Page 35 of Tricks for Free

“You know, you should be played by Natalie Dormer in the movie,” I replied flatly. “You have the right mix of mean and murderous.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said. She pressed a button. The doors slid shut. “Let’s go over the rules for today.”

“Since you haven’t told me what they are, can you really expect me to go over them?”

Emily rolled her eyes. “I hate new girls,” she said. “You always think you’re so clever, and you’re so very wrong. Rule one: do as you’re told. Colin knows what he’s doing and you don’t, so if he’s giving you an instruction, he has a good reason. You can ask questions—in fact, asking questions is rule two—but you need to listen.”

“Got it,” I said.

“No, you don’t, but I believe you’ll try, and that’s honestly more than some of us are expecting from you. Rule three is going to be harder. You need to remember that you are a guest here, in our space and in Lowryland, and comport yourself accordingly.”

“Got it. Use my manners.”

“Lady of the Underpass preserve me,” muttered Emily. The elevator doors opened, revealing a large, empty room that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a suburban dojo or dance studio. One wall was mirrored; another was clear glass, showing what felt like all of Florida from a seemingly impossible height. I was suddenly very glad never to have suffered from vertigo.

Once again, Emily placed her hand between my shoulders and shoved, pushing me out of the elevator and into the wide, empty room.

“Have fun,” she said. The elevator doors closed on her smirking face, and she was gone.

The room seemed even larger without the safety of the elevator behind me. I took a few hesitant steps forward, wishing I had a knife, or better yet, twenty knives, or better yet, twenty knives and a brick of C-4. Plastic explosives are a strange and dangerous security blanket, but they tend to make whatever’s scaring me go away quickly, so I’m in favor.

My reflection looked small and scared and frazzled, nothing like the image of myself that I’ve always tried to project. I stopped, looking critically at myself. My hair was good. Megan didn’t have hair of her own—again, snakes—and consequentially viewed me and Fern as life-sized versions of her childhood Barbie dolls. When she’d learned I used henna to keep my hair closer to red than brown, she’d actually squealed and demanded I let her take over the process. Since I hadn’t been doing my own henna since high school, I’d gladly handed her the reins.

I needed to eat more. My collarbones were showing too clearly through my skin, and that has never been a good look for me, or a goal of mine. My sister is a dancer and always will be, whether she’s doing it professionally or not. For her, weight management is a part of her career. I, on the other hand, skate to kill and set things on fire with the power of my mind. The trapeze requires a certain awareness of size, but that’s as much about knowing the strength of your partner as it is the size of your pants. Sam had been perfectly happy to sling me around the big tent—boobs, hips, and all—and he had never once suggested I needed to cut back on the sandwiches in anything other than jest.

Lowryland hadn’t been as kind. I was still eating, but my meals were more like the one I’d failed to consume yesterday for the most part: Park food, scarfed down fast, assuming it made it past my lips at all. Nutrition and the food pyramid were no longer my friends.

“Hello?”

No response.

“I’m assuming you’re watching me right now, since it wouldn’t make sense for you not to be—not when I’m in your nice training room and all. So if you’re watching me, you must be testing me in some way.” I was talking partially to hear myself talk, and partially to see whether anything in the room reacted. Nothing did. “I do better on tests when I know what I’m supposed to be accomplishing. Just an FYI.”

Still no response. This would get irritating fast if I allowed it to do so, which was probably what my new teacher was counting on: the more annoyed I was, the more likely I was to set something on fire without meaning to. I didn’t know whether this was intended to gauge how much power I could generate or give them a baseline of how easy I was to annoy, and—honestly—I didn’t care. They were playing games. I could play games, too.

“I wish I had my skates. This is a nice smooth floor like the ones I used to train on, not like the bumpy paths in Lowryland. I could build up a real head of steam here.” I walked to the middle of the room, dropped my bag, and kept walking until I came to the bar in front of the mirror, where I kicked off my shoes. Verity would already have been practicing her ballet form. I had something similar in mind.

My hands hurt less than they had immediately after being burned. My fingers still felt thick and clumsy, slow to obey my commands and slower still to clamp down, but that was okay; what I had in mind didn’t require fine motor manipulation. Bending forward, I rested my forearms against the floor, putting the bulk of my weight on my elbows. I held that position for a moment, letting my spine lengthen into the pose, before lifting up onto my toes, clenching the muscles at my core, and slowly, carefully lifting my legs into the air.

As always, there was a moment where it felt like I was going to overbalance, sending myself crashing to the floor. The moment passed, and then my toes were lightly tapping the surface of the mirror, reassuring me that gravity was working the way it was supposed to.

Trampoline and the trapeze are all about core strength. Without it, you’ll never get off the floor. Funny thing: cheerleading and being a roller derby jammer work the same muscle groups. I may not be the fastest thing on two feet—although give me a pair of skates and I’ll give damn near anyone a run for their money—and I may not have the best aim in my family, but I can hang upside down like a bat for hours. It’s actually pretty soothing. Even blood needs a vacation every now and then, and I enjoy sending mine to visit my brain.

Closing my eyes, I focused on my breathing, letting every inhale fill my entire body, letting every exhale root me deeper in my pose. The pain in my hands receded, driven away by the meditative focus on being exactly who and what and where I was.

A door clicked shut somewhere behind me. I didn’t open my eyes.

“Miss West, may I ask what in the world you’re doing?”

The voice belonged to Wand Guy. Nice to know I’d been right about who was keeping an eye on me. Still not opening my eyes, I said, “I figured you’d gotten stuck in a meeting or something, and wanted me to entertain myself. I’m meditating.”

“You’re inverted.”

“Not quite. I can’t trust my hands, and there’s no hang bar on the ceiling anyway.”

“Please remember what it means to be right-side up, and turn to look at me while I’m talking to you.” He didn’t sound angry. More confused, with a healthy side order of amusement.

That was something I could work with. I tapped my toes against the mirror one last time before lowering my legs toward the ground, pushing myself farther up onto my elbows at the same time, until I was drawing a horizontal line with my body. This accomplished, I lowered my legs the rest of the way down and opened my eyes, meeting my own gaze in the mirror.