rinha; become a really strong Regalia for me."

"Bye," I said coldly, turning my head away from him.

"I grant you presence," He said. Presence? Did that mean I was gonna be seen? "And I permit the ownership of my Regalia to Darren Shan. May this link bind them, mind, body and soul."

"Wait what?" I asked quickly.

"Bye," Suijin smiled, then he teleported away in a small white flash.

"I will explain," Mr. Tall said in not a second after the light cleared. "You were his Regalia, and he has entrusted you to a boy called Darren Shan. Darren is on his way to the Cirque now. Darren himself is the apprentice of a man called Larten Crepsley. Larten will train both Darren and you."

"But only Gods own Regalia," I said, confused. These two weren't Gods, Gods don't take apprentices.

"They are not Gods," He said, "However they are not humans either. They are vampires."

"Heh?" I frowned.

"Larten Crepsley and Darren Shan are vampires." He repeated.

"Maybe you didn't hear me the first time...heh?" I said again.

"They'll probably explain more soon," Mr. Tall said. "For now, we'll figure out your role at the cirque."

He went into his desk and pulled out a pad of paper. "Can you wash clothes?" He asked.

"By hand?" I asked him.

"Yes."
"Then no," I said sadly.

"Can you sew by hand?" He asked, adding the by hand part.

"No," I sighed.

"Can you cook?" He asked.

"No. I don't remember how to do any of these things." I said, depressed.

"Then we'll have you on small chores. You can do things for the other performers." He said. Oh joy, errands. "Evra's a year younger than you, he's fifteen. He can guide you along the usual routine."

"Follow me." He said.

He led me to a really big campfire that was towards the centre of the cirque. Sitting there were about five people. There was a really beautiful woman with knee-length wavy brown hair. She was roasting sausages over the fire. It made my stomach growl so loud I'm pretty sure everyone in the Cirque could hear.

There was a man wearing white, probably a cook, sitting down on a log, along with two others in casual clothing. Then there was a boy I found truly strange. He was very thin, with long yellow-green hair, narrowed eyes and strangely webbed fingers and toes; his body was covered in green, gold, yellow and blue scales. He was wearing a pair of shorts and nothing else. His chest was bare and so were his feet. He was gulping down a glass of water, listening to the conversation of the three others. He looked about fifteen, maybe sixteen.

"Evra," Mr. Tall said. The boy jumped and almost choked on his water.

"Yeah," he coughed.

"This is Rinha, she is a Regalia." Mr. Tall said.

"Another one?" Evra frowned.

"Another one?" I asked him.

"We had a Regalia for about a months when Evra was a child. She wasn't the nicest of Regalias." Mr .Tall informed me.

"Oh," I said.

"Evra, Rinha will be helping you with your chores." Mr. Tall said.

"Alrighty then," Evra grinned. He patted the space on the log next to him. I sat down awkwardly, not sure what to do.

Mr. Tall was gone before I knew it.

I sat there, looking at the sausages cooking on the fire. The woman across laughed and barked something in a strange foreign language. And when I say barked I didn't mean said loudly I meant she actually barked. It sounded like a sea lion. I couldn't understand her at all, so I just frowned.

"She asked if you wanted some." Evra said. I looked at him, how did he understand that? "I'm the only one in the cirque that can speak her language," he said proudly, "I'm quite good at languages."

"Well I do," I nodded. Evra barked something at the woman and she smiled, then went to give me some food.

"Her name is Truska," Evra said. "She's one of the acts here at the circus."

"Mmkay," I said numbly, eyes on the food. As soon as the food left her hands and came into mine I scoffed it down as quickly as I could.

"Careful!" Evra yelled, "It's hot!"

"Don't care..." I mumbled as I ate the whole thing in under ten seconds. "Can I have more?" I asked.

"Yeah...sure," Evra nodded.

It turned out that doing the chores weren't that bad. We got up at around five in the morning, then we had breakfast and did what we wanted for half an hour. Then we did chores until lunch, had an hour break, went back to chores until we had a two hour break and then went to bed at about one in the morning and then went back to it at five.

Our chores included bringing clothes to and from different places, serving food to people at tables (The only proper meal was dinner. Lunch and Breakfast were just grab and go snacks), and finding food for the little people.

The little people were really creepy, they reminded me of phantoms. There were only about five of them but they were tiny and I had yet to see one's face. They were about knee height and wore these weird blue robes with hoods that covered their faces.

The most disturbing thing was that they ate anything, especially dead animals. We often had to go out hunting for road kill and small animals to bring them, and they had the scraps and leftovers of the meals the humans ate.

I also saw a few phantoms, but they weren't big, they were all quite small, but I made sure to keep them as far away from the cirque as possible. It seemed that Evra could see them as well, along with quite a few of the other performers and a few of the humans.

The best thing about being with the cirque was I wasn't alone. I had a friend.

Anyway. One night, about a month after I had first arrived at the cirque, two new members joined. One was called Larten Crepsley, and the other was Darren Shan.

I only found out from Evra when we were already in bed though (We shared a tent for the moment). So, having to wait until the next day to meet my new master, I went to sleep in my very comfortable hammock.