Page 26 of Magic for Nothing

“Yeah, but it’s going to equip me to avenge them. That matters more.”

“Good way of thinking about it,” said Leo. He looked up and shouted, “Hey! Chloe! Get your worthless butt down here! I need a spotter!”

“Fuck off,” replied Chloe genially, before flipping around and sliding down the rope. She landed primly on the balls of her feet, looking me over before asking her brother, “What, Granddad actually approved her membership application? We’ll take any old riffraff these days. What do you want me to do with her?”

“I need to find some throwing knives while she gets warmed up on the trampoline. Can you make sure she doesn’t split her skull open?”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Not my job to babysit your recruits.”

“And yet you’re going to do it anyway, because you don’t want to explain to Granddad how we just got this one and she’s somehow already dead.”

I didn’t say anything. This was the sort of conversation I recognized from dealing with my own siblings, and I wanted no part of it. It would probably end in tears, or at least in someone getting punched.

Chloe rolled her eyes again, harder this time. “Fine. Fine. But if she breaks a leg or something, it’s not my fault.”

“It never is,” said Leo. He looked to me. “You okay to get started with Chloe as your spotter?”

“Not if she has a tire iron,” I said. “Yeah, we’re fine. No one’s getting killed today. Go on.”

“Going,” he said, and trotted off.

Chloe looked at me. “You’re a scruffy little American thing that my brother dragged home for no good reason, and I’m not going to go easy on you. All right?”

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s get started, so we can get this over with. I’m exhausted.” That, and I didn’t actually want to have a conversation with Chloe. She was clearly the younger sister, resentful of being told what to do, even more resentful when she had to do it. I knew the type. Hell, I am the type. Nothing good would come of my trying to talk to her when she was already annoyed.

“Fine,” she said, and started toward the trampoline.

Either it wasn’t a popular piece of equipment, or everyone else was on some sort of schedule and I’d been lucky enough to choose their off day. Regardless, no one was on the trampoline or the nearby climbing wall. I removed my shoes, dusted my hands and feet with chalk dust from a nearby trough, and climbed the ladder to the bounce mat. It was six feet off the ground, high enough that I could hit it without worrying about breaking an ankle. Also high enough that if I misjudged a landing, I could do myself some serious damage.

“What in the world possessed you to learn the trampoline?” asked Chloe.

She sounded genuinely curious: I decided she deserved an answer. “I was already learning trapeze, and the two complement each other. You can do a lot of tricks moving between them. So I asked some of the clowns to teach me.” All true, in a modified sense. Timpani was who I could have been in another life. That made it easier to stick to her story, because it was so close to my own.

“It’s still odd.”

“Odd but fun.” I gave an experimental bounce. The trampoline was top of the line, firm without being unyielding, springy without being squishy. Half the gyms I’d trained with would have killed for this trampoline. The Campbell Family Carnival would have committed acts of mass mayhem, and I would have helped them. I bounced again, higher this time, letting my legs get used to the idea that this was what we were doing now.

The majority of amateur trampoline accidents involve bouncing off the trampoline and slamming into some hard surface that doesn’t feel the need to help you out. It’s a lot like jumping on a really big bed that way. The majority of professional trampoline accidents—and yes, there are professional trampoline accidents—involve muscle strain and dislocated joints, from getting started before the body is ready.

I bounced again. Chloe was starting to look disgusted. I didn’t care enough about her opinion of me to hurt myself. I sat down on the bounce mat with my legs spread in a wide V, bending forward to press my forehead against the rubber as I reached for my feet.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Stretching,” I said. She knew that—she had to know that—and was being a snot for the sake of being a snot. Again, an impulse I understood, and sometimes even shared, but not one I could indulge right now.

For all that I was basically going through my paces for the Covenant of St. George, I was excited by the opportunity to move. Endorphins are as addictive as anything else, and I’d never gone this long without a decent workout. If being potentially useful as a field agent meant I got access to this room while I was doing my recon, I’d take it. Letting myself get out of shape for the sake of maintaining my cover would just make it harder to escape when the time came.

“You are very dull,” said Chloe.

“Safety first,” I replied. My muscles felt sufficiently loose for some starting tricks, and so I climbed to my feet, beginning to bounce with greater enthusiasm. I kept my upper body straight while allowing my knees to bend on each impact, absorbing the shock and distributing it throughout my body. Once I had sufficient height built up, I bounced and flipped, doing a three-sixty in the air before landing on my feet once again.

Chloe scoffed. I smiled sweetly in her direction as I continued bouncing, building more and more momentum.

“Seriously, did no one teach you about safety? You must have at least the basics, since Leo asked you to play spotter. Some of the things you can do on a trampoline will leave you dead or paralyzed if you don’t go about them the right way.” I did another flip, landed on my butt, and bounced back up to my feet. All very flashy, if you didn’t do trampoline work. All pretty basic, if you did.

Sometimes the simplest things are the showiest because they don’t have hidden difficulties. They’re exactly as hard as they look. As if in answer to that thought, my fingertips started heating up. Pyrokinesis is the easiest, showiest trick in the magic-user’s arsenal, hence why it tends to be the first to manifest. Lucky me. If I started a fire here, I’d see a lot more fire in short order, when the Covenant strapped me to a stake and lit me up. I shook my hands frantically as I continued bouncing. Chloe gave me an odd look. I stopped shaking my hands and started flapping my arms. She rolled her eyes and turned away.

Still hot still hot still—damn. I stuck the fingers of my left hand in my mouth just as they caught fire. Leo was walking back in our direction, a bundle in his arms. He wasn’t close enough to have seen the spark. I kept bouncing and flapping, willing my right hand to cool down.