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There is no terrifying rack of drills and ratchets, no coils of cord to lash your bones back in place. There is no Boss to inflict her will on you, to build you up and wake you with a new name and a body she knows will look good at the center of the stage.
    For you, the world narrows to a single point as you step inside the workshop. (This is what happens when you take a step; you are moving closer to something you want.)
    For you, the workshop is only the roof that has been pitched over your waiting wings.

12.
    The knife thrower was a soldier in the last great war.
    “Unofficially,” he says, which sounds like he was a resistance fighter, but truly means he was on the wrong side when the dust settled and the other government was in place.
    He has an answer ready, though, when people ask him where he learned to throw. “There were lot of rats in my neighborhood,” he will say, and laugh.
    His assistant’s name is Sarah (he thinks; she changes it a lot). She hardly speaks—she’s a little simple—but she’s thin enough that it’s almost impossible to actually strike her with a knife no matter where on the wheel you aim, so he pays her enough from his takings to keep her around. His knives get awfully close to the skin, sometimes; he doesn’t want to imagine what might happen if his next assistant is tubby.
    The Circus Tresaulti is camped two miles outside town the day he decides to audition, so he loads the wheel and Sarah in the truck, and drives out into the hills until he reaches the camp.
    The camp is a half-circle of two dozen vehicles fanned out behind the tent, vans and trailers and painted wagons lashed down to truck beds. He unloads the wheel carefully—paint is hard to come by if something chips—and Sarah, and pops on the top hat he’s managed to protect from two wars since his soldiering days (the hat collapses, so he can strap it to his back and carry it anywhere). By the time he has the hat on and Sarah is all strapped in, the circus folk have made a little audience around the wheel.
    He starts with the patter; he doesn’t believe in wasting time.
    “Ladies and gentleman,” he calls out, “prepare to enjoy a feat of death-defying dexterity!”
    “We’ve all enjoyed them,” says the brass-covered hunchback, and the strongman says, “You can tell because we’re not dead yet.”
    There’s a ripple of laughter among the watching crowd that the knife thrower does not like.
    “For the owner of the Circus Tresaulti, I will give my finest performance,” he goes on (no use wasting all his rehearsal). He gives the crowd a quick scan; he sees the tall, slender man who looks like a leader and nods curtly. The man raises an eyebrow, half-smiles, nods back.
    The knife thrower clears his throat and throws five knives, one by one, near Sarah. It’s child’s play for him; it’s just a chance for him to make sure the blades are balanced. The first round can go on for ages if the crowd claps after every knife, but this group is just staring at him, so he gets it out of the way.
    After the first round he collects the blades from the board, spins the wheel, and walks five paces. Then the knives fly from his hands all at once, thunkthunkthunkthunkthunk into the wood. The last knife slices through the end of Sarah’s ponytail and pins the lock of hair to the board.
    Silence greets the big finish, and the knife thrower looks at the tall owner and squints, not understanding.
    After what seems like an hour of quiet, a fat woman emerges from the crowd like a puddle of oil. She walks past the knife thrower without looking at him, straight to the board.
    “You want a job?” she asks.
    Sarah nods.
    The woman waves her hand as she turns to go, and a boy jogs forward and starts to undo the straps.
    The knife thrower warned people off the Circus Tresaulti every night of the run. “A pile of thieves,” he said. “They took my assistant! They’re a den of tricksters!”
    It didn’t stop anyone from going. The