Page 72 of Tricks for Free

“We must practically seem like statues to you,” I blurted.

She blinked, painted-on eyebrows rising, before she smiled in sudden understanding. “It was the source of a lot of early cultural confusion,” she admitted. “Our ‘hair’ always gives our feelings away, unless we cover it, and for a gorgon to cover their heads in private is a grave insult. We didn’t understand that humans could stand there with their heads uncovered, and tell us lies, and be believed.”

“That makes sense,” I said softly.

“I treated the wounded, after the parade collapsed. I held hands. I listened to people asking if we’d seen their children. I’m just a resident. I shouldn’t have been doing half the things I was doing, but the hospital was overwhelmed, and we had to take care of everyone. Whoever’s using you to boost their luck-theft, they’re killing people now. I’m in this until it’s over. You should know that.” Megan’s voice remained calm, and her snakes grew more and more agitated. “Whatever I can do, I’ll do.”

“Me, too,” said Fern.

“Me, three,” said Sam. He flexed his hands again, before scowling. “I still can’t change, but I feel like I’ll be able to soon. It itches.”

“Well, don’t touch me again until your luck’s grown back enough to protect you,” I said. He looked hurt. I shook my head. “We need you at your best. That means fast and sturdy and capable of blending into a crowd. Right now, you’re not blending anywhere outside of a comic book convention.”

“I’ve never been to one of those.”

“Then when all this is over, I’ll take you to one.”

“When all this is over . . .” He paused, looking at me seriously. “Are you gonna go home when this is over?”

I slumped into the couch. “I can’t.” Sam looked like he was going to protest. I raised my hand, cutting him off. “Not ‘I don’t want to,’ Sam, I can’t. The problem that has me running hasn’t gone away yet. I just ran into a different problem. Lowryland is being controlled by unethical human magic-users who’re harvesting luck from their guests because who the fuck knows why. Because they’re power-hungry assholes. But they’re not the Covenant. If we beat them, that doesn’t magically make the Covenant go away, and it doesn’t magically make it safe for me to go back to my family. It just means I find another place to run.”

“I always wanted to be a member of the A-Team,” said Sam philosophically.

I blinked at him. “What?”

“If you’re still running, I’m coming with you,” he said. “No offense, but this ‘I can do it on my own, just watch’ bullshit hasn’t worked out too well, so I figure it’s time we try a little ‘we have vigorous sex in every cheap motel between here and Maine’ bullshit. At least that’ll be more fun.”

“I’m coming, too,” said Fern. “Not for the sex part. I have headphones.”

“I’m not,” said Megan. “No offense, Annie. I didn’t go to medical school and put my family in debt to run off and play medic for your weird fugitive adventures. I just want to survive whatever the hell is going on at Lowryland and make it home to my parents. You being a Price makes sense—sweet Medusa, does it ever—but it doesn’t exactly encourage me to stay around you. Even if you might be able to get me your brother’s autograph.”

“No offense taken,” I said. I stood. “I need weapons.”

“Be still my heart,” said Sam.

I wrinkled my nose at him as I walked out of the living room, into the hall, and past Cylia—still on her phone—to my bedroom.

When I’d fled from the burning carnival, I’d been as close to devoid of weaponry as any Price ever got. I’d been running virtually naked for the better part of a year. Back home, I would have had an arsenal at my disposal, all the knives, guns, and more esoteric weaponry that a girl could want. Having a family obsessed with combat techniques and staying alive, and a grandmother whose idea of an appropriate gift for a little girl was a box of caltrops, had done a lot to distort my idea of what “normal” levels of weaponry were.

Working at Lowryland meant no weapons, ever, because normal people don’t feel the need to hide twenty throwing knives in their clothing before they leave the house. Staff didn’t have to go through the metal detectors, but accidents happen—lord, do accidents happen—and I had no faith in my ability not to stab someone who got overly aggressive, which happened sometimes on days when the rides weren’t behaving, and the weather wasn’t behaving, and the tourists felt like they needed somebody to complain to. So I’d taken to keeping most of my paltry supply of weaponry in a box under the bed, where I could reach it if I needed it, but otherwise wouldn’t be tempted to start carrying it again.

I knelt. I pulled the box out. I looked at the heap of throwing knives—two full sets, one provided by the Covenant as part of my cover story for the carnival, one provided by the carnival once I had started working there—and other, slightly more makeshift weaponry, marbles and sharpened jacks and hand-braided wire garrotes. I took a deep breath. That didn’t seem like enough, so I took another, focusing on the homecoming those knives represented.

No more Timpani Brown, Covenant trainee. No more Melody West, ex-cheerleader and Lowryland employee. Just Antimony Price, Annie, the girl I had been born to be, the girl with fire in her fingers and no real sense of where she stood in the structure of a family that had an heir and a spare and her, youngest child who didn’t know who or what she should grow up to be.

Or maybe I wasn’t that Annie anymore either. I knew who I wanted to grow up to be. I was going to protect my family, and I was going to protect my friends, and I was going to learn how to use what I’d inherited from my grandfather, even if it meant joining my grandmother in her endless, quixotic quest to bring him home. I had a purpose now. Maybe it wasn’t the purpose I’d been expecting, but . . . it was mine. That made it more than good enough.

One by one, the knives vanished into my clothing, settling against my skin in the old, familiar patterns, made new again by time and distance from the last time I’d been allowed to strap them on. I wrapped the garrote around my wrist like a friendship bracelet and filled my pockets with problems for other people to deal with. When I was done, I was fifteen pounds heavier and felt a hundred pounds lighter, like I had borrowed Fern’s shifting relationship with density.

The last thing I did was pull the knife from under my pillow and slide it into my sock, and I was back. I was myself again.

The others turned to look at me when I returned to the living room. I held up my hands, turning them back and forth to show that they were empty.

“Nothing up my sleeves,” I said. A flick of my wrists and I was holding a pair of throwing knives, balanced between my thumbs and forefingers. We live in a world where magic is real and monsters lurk under more than a few beds, but there will always be a place for sleight of hand.

Sam grinned. “Does this mean you’re ready to get angry?”

“I guess it does,” I said. The knives disappeared back into my clothing. “I guess it’s time for all of us to get angry.”