Gerrit had helped shape the blade’s imbuement; the strength of his arms would never stop it. ?Branyek, no! I’m your friend!?
The knife’s deadly arc didn’t falter, but the air shimmered, and Filip’s heat-mirage slammed Branislav to the side.
In true-life, Gerrit’s boot heel caught in one of the field’s furrowed rows. Stumbling, clawing back to true-life, Gerrit landed on his ass in the mud.
Filip and Branislav hit the ground together, but Filip recovered first, punching Branislav hard in the jaw. A second punch, and Branislav slumped, unconscious. The imbued knife dropped from his hand.
Gerrit stumbled to his feet while Filip pinned Branislav, shouting for restraints. Iveta sprinted over and clapped Branislav in irons.
A few meters away, Gerrit heard screaming. More distant, a soldier moaned. Gerrit dragged his attention from the olive drab lumps of wounded or dying infantry. Before Branislav had imbued, he’d been shot. Branislav first. They’d help the others if they had time.
CHAPTER NINE
THE AUDIENCE FAR below the high wire gasped, and tingly anticipation bubbled through Celka as Uncle Andrik bicycled out from the platform to begin her family’s four-person pyramid finale. Their act tonight had been a perfect synchronicity of motion, winding the audience tighter with each impossible feat. Celka imagined the upturned faces below, tiny and moonlike in the dimness, waiting breathless.
A meter out from the platform, Uncle Andrik stopped pedaling, balancing on his bicycle. The bicycle had no handles and no tires, its grooved metal wheels fitting over the high wire. Demian settled a pole over Uncle Andrik’s shoulders while Grandfather climbed onto his matching bicycle. The pole hooked over Grandfather’s shoulders, forcing them to cycle in lock-step.
“Set,” Grandfather called, and Demian released the pole, leaving Uncle Andrik and Grandfather to balance.
Tightness gripped Celka’s stomach as Demian climbed onto the pole between Grandfather and Uncle Andrik. Nothing in the world compared to performing on the wire. The frisson of danger. The thrill of a perfect step. The audience’s gasps and cheers. On the wire, her family became one beautiful, unified organism of muscle and sinew and sequins.
When the Wolf called, she would have to leave all this. The thought left a sour taste that she tried to ignore.
Demian settled—one knee on the pole, his other foot planted in front—and reached out a hand. Taking it, Celka climbed onto his shoulders—step, balance, step. She crouched low and spread her arms like a hawk catching an updraft.
“Ready,” she said, and Demian flowed to his feet.
With Celka perched on his shoulders, Demian hefted his balance pole and walked to the center of the pole connecting Uncle Andrik and Grandfather. The audience aaaahed. A little burst of applause. Celka grinned, even as pressure built behind her eyes.
The audience thought they’d seen everything. She loved the moment when they realized that the Amazing Prochazkas still had tricks up their sequined sleeves.
Ela slid a wooden chair from an earlier trick onto the pole behind Demian. The chair had a half-moon cutout on the beam connecting its two front legs and a matching cutout between the back. Those cutouts fit over the pole, but keeping the chair balanced was up to Demian and Celka.
Demian braced one foot against the chair then, with Celka still balancing on his shoulders, climbed onto the chair’s seat. The world narrowed to Demian’s minute shifts beneath her, to the careful sweeps of her own arms, to a play of muscles tightening in her stomach and back.
In the week since the rezistyenti had brought news of the old woman, Celka’s thoughts kept turning to imbuing. Pa had explained that imbuements required supreme focus. Celka imagined it as similar to working the wire. While Demian executed the delicate maneuver of climbing onto the chair, nothing else existed. Nothing could exist or they’d fall. So instead, the world tunneled away.
Most people thought time marched at an unwavering pace, each second as long as the next. Those people had never walked the wire.
Demian planted his feet firm on the chair. Celka stayed crouched, waiting for his wobbles to dampen out.
Demian straightened. “Set.”
Once Grandfather and Uncle Andrik had steadied, Grandfather spoke Celka’s name. She rose to her full height, triumphant, grinning, and raised her arms overhead.
The audience gasped. Some cheered. Others, afraid to break the spell, waited while Grandfather called them into motion.
With each turn of bicycle wheels, they inched further across the ten meter gap separating the two platforms. The triumph of standing upright on Demian’s shoulders narrowed into supreme focus. The audience vanished, Celka’s attention settling within her body.