Mechanique by Genevieve Valentine, Kiri Moth Page B

as she walked.)
    “I love you,” I told her. We were piled together in the canvas-haul truck, our feet dangling over the back. We were kissing, and I had one hand crushed against her hair. (It would take days to wash off all the bootblack.)
    “All right,” she said, and kissed me.
    “She loves me,” I told Ying.
    She brushed the chalk off her hands and stood up from her squat. “Well, there you are,” she said.
    I grinned. “Let those Grimaldis tease me now,” I said, and flexed my arms.
    Ying smiled tightly. “Yes,” she said, “now they’ll just tease Valeria.”
    I hadn’t thought of that. I frowned. “They wouldn’t do that to the woman I loved.”
    “If you say so,” said Ying, examining her hands.
    “Ying,” snapped Elena from up on the trapeze, “if you’re done gumming the sweat off your palms, we need to practice.”
    A moment later Ying had vanished, and all I saw before she reappeared on the rigging were a few flour-white handprints on the support pole where she had pulled herself up into the sky.
    Valeria left that year.
    The dancing girls all leave; they come in and out like the tide. Sometimes they leave between one performance and another, if they find a cause to fight for or a job to hold down. Nobody blames them—no one is here because the work is easy—but it’s hard on Ayar when he steps into the ring and sees only three dancers waiting for him.
    When Valeria left the circus, it was to become a baker in a civil-governed city that was still mostly standing. (Nice work if you can get it.) She kissed me goodbye.
    She left her name behind. The next girl who joined up with us liked the sound of it when she saw the name taped on the bunk, and this new Valeria slid on the same skirts and strapped on the metal cast and took her place in the ring. She answered to Valeria for two years, until she went, too. (She found a man and married him; the only one I knew who left for love.)
    The Grimaldi brothers said it was bad luck to take the name of the departed to start with.
    “You should tell her where to get off,” said Altissimo, jerking his thumb at the other Valeria. I looked over. She was practicing with one of the other dancers (Malta, long gone), both laughing at how silly it looked to shake your hip and smile.
    “Let it be,” I said.
    It was the first time I had ever opposed them, and Moto and Barbaro exchanged glances.
    “He loves this one, too,” Moto said, and Barbaro laughed.
    I didn’t love her, never did, but I couldn’t find it in me to dislike the new Valeria; it was a pretty name for anyone, and she wasn’t the same girl. The new Valeria was sharp-witted and had rough hands from years of hauling ropes at one of the port cities. Sometimes she carried canvas with me, and we laughed about the rubes, but it wasn’t as though she replaced the Valeria I’d loved. It wasn’t as though I would see her silhouette in the window of the women’s trailer and mistake her for my Valeria.
    “You worry too much about names,” I said.
    Altissimo said, “You worry too little.”
    When Bird fell, Ying came running out of the tent, stumbling and choking and calling for Boss to come and help, but she looked so guilty that instead of running inside to help Bird, I grabbed Ying’s hand.
    “What happened?”
    After a little pause Ying said, “She fell.”
    She wasn’t a good liar. I frowned. “Like Alec?”
    “No,” she said, shuddering, “no, no,” and when she started to cry I wrapped her in my arms—more to muffle the sound than anything.
    I had never been so close to her before, so close to the chalk smell of her skin and the pulled-tight knot of black hair and the gold makeup that had started to run from her crying.
    “It’s all right,” I said. “Boss will fix her.”
    “I know,” said Ying, and then a fresh storm of tears.
    I didn’t understand her. I held her closer.

25.
    When the group of soldiers clears out, what’s left behind is a pair of glass mugs, and the