Page 46 of Magic for Nothing

“Indeed,” said Emery, looking thoughtfully at the board in Sam’s hands. Seven knives bristled from its surface. Not all of them were well-seated—they’d fall out at the slightest pressure—but they’d gone into the wood and they’d stuck, which was more than enough for show purposes. “What else can you do?”

“I used to do a thing with roller skates and balloons and throwing knives at the balloons while I skated; I can throw knives from a trampoline without stabbing myself, much, and I’m good at moving targets. I’m better with my eyes open, but I figured that for a quick and dirty demo, this was the way to go.”

“You certainly got my attention,” said Emery. She took the plank from Sam. “You can do this reliably?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I climbed back to my feet. “Twice a night, three times on the weekends.”

“We’ll see about finding a slot for you—after tonight. Tonight, you’re a candy girl.”

“Whatever you need from me, ma’am.” I meant it, too. If she was putting me to work, she was trusting me—and more, she was making it possible for the rest of the show to trust me. It would be substantially easier to find out what had happened to those missing kids if I actually belonged here.

“Sam?”

“Yeah, yeah, get the girl who just tried to skewer me a costume.” Sam shook his head. “I’m going to run away and become an accountant.”

“Of course you are, dear.” Emery patted his shoulder encouragingly. “Now chin up and get ready for tonight, both of you. It’s going to be a marvelous show.”

It was, in fact, a marvelous show. There were clowns, hula-hoop dancers, a few stilt walkers, and of course, the darlings of the flying trapeze. The two who’d been going through their paces while I was throwing knives at Sam were siblings from the Ukraine. They didn’t speak any English—or they didn’t admit to speaking any English—but they flung themselves into the air with the giddy abandon of people who were sure that, in the unlikely event of an accident, their bodies would burst into birds and fly away before they could hit the ground.

Sam’s solo act was good. Not the best I’d ever seen, thanks to that odd tension he carried in his shoulders; he was fast and clean, but he wasn’t fluid. He never relaxed into the motion the way he should have. But he caught every swing the Ukrainian twins threw at him, and he moved between them with the speed and dexterity of a man who’d been born never to set foot on the ground.

“Candy girl.”

The voice was unfamiliar. I turned, and found myself looking into the eyes of a strikingly beautiful Japanese-American woman with bright red streaks in her feathered black hair. Her face was made up like a firebird, all bright reds and yellows, blending into the sequins and feathers of her costume. I put on my best dealing-with-the public smile. “Yes?”

“You’re in my old room, candy girl. What hole did they dig you out of?”

“Oh! You must be Umeko. It’s a very nice room. Thank you for letting me use it.” Technically, she hadn’t had anything to do with my being put in there—that was all Emery—but it’s always better to play nice when possible. “You look amazing. What do you do?”

“You’ll see in a second, candy girl.” She pushed past me, her shoulder knocking against mine. Three more women in similar, if more subdued, costumes followed her, each carrying a bucket and a set of sticks with padded Q-tip ends. The audience quieted. Apparently, they’d seen this act before. That made sense: the carnival had been in town for at least a week, and they must have had a few things more impressive than a standard trapeze to still be drawing this sort of crowd.

The music stopped. The women put down their buckets, forming a loose circle. Umeko took up a position at the center, spreading her arms and bending backward, becoming a tightly drawn bow of a woman, ready to fire. One of the women dipped the ends of the giant Q-tip into the nearest bucket. Her left hand moved subtly as she did it, lighting an unseen match. To the audience, it must have looked like the Q-tip burst into flame with no mechanical assistance.

She threw the burning Q-tip to Umeko, who snatched it out of the air and began to spin it, a baton-twirler working in flame and sequins instead of the football field. The other girls lit their own Q-tips, and suddenly there were four women dancing in flame, the only music the crackling of the fire and the chiming of the tiny bells they had braided in their hair.

My left hand caught fire.

It didn’t hurt; for a moment, I didn’t even notice. When I did—largely because I’d just ignited a bag of M&Ms—I swore and ducked beneath the bleachers, beating the flames against my leg. They were a lovely shade of blue, which would have been a lot more aesthetically pleasing if I hadn’t been in public and on fire, neither of which was a good thing at the moment.

The M&Ms burned with a much more standard orange flame. I stomped them out and slumped against the nearest support beam, trying to get my breath back.

“Shit.” There didn’t seem to be anything else to say under the circumstances, so I said it again: “Shit.” I needed to go home. I needed Aunt Mary and Grandpa Thomas’ diaries and time to deal with this where I wasn’t going to get spotted by a Covenant operative and burned at the stake for the crime of . . . setting myself on fire. This was all complicated, and I didn’t have the time for complicated anymore. Complicated was just too much for me.

I heard a thump. I turned. Sam was behind me, the frown on his face visible even through the gloom beneath the bleachers. “What are you doing under here?” he asked.

“Um,” I said. Then: “One of my bags of M&Ms caught fire. I came under here to stomp it out.” I pointed at the singed, crushed bag as evidence.

Sam blinked. “How did you get a bag of M&Ms to catch fire?”

Well, Sam, it turns out some kinds of magic run in families, even human families, and I’m becoming a walking Stephen King novel. No. Saying that would not get me anywhere good. It might get me thrown out of the carnival, which was the last thing I wanted right now. I forced a smile, shrugged, and said, “I don’t know. It was about the same time as Umeko and her dancers went on, so maybe there was a stray spark? Or . . . something. It burned, I fixed it, I’m sorry.”

“You are so weird,” he said, and walked away, leaving me alone with the smell of burnt chocolate and the hammering of my heart.

Umeko and the fire-dancers were still in the ring when I emerged. That was good: I hadn’t screwed anything up. They really knew what they were doing, too. They were wearing so many feathers that it was a miracle none of them went up like a candle, but they respected the fire and the fire seemed to respect them in turn. They dipped, wove, and pirouetted through the flames, and Verity couldn’t have done better, not with all her years of training.

Someone signaled for me to come over. I hurried to oblige. Selling candy isn’t the most useful thing in the world, but it was a distraction, and I needed a distraction. If I watched the fire for too long, I was afraid my traitorous fingertips would go up again. Becoming the Human Torch had never been on my extended list of things to do.

The fire dance finished. The clowns went on again. I kept selling candy, and minute by minute, we chipped away at the evening, until the tent show was over, and the audience began filing out. The performers had already vanished, to discourage loitering; it was just me, the other two candy girls, and the people with brooms who’d appeared to start resetting the ring almost the second it was empty.