Sing Down the Stars: The Circus Performers

The Show Family

Like many traveling circuses, the people who perform in The Show are like family, which is why it's all the more devastating when their train home is overrun. This is just a quick primer of the different acts and the people who play them.

The Flying Jeseks

These are The Show's acrobats. Led by Mother Jesek and her husband Bruno, the Jeseks tend to add to their family as they find people in need of a home. Their youngest child is a girl named Birdie who is among those stranded with Penn when the train is raided. She's been with them for two years, and only just got the confidence to "fly" during their act herself.

Nagendra

Frightfully ghoulish, Nagendra is a walking contradiction. Part snake charmer, and part poet, he's someone Penn has known her entire life. An Oxford man, he's transformed himself into a spectacle of tattoos an piercings to erase his real features, and he's the source of most of the information Penn has gathered about what's known as The Brick Street riots from before she was born. Nagendra speaks of them often, but only when he's had too much to drink.

Squint and Smolly

Both dwarves, Squint and Smolly no longer perform with the circus, though they still travel with it. "Small Molly" was once a featured performer with a legendary temper. Now, she's mostly a second mother to the children of The Show... still with a legendary temper. Her husband, Squint, is the train's engineer. Second only to Magnus Roma in his ability to plan and build, he's the one who keeps the train running smoothly.

Zavel the Mystic

Somewhat elderly, and spindly in stature, Zavel is The Show's magician. He's a widower who tragically outlived his much younger wife. His son Jermay serves as his apprentice and assistant and is Penn's best friend / partner in crime. Jermay also serves as an honorary big brother to Birdie Jesek who has made him her favorite target when it comes to causing trouble.

Winnifred Singh

Winnie's mute, which is ironic since she plays The Show's siren. She performs in the sideshow before the main event, doing her act in a tank of water while wearing a mechanical tail. Full of secrets and covered in scars, Winnie's got a past that Penn has been warned not to ask about.

Klok

Klok is a little different from the rest of The Show performers. Like The Daughters of Magnus Roma, he's using the circus as  camouflage to hide in plain sight, but he doesn't do an act; he's a stage hand. Klok's a teenager, as far as anyone knows, but he's enormous - and he's not human. He's a metal boy with a soul, a defective "soldier" created by Magnus Roma, and hidden away because Magnus couldn't condemn him to a life of killing and violence.