In the square behind the station, the Aurora Circus tent had sprung up, red and white, glistening with dew. Trucks lined up in a semi-circle, and the smell of roasting sugar mingled with the grease. People came from the city, curious to see something new. Dogs ran between the wagons, someone practised a trumpet, someone else stretched ribbons. A rope swung from the top of the dome, thin as a line, almost non-existent in the dusk. Lena knew this rope better than her own hands. She had been on the rope and trapeze team for three years, learning from Zoya, who juggled her balance like embers. She wanted to make her debut today in the night's no-net number, her first in Aurora in years. Mr August, the director in a cylinder, was whispering about sponsorship and tickets about to sell out. "Without a net sounds harsh," he said, "but we promise silent insurance." Except that the insurance had no face, it only had a signature on a piece of paper. In the afternoon, Lena found a box from old shows in the storeroom, locked with a brass bolt. Inside lay a faded poster: Number without net - today only, Niko's name shot in gold. Beneath the poster, a seashell from a circus shrine and a notebook in which rehearsals were noted. The last note ended with the sentence: "The silence in the audience lasted too long". Someone had added in pencil: "If you step on the rope, count the steps to nine". The window was darkening, the musicians were tuning their drums and the illusionist Mirabela was practising her mirrors. Mietek, a clown in washed-out make-up, handed Lena a chalk and lowered his voice. "Nine steps are sometimes happy, but don't press the tenth". - he muttered, pretending to be joking. As Lena checked the tension, she felt the steel subtly sing, as if someone had touched it with a fingernail. A shadow of a man flashed by her on the technical platform, hiding behind a spotlight and not answering questions. The time had come. The audience whispered as the light bulbs went out and a string of lamps chalked up ellipses of heat. Mr Augustus stepped into the light and spun a quiet tirade about courage, tradition and the fine line between fear and awe. Lena climbed the ladder, slowly, hearing the drums and her own breath pounding against the vault. A balance bar, an umbrella and woollen gloves waited at the top, in one of them a card with two words: "Trust the number". She looked down and saw a boy in the front row, counting to nine on his fingers and closing his eyes. She put her foot on the rope and felt a tiny tremor, not coming from her own body. A metallic hiss came from above, as if someone had loosened an invisible zipper. The headlights flashed twice, although the signal was supposed to be a single one. Lena lifted her umbrella for balance and shifted her weight, counting in her mind: one, two, three. Then a pulley on a steel hook, above the very centre of the arena, squeaked, and something like a shining blade or mirror flashed in the darkness above the rope. The whole tent held its breath, and Lena, suspended between step three and step four, saw that the shadow by the spotlight suddenly moved towards her.