Ringmaster

I look around at her. “What?”

She’s already moving away from the horses with the bucket of apples. “Come on, let’s try it. I’ll throw the apples, and you see if you can cut them while you’re juggling.”

“Why?”

She grins at me. “For fun, silly. Come on. My head’s been full of ideas lately and I like trying new things out.”

I hesitate, because I don’t do things for fun, and I’m loath to try anything with knives around Ryah. Unlike Aura and Arvid, she doesn’t understand how dangerous it can be.

Ryah’s looking at me so imploringly with her big blue eyes. Something about this girl makes me want to say yes when I’d tell others no.

I walk slowly over the grass until I’m standing about seven feet away from her. As long as I keep my distance, she’ll be safe. “All right. But stay where you are, and don’t come crying to me if Jareth bites you for messing with his apples.”

Ryah laughs, and I find myself staring at her. Her black eye has long since healed, and she’s slowly losing that pinched, hunted look. If throwing apples to me while I juggle with knives makes her laugh like that, then I guess I’m doing it.

I draw out three knives, two in one hand, one in the other. I start juggling, my eyes on the flashing blades as I keep a steady rhythm. “You see how the knives drop into my right hand? You want to throw the apple so that it reaches me just before I catch the knife.”

I glance at Ryah and see that she’s holding an apple and studying me carefully. “What am I aiming for?”

I think for a moment. “My shoulder, just a little to my right.”

She swings the apple she’s holding back and forth in an underarm motion, as if gauging the force she’ll need. Over and over, knives drop into my right hand. Catch. Catch. Catch. Then she throws the apple. I catch a knife, raise it swiftly to slice down through the apple, and throw the blade into my left hand. Two apple halves tumble across the grass.

“Ha!” I shout in triumph, still juggling. “Nice one. Go again.”

She throws, I cut, and the two halves go skittering off into the grass.

Ryah draws another apple from the bucket. “Okay, I’m going to get into a rhythm. I’ll keep tossing them to you continuously till they’re all gone.”

“You got it,” I reply, a smile still warming my face. Ryah starts to throw, and I cut through each apple, one after the other. Pieces of apple and flecks of juice fly around me. When every apple is cut, Ryah raises the empty bucket in a flourish. I do the same with my knifes, and we bow to the horses as if they’re our audience.

From inside their makeshift pen, they’re staring at their scattered apples in surprise. Laughing, we pick all the pieces up and feed them to the horses.

“That could be a part of your act,” Ryah tells me, letting Jareth snuffle an apple piece from her hand. “What if I threw things to you and you cut them in half? Or I threw things up in the air like targets.”

I wipe my hands on the seat of my jeans, frowning. “Targets? You know what I said. We don’t try out each other’s acts. That’s how accidents happen.”

She turns to me, eyes shining. “It would be fun, though. I’m not doing anything when you perform. I could easily switch costumes and join you in the arena. It’s not like I’d be handling your knives.”

Playing around to make her smile is one thing. Incorporating her into my act is another. I wouldn’t have agreed if I’d known she was going to get ideas about this, and I don’t want a partner. “I don’t like the idea of throwing knives around you, Ryah.”

“It wouldn’t be dangerous. I’d be standing at least six feet away from you, maybe more, like we were just now.”

I frown down at the apple piece in my hand, not saying anything.

“Just about everyone else in the circus does things together,” she points out. “Why do you have to do everything on your own?”

Dandelion noses at my feet, searching for any last slivers of apple. I join in on Aura and Arvid’s act, don’t I? All right, we’re not a trio, but I do juggle with them. Or is she talking about a different sort of on my own?

Ryah shrugs uncomfortably, the smile dying on her face. “It was just an idea. I thought it could be fun, that’s all.”

Her voice is stained with disappointment. I wonder if that’s how the others see me, too. As someone who holds himself separate. Aloof, even. I don’t want to be aloof, or for the first time that Ryah reaches out to me I turn her down flat.

“What if you threw rubber balls or something similar?” I suddenly say, without even meaning to. “Less messy than apples. It would take some practice catching my knives as they’d move differently.”

Ryah practically goggles at me. “You mean you’d like to try it?”

I watch her for a moment, breaking a piece of apple in my fingers. “I suppose there’s no harm in trying something new. Even something completely new.” I smile crookedly at her. “I’ve never had a partner before.”