Free Steadfast by Mercedes Lackey

circles
     on the tabletop. “A girl like her, maybe alone in the world . . . a hard man would
     find it easy to take advantage of her, and most circus men I’ve met with are hard
     men.”
    It disgusted him, but Lionel had been in show business more than long enough to know
     Jack had probably hit the answer. After all, the kinds of girls he’d been getting,
     answering his advertisements, had not been . . . the nicest of young ladies. His sylphs
     hadn’t much cared for them, and neither had Jack’s Fire Elementals. So how was it
     that suddenly, the perfect assistant came calling out of the blue?
Because she isn’t all that perfect. She comes with a past.
“I think you’ve got it.” Lionel nodded. “Some circus owners can be brutes. Could be
     she ran off and broke her contract.” He ate the last of his ham, and followed it with
     a pickled carrot. “I’ll operate on that assumption until she tells me different. We’re
     going to have to break it to her that real magic exists, and train her.”
    Jack barked a laugh, and drained his pint. “That went without saying. I knew that
     the moment I realized what she was. There are no coincidences when it comes to magicians,
     Lionel. I think your sylph brought her here. You know how things are; if the sylph
     brought her here, so far as
they
are concerned, she’s our responsibility and we’d better see to it that she gets sorted
     out.”
    The elephant in the room finally having been acknowledged between them, they were
     able to dispense with it for the moment, and go on to homelier matters. When Lionel
     finally let his friend out the door, things were pretty much settled between them.
     They would wait and see how the girl managed, and only force the issue on her if it
     appeared she was being obstinately blind to the genuine magic going on around her.
    He locked his door and made his way back to his bedroom, turning out the lamps as
     he did so.
I’m glad that at least I don’t have to deal with this alone. Jack might not be a Master,
     but he is a damned fine Fire Mage. He can be the one to really train her. I just need
     to be the one to be ready to jump in if he gets in over his head with this.
    And Jack would be the one to try and coax the tale of her past out of her. Having
     Lionel, her employer, demand it of her might only frighten her. But Jack was an equal,
     and was friends to everyone in the theater. She should see that almost immediately,
     and with luck would come to trust him.
    It was as good a plan as they could come up with, at any rate.

4

    T HE magician seemed pleased with Katie’s costume, which fitted better than she thought,
     and was as easy to move in as any of her circus costumes. If this was an example of
     the Wardrobe Mistress’s work, she had no fear now that the new costume would be a
     hazard.
    “Excellent!” he exclaimed on seeing the two girls in the wings. “Now, I have a plan
     for the two of you, to slowly break young Katie in on the act. What I want from you,
     my dear young lady, is to caper about while you watch, carefully, what Suzie does.
     That is what you will do in the first few shows as well.”
    Katie looked at him thoughtfully, trying to think in her mind what her character should
     be. She had learned about
character
from one of the clowns, who had pointed out just how different each of the clowns
     was, and how each of them represented a distinct personality. After that, except when
     she worked with Dick, she had tried to do the same. So . . . it was clear from watching
     Lionel’s act that the magician liked telling a sort of story. How could she fit herself
     into that story? “I can caper, right enough—but am I on
your
side, or hers?”
    Either of those would do, really. Just so she had a side to be on. There would be
     a lot more enthusiastic capering if she were on the magician’s side, though.
    His eyes gleamed. “Excellent question. Which would you prefer?”
    It occurred to her in