Kit closed her eyes, breathed. It's okay, it'll be ove—
She felt an impact in her hand, heard a soft squelching noise and jumped! The crowed gasped, and when Kit opened her eyes again she was looking at Darilava, scowling. What we do is hard. He'd told her, and in that moment it seemed an accusation. Kit pulled the dagger out of the apple, let them both fall to the cobble. Darilava winced as the knife hit the stone, looked into her eyes and shook his head in a firm no. Her face colored.
Whet's eyes darted between the two of them, one corner of his mouth turned up in what might have been a smile. "Misfire, folks!" He said, waved his hand as though to dismiss the tension in the air. "The real show is something much better!" He tossed her a new apple, a second, and turned to Darilava again.
"Wait," she said, and Whet's attention, the whole crowd's attention shifted to her. Kit went stiff, breathed in once, twice, three times and tried to let the tension go. She placed the apple on to the top of her head, kept her spine rigid, kept her stance perfect; balanced. Please don't fall, she prayed between breaths. Please don't fall.
It didn't fall. Kit held her other hand open and Whet, smiling now, wider than she'd seen him smile all day, tossed her a third apple, very slowly, very gently. She grabbed hold, felt the fruit sway atop her head, but her stance was good, and still it did not fall. "One inch too far down," Whet told the crowd, his eyes wide, and left the audience to imagine the rest. They ooed, and awwed. Then, silence.
Kit resolved never to close her eyes. She swallowed, hard.
Darilava's expression could have been carved in stone, and gave as much away. He drew a knife from his set and mimed a throw with it. The knife hit the apple in her right hand. The audience did not whisper a word; their attention was for the apple on her head and nothing else. The rest was a prelude, a warm-up.
Careful, Darilava wound up, and Kit could see the crowd coming closer, pushing against the makeshift boundaries they had made to contain their show. People standing on the tips of their toes; if it ended badly, everything would be ruined. If it screws up, KIt started to tremble, imagined a dagger lodged in the center of her head. Her apple swayed back and forth, and she resisted the urge to reach up and steady it. Breathe, she bit her lip. calm.
He threw the other, and it landed in her other hand, when Darilava stepped forward, he reached back, grabbed hold of a knife and threw it sideways in a single motion, no practice, no check. Kit's eyes went wide, and someone in the audience shrieked.
. . . And the knife went too far to the right, clattered against the wall and fell to the street. 'Stay still,' Darilava mouthed, his brows nearly meeting, and Kit caught her posture moments before the fruit toppled.
The second time, the spider's knife caught the fruit, but the magic was gone. Their crowd's intensity was gone. Kit saw irritation flash across Whet's face for the first time. "Please," he pulled off his hat and left it on the ground, upside-down. "If you appreciated the show, and if you want this child to grow up well, leave us a silver or two in my hat. All we ask."
Whet stepped between Kit and the spider, grabbed hold of their wrists and bowed. Kit peeked up, saw no real excitement in anyone's expression. Not bad, they seemed to tell her. Not great, but good enough. |
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