Circus Orbit's tent looked like an inverted sky that night, stitched together with dark blue stripes. Metal ribs hung under the dome, it smelled of rosin and the sand muffled the steps of the technicians. Lena, seventeen and knees full of bruises, warmed her feet to her rope. A circus without animals, instead with stories told with flesh, light and risk. That night she was to walk above the audience, between two flagpoles, on a thin steel thread. Director Ravel checked the rhythm of the programme, while stage manager Nadia nodded at the entry list. Oliver, Lena's older brother and a juggler, tossed his tentacles as if greeting the air. Someone slipped Lena a crumpled piece of paper with two words under the fencing tape: "Look underfoot". At first she thought it was a clown joke, but fingers sweat at jokes differently. She showed Nadia the piece of paper; the technicians looked at the rope, reinforcing the tension as if the words had weight. Towards evening, the wind from the harbour tightened the tent sheathing, and the audience hummed like the sea. Lena performed a ritual she knew by heart: touch the rope, count the knots, check the harness. When she lifted the belay lunge, she noticed jagged fibres at the carabiner, as if something had bitten them. She shuddered, and not from the cold, but from a sudden, sober realisation. Nadia immediately replaced the lunge, checked the knots and had the incident recorded in the report. "Someone is messing with the rigging," she muttered, without looking at Lena, which was worse than shouting. Before the drums called the spectators to silence, Lena climbed the ladder to the launch platform. From above, she could see the row of chairs, the dancing spotlights and Oliver's chestnut hair by the backstage area. He handed her a bag of rosin and, in a whisper that trembled, added: "Don't look down, just look forward." She showed him her thumb in response, though out of the corner of her eye she noticed a shadow gliding by the lifts. The shadow moved too surely for a newcomer, and disappeared as the strobe light came on. An entertainer in a black tailcoat melted his voice into the air, promising a balancing number over the heads of the guests. Lena checked the carabiners again and spotted one worn inverted, marked with red fibre. The words from the card came back, like a refrain, and spread across her skin with a cool, persistent shiver. A signal came from below, two short strokes on the timpani, although the appointment was a single one. Nadia looked up; her gaze stopped on something above the rope, indistinct but moving. "Lena Nowicka!" - rang out from the loudspeakers, and she lifted her foot over the steel wire as something snapped. The shadow by the lift moved an inch away, as if waiting for exactly that movement.