Page 62 of Magic for Nothing

Said butt slammed into the net with remarkable force, given my short fall, and I bounced a few feet into the air. I released my legs, twisting around, and on my second impact, grabbed the net with both hands, preventing a third. Then I rolled to the side, making space for Sam.

He didn’t fall so much as drop, landing with both feet and one hand gripping the net. His tail lifted, curling behind him in classic simian style, and if they’d wanted a poster image for him, that could have been it. See! The Amazing Monkey Man as he falls from great heights like it’s no big deal!

“You okay?” he asked, and there was genuine concern in his voice. I wondered how young he’d been when he learned humans were breakable, that they couldn’t catch themselves the way he could. He’d probably given his grandmother dozens of panic attacks before she’d learned that the rules for him were different.

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for the save.”

“No problem,” he said, and took his hand off the net, offering it to me.

I only hesitated for a moment before I took it. He pulled me easily back to my feet and smiled at me, a little shyly, like this was a point he didn’t reach with many people. I smiled back. We stood there on the net for several seconds, smiling at each other, me holding onto his hand.

Then he let go, and took a step backward. “This is usually where new people start asking me awful questions. If you’re going to ask me awful questions, go ahead and do it.”

“You’ve already revealed yourself as a Spider-Man fan, and I’m more of an X-girl, so I don’t think I have anything further to discuss with you,” I said, and walked toward the edge of the net. “Unless you’re about to reveal a secret passion for, like, peanut butter and bacon sandwiches. Which I can at least understand, even if I don’t share it.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have any questions about the whole monkey thing?”

“Well, last I checked, being a yōkai was genetic, and Emery’s your grandmother, and you’ve already told me your dad was a fūri, and since therianthrope genes are usually dominant, you take after his side of the family.” I shrugged. “There aren’t that many questions to ask.” That was a lie. There were dozens of questions to ask. It was just that most of them were intrusive things about his biology, and I didn’t have a good explanation for why I’d want to know. “It’s for the family records” wasn’t going to cut it when I wasn’t using my family name.

Sam raised the other eyebrow. “You are . . . really chill. Are you on drugs?”

“Not enough of them,” I said, grabbing the side of the net and lowering myself down. “Nothing stronger than caffeine. Life is weird enough without needing to decide on the fly whether or not it’s really happening. Why? What do you think I should be asking?”

“This is usually where people look all sympathetic and ask if my mom ran away because of the tail.”

“Did you have the tail as a baby?”

Sam nodded.

I grinned. “I hope your grandma has pictures, because holy shit, that must have been adorable.”

“Okay, there’s a script, and you’re refusing to follow it in any meaningful way,” said Sam. He scowled. “Mom didn’t leave because I was a yōkai, she left because she wasn’t ready to have a baby and my father had already fucked off to wherever it is monkey-men go when their tourist girlfriends get pregnant. She knew I was probably going to have a tail before I was born. And then Grandma told her about the Covenant, and she couldn’t deal, so she ran.”

“Cool,” I said. “Got anything else you want to crankily clear up before I can not ask about it?”

“I hate bananas.”

“What, even banana splits?”

Sam nodded grimly. “All bananas.”

“Then you’re missing out, but I can’t say I blame you. People have probably been waving those things in your face since you were a kid.”

“God, yes.” Sam hopped down from the net. “I don’t blame Grandma so much, because bananas are great for babies. Soft and easy to chew and shit. But then she saw me peel one with my feet and just lost it. For like the next three years, every time we had company, she was handing me a banana and waiting for me to do the cute thing. These days, even the smell is enough to make me gag.”

“Legit,” I said. “I’m the youngest of three. My older siblings used to pick on me, because hey, that’s what baby sisters are for. So I got really, really good at fighting back, and then they went and told our parents I was picking on them. My mom tried her best to stay neutral, but my dad always sided with my big sister, even when he thought he wasn’t. My reactions to her are almost Pavlovian at this point.”

Sam frowned. “I thought your whole family died with the carnival.”

Crap. “They did,” I said. “I haven’t fully adjusted to that, I guess. Things you don’t talk about don’t seem real.”

“Tell me about it.” He took a deep breath and rippled, simian features folding back into his body like someone had come along and revoked the rest of our CGI budget. In only a few seconds, he was the boy I’d met in the bone yard, with nothing to set him apart from anyone else except for his bare feet.

Well. Maybe that was all. “Is there a hole in the butt of your leotard?”

“And most of my pants,” he said. “It’s easier for me to get dressed like this and then relax, because my tail will go where it needs to be. Working jeans on over a tail is a special kind of torture.”

“Relax . . .” I cocked my head. “This takes effort.”