Excerpt: With The Greatest of Ease

"I'm trying to convince him to go on the trapeze during the show, in place of Polly," Freddie explained.

Nic stood up straighter and gave Freddie a suspicious look. Benji recognized it as his big brother face. "Is this going to end with Benji humiliated in front of a large audience?"

"Maybe?" Freddie asked hopefully. Nic glared. "Fine, no. I just wanna see how it would go."

"Is this going to end up with a broken arm?" Nic asked.

"I only messed with the net one time!" Freddie exclaimed. "I didn't think you'd fall that hard! I figured you'd just sort of roll."

Nic pointed at his left arm, dramatically jabbing it with his index finger. "Scars! I still have scars! Horrific, disfiguring scars from where my bones splintered and tore through my tender, yielding flesh!"

Freddie didn't even bother looking. "Whatever. It was a minor fracture and those so-called scars are the nearly invisible reminders of a knife throwing incident when we were fifteen--"

"Also your fault," Nic added helpfully.

"Also my fault," Freddie conceeded. "So what do you say, Benji? Join us on the trapeze for once?"

"I wouldn't want to take away from Nic's spotlight," Benji said demurely, pretending to focus extra hard on the papers in front of him.

"That's a yes," Nic said cheerily. "He'd love to."

Benji rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. The crowd is paying for a real show, not to see some half-trained amateur get up there and fall flat on his face."

"Eh, they like it better when you fall anyways. You'll be fine, baby bro," Nic said, ruffling Benji's hair in an irritating way.

And that was how Benji found himself standing on the platform high above the audience on the circus' last night in New Leeds, waving and smiling with the plastic smile he usually reserved for investors fixed firmly on his face as he waved to the audience in a series of precise and vague motions.

And thirty seconds later found himself lying on his back on a coarse net, staring up at the little circle of night sky that he could see through the brigh red and yellow of the circus tent. There was the giggling and shocked noise of the audience whispering among itself, then Fritz's voice, amplified several times beyond usual.