Zenna’s eyes followed the lights. She caught the face of one of the mysterious people who didn’t fit in with the students, their bedazzled eyes fixed on the show master, a glass of sparkling wine in their hand. That was odd – this was an underage event. She dismissed it as the curtain rose onstage, wishing she’d stayed at the table for the front row seats. But it didn’t matter. The show was spectacular.


She didn’t need to be closer to know it was also impossible.


People flew. Leapt higher than humanly feasible. Lifted objects heavier than she could comprehend. Threw each other unbelievable distances, contorted into inhuman shapes, juggled flames that licked the stage’s proscenium arch. Danced in pairs with single-minded synchronicity.


None of it was effects.


She stared, enraptured, her intrigue over the performance shifting to wonder. An acrobat executed a stunning leap and tumble off the stage, catching a trapeze hanging next to the mirror ball and swinging wildly over the audience. Zenna gasped, and she caught his eyes, bright in the follow spot. Excitement burned, bubbling up her body.


Then the fire jugglers converged, the dancers bore torches, and the acrobats tumbled with flames in their hands. The trapeze artist kept flying low over the heads of the crowd, his laugh wild as he brushed at hair and hats and fascinators with outstretched fingers. He sounded young, their age, perhaps a year older. Zenna wondered if she’d be doing something so spectacular in a year’s time.


She wondered if she’d even be here.


The music changed key. A diminished chord, buzzing strings, crescendo, and everything happened at once.


The cast on stage dropped their torches and flames to the floor, then darted into the wings as fire erupted across the wooden surface.


The trapeze artist launched back to the stage, letting one hand fly loose from the bar as if reaching for something in the rising flames. Finding nothing except searing air, he returned to the swing, arcing back out over the crowd.


Again, he swung for the stage, this time hanging from one foot and reaching with both hands at the inferno, but again nothing.


A third time he swung, harder, faster, and this time, he would find his mark, change momentum …


He soared through the air.


A bolt of light arced out from the lighting rig over the stage, connecting with the boy’s outstretched hand. He let go of the bar.


And landed in the fire.


Zenna blinked, her stomach dropping as the boy fell. He’d had such control. She couldn’t believe it was an accident. There’d been no other swing for him to catch, nowhere else to go, so maybe mechanical failure, but if Zenna could see that, he would have too, and not let go. He’d leapt into the fire on purpose. A trick.


So why wasn’t he walking out?


Zenna went to squeeze Gabby’s hand again, but Gabby was gone.


It had been half a second, less, and the smell of sizzling hair and lycra hit Zenna’s nostrils, searing her throat. The boy screamed as he burned.


Zenna ran, shoving past people cheering and clapping – what was wrong with them all, the young man was dying – and reached the steps at the side of the stage.

A burly security guard stared her down, arms folded. ‘You can’t come up here.’


‘What’s happening?’ she asked.


‘Stay back, miss. Everything’s fine.’


Zenna gaped at him. ‘The show’s gone wrong! You have to help.’


The bouncer shifted his feet slightly further apart.


The smell of burning flesh mingled with the haze, and the screams dwindled. Where were the cast and crew? Why weren’t they helping? ‘Please. Just check.’

‘No. Go back to your friends.’


Zenna had no idea why she was the only person reacting to the performer burning to death on stage, but she had to try to save him. She feinted left, then darted right, but the man was quicker than he looked, and he grabbed her by the arm, pushing her against the wall. ‘Try that again, and we’ll kick you out.’


Zenna pulled away, and the bouncer let go, but his stance somehow took up even more of the doorway. There was no getting past him, and no time to waste trying the guard on the other side. She might already be too late.


She ran for the stage and leapt.