Emili was already tired beyond belief when she woke up, but the blaring honking of a panicking taxi outside hadn't shut up quickly enough to let her stay asleep. She remained curled up in bed for a minute before rolling onto her back and stretching out. Her feet ached a bit, but her entire body felt much better than it had before.

She kicked the blankets off and checked her phone. She'd slept like a baby for almost six hours. Although she yearned for more, she knew she'd totally ruin her nights if she didn't get up now, and besides, if she took too long, Sherlock might forget that the entire point of shooing her into his room was so he could get her quickly and just leave without her.

She took a minute to stretch and prepare herself to go out, only just noticing her rumbling stomach. The girl made the bed quickly, re-fluffed the pillows, and pulled the door shut behind her when she left everything as it had been.

"Afternoon," Sherlock said, his back still to her when she came out. He was looking up at his wall of fascinating things. The books were slightly less messy, but by the lack of his excitement, she guessed he hadn't found what he was looking for. Her shoulders sagged. What a waste of time. "You consider yourself normal, yes?"

She eyed him warily. Something that started that way probably wasn't good. She answered while crossing to the kitchen in search of a snack to curb her appetite. "Less and less so, as of recently."

"What's a book people like yourself would own?"

Emili opened up the fridge and was disappointed by what she saw. How did John even survive when he got the munchies? She took a bottle of plain water out, since she wasn't a huge fan of coke, and relished the coolness on her skin.

"Um… dictionaries, thesauruses, religious books… we're in England, so most likely a Bible. An encyclopedia." She shook her head. Those were staple things. Emili owned a thesaurus for school, but for anything else, she used the internet, and she wasn't religious. People like her – other teenagers – were unlikely to have those. "Pop culture, I guess. Harry Potter, Hunger Games. Some people like Stephanie Meyer…"

Sherlock's lip was curled in distaste when she gave him another look. "That's not very helpful," he complained.

"You didn't ask the right demographic," she told him, rolling her eyes and paying more attention to the kitchen. "I'm sixteen." She opened up the cupboards, didn't find food, and tried others. There was a pack of energizing protein bars that she reached easily. They must've been bought by John. "We're dealing with men in their thirties who smuggle priceless antiques, not girls with too much free time."

The door opened with a click and a little, modest creak. John came in, all cleaned up and looking suspiciously more rested than he had been when he'd left. He started to take his shoes off with a slight smile. Emili hoped he'd had a good first day at the clinic, but was afraid that mood was about to come to a halt.

"Ah!" Sherlock spun around, determined. "John. Excellent. What's a book you-"

Emili ripped open her energy bar. "Somehow, I don't think this tactic is going to work," she commented before taking a big bite and humming appreciatively. It had a slightly sweet flavor, like honey had been added, and tasted overall better than she had expected.

Sherlock paced for a few minutes. John looked bleakly at his favorite chair, laden with books, and began to painstakingly move them out of the way. Emili ate the entire protein bar, decided she was hungry enough for more, and stole a second one from the box before putting it back where she had found it.

"… I need to get some air," Sherlock announced suddenly. "We're going out tonight."

"Where to?" Emili asked curiously. She didn't have to force the interest in her voice. London still felt kind of novel to her.

"Actually," John coughed, arms full of books while he moved them out of the way. "It'll just have to be the two of you." Emili and Sherlock both looked at him blankly, and her brother even appeared slightly insulted. John gave them a very awkward smile. "I've, er…" He coughed. "I've got a date."

Emili's confusion cleared and she nodded understanding. Sherlock just looked even more displeased. "A what?" He interrogated.

John blinked, then seemed to decide that if anyone didn't know what a date was, it would be his socially stupid roommate. "It's where people who like each other go out and have fun," he explained.

Sherlock just stared back at him, disappointed and a little affronted. "That's what I was suggesting."

Emili had been taking a drink, but now choked on her water. After swallowing painfully, she turned her head into her arm and laughed.

"No, it wasn't." John replied. Then he had to realize that he wasn't actually entirely sure, and added, "At least, I hope not." The awkward, pouty silence from Sherlock made him gesture over at the pink-haired accomplice. "Take Em. Bond with your sister."

We've been bonding for days! What, did John think Sherlock was going to take her to the mall? Not unless they sold cadavers for scientific experiments, and in that case, Emili was pretty sure she'd rather stay home.

"To bond is to establish a relationship founded upon shared experiences and interests." Sherlock recited at John like he'd read it out of a dictionary. "Emili and I have bonded more in this past month than I have with my parents in the last many years."

"I don't know if that's flattering or just sad," she remarked uncomfortably. They hadn't done a ton together, other than exist in the same general space while doing different things and solving cases that they happened to find. "Is it Sarah?" She asked John to change the subject.

"Yeah… how'd you know?" John didn't seem challenged or defensive like he would have if Sherlock had been the one asking. Both of the Holmes siblings looked back at John almost piteously. John sighed. "That obvious, was I?" He asked rhetorically.

"Where are you taking her?" Emili asked, politely showing interest. She'd never had much interest in dating before, but her friends had, and she understood why people liked it, and expected she'd be doing some of her own sooner or later in the future.

"Ah…" John blanked for a moment and it showed on his face. He chose something comfortable and normal on the spot. "The cinema."

Sherlock snorted. "Dull, boring, predictable." Emili was ninety percent sure that her brother had just completely missed that all of those adjectives were the entire point of John's choice. Also, he'd missed 'safe, familiar, and public.' "Why don't you try this?" He swept a piece of paper off of the mantel. It made the whooshing noise when a wind was rushed around it. He carried it over to John, who had only just sat down, and dropped it on his lap. "In London for one night only."

Sherlock was the last person Emili expected dating help from, so she was dreadfully curious just to see what he was suggesting. She looked over the back of John's chair. It was an advertisement flyer for a Yellow Dragon Circus, an event hosted by a traveling Chinese troupe. The graphic design featured a dark, shadowed image of a woman in elaborate, exaggerated traditional garb, and superimposed over her was an acrobat entirely in black with long ribbons streaming behind his hands.

John chuckled and put it aside without a second look. "Thanks, but I don't come to you for dating advice."

"Actually, it's not a bad idea," Emili said in surprise. She would have thought her brother's idea of an ideal date would include something like a crime scene or maybe a murder museum. Maybe a symposium on chemistry or something. "Just keep the clowns away from her and it could be a lot of fun." John looked over his shadow and Em hastily explained, "I don't like clowns."

Sherlock left the center of the room and went back to his favored place before the fireplace. "Caulrophobia." He stated simply.

"What's that?" John looked up, thinking he'd missed something, while Emili threw a dirty glare at the detective's back.

"The phobia of clowns," he answered, missing the hint from his adopted sister.

John started to smile. He tempered it quickly, but she had already seen. "In America, it's not called a phobia," Em huffed, crossing her arms with the water sloshing in the bottle. "It's called survival sense. Do you have any idea how many murderers have dressed up as clowns?" She demanded. Sherlock ignored her. John looked alarmed and discomfited, looking off towards the wall and imagining an evil clown. "Look up John Wayne Gacy sometime," she told the doctor defensively.


Emili was making yet another go at Pride and Prejudice in the break between the action. Sherlock had been unusually calm and patient the entire day, and even brought her up a sandwich from Speedy's for dinner. It occurred to her to be suspicious, but she couldn't imagine what he was up to that involved niceness being a bad thing, and her sandwich had tasted fine.

"Emili, are you coming?" He interrupted her rereading of the same damn page for the second time, since she kept losing her focus. When she lifted her head, startled, he was turning down his coat collar and already had on his boots.

"Yeah, yeah," she hurriedly pushed her book aside. "Where are we going?"

He smiled at her with a mischievous, mysterious glint in his light blue eyes. "The circus," he answered.

She actually perked up and smiled. That sounded like one of the better "field trips" he'd ever taken her on. "Cool, a cir-!" It took her just a second, and when she got it, her face fell. "Wait…"


Emili really liked to pride herself on being the nice one. The social one. The tactful one. To the world, Mycroft was the powerful one and Sherlock was the painfully smart one, the one who was so intelligent that his intelligence basically turned the rest of him into a train wreck. Emili liked to be the one who actually got to have friends and talk to other people and who was known as a semi-regular person. It was nice.

Except she was breaking her own code of general niceness by violating John's privacy with Sherlock. On one hand, she was more than happy to stay out of his business and leave well enough alone. On the other, she was both eager to find any clues they could, and wary of letting John take himself and Sarah so close to the killers. She really hated that Sherlock had set up John for a dangerous situation without telling him. To that end, she could've just called, though, so that justification wasn't working out too great for her.

"It's so rude to crash his date like this," Emili huffed again, crossing her arms and hugging herself against the frigid air. The circus was taking place in a very old recital hall in East London. It had been deserted for years after being foreclosed on and was occasionally rented out. The walls weren't very good at keeping in heat, so the building felt cold and smelled a little bit musty.

"Wasn't it rude to leave us to the books for so long?" Sherlock counterargued, mostly to see if he could stop Emili from distracting him with her complaints.

"Sherlock, he has a job!" She hissed at her brother, and tiredly wondered why she was even trying. "To pay rent, and – and to buy your groceries!" Sherlock, as far as she was concerned, was a freeloader, though she was pretty sure John confiscated a percentage of Sherlock's consulting fees for monthly payments.

Sherlock clicked his tongue errantly. "Tedious. I don't have time for trivialities."

Emili muttered impolitely, "No, of course not." John had repeatedly shown Sherlock that if the detective pissed him off, all would be well in a couple days. Her brother really had no reason not to do something rude.

The location was pretty big, but the typical fixings of any performance area – bleachers, chairs, or an otherwise elevated area for the audience – were absent, leaving it an unfloored, wide open clearing in a rectangular shape. The walls up were thin with yellowing and cracked plaster, and a lot of the trim had rotted away. It was barely up to code. In fact, Emili was pretty sure that if there hadn't been so much else to smell – popcorn from the outside vendor, perfumes from attendees, and a greasy, varnishy smell which she wasn't even sure what was – she suspected she would have been able to sniff out some mold.

In the front of the hall, however, there were slightly different rooms in better condition. White linoleum was laid down in the first part of the building, which held a reception-like booth. To the right were bathrooms, and there was a large, open space with nothing in it but a bulletin with a couple of flyers for the circus pinned up. Windows were located up high, close to the ceiling, and were left wide open to help the air circulate.

Sherlock put an arm out to stop Emili from continuing towards the welcome booth right as she saw John's familiar hair. He, with the blonde doctor on his arm, went to the disinterestedly-smiling Chinese man behind the table. John didn't appear super thrilled, but then she couldn't see his face. Sarah kept looking around, almost impatient but ever curious. They made a cute couple.

After giving them a minute to speak with the greeter, Sherlock put his arm down and swept his coat behind him, sweeping over the gap to walk behind John. Emili tagged behind, resigned to being a date-crasher and possibly having to do her own shopping over the week.

"No, I don't think so," John was politely but stubbornly telling the man. "We only booked two."

"And then I phoned back and got one for myself and Em, as well," Sherlock piped up over his shoulder. John jumped and tensed, and looked over his shoulder slowly to glare irately at the detective. Sherlock looked down at the cold, aggravated eyes and replied, "You told us to bond."

The greeter looked down to the counter and took up the tickets from the roll, handing them over to John. John was too busy being pissed to notice, so Sarah took them instead and amicably started ripping them apart from each other on the perforated edges.

"I swear, he did that while I was out of the room," Emili promised, physically crossing her heart when the doctor turned his eyes on her, accusing and incredulous.

Sarah tapped John's shoulder and held out two tickets. John took one and Emili reached past him to take the other, while the female doctor also offered a third extra towards Sherlock, who took the ticket with one hand and clasped her hand suddenly in the other.

"I'm Sherlock," he greeted, playing nicely, but the sudden, unexpected handshake had clearly thrown Sarah for a loop.

"Er…" She pulled her hand away as respectfully as she could. "Hello."

"Hello," he mimicked, possibly not knowing how to make any further introductions.

This is going to be a long evening.


Sarah went to the bathroom to "powder her nose" (Emili hated that phrase, what did it even mean) and John wasted no time in pulling both of his apartment-mates aside, close to the wall, out of the way of the other people in the lines to use the restroom before the show. Emili checked her watch and saw they had about ten minutes before it started.

"You couldn't let me have just one night off?" John demanded Sherlock. Most of his ire was focused on the adult, knowing the sixteen-year-old wasn't fully to blame. Emili looked over to her left and watched the people come in, curious if she could spot anyone interesting.

"The Yellow Dragon Circus, in London for one day," Sherlock repeated the flyer. Although he appeared to be unbothered by the anger, he was a little worried that John would just get mad and storm off, and while Emili knew it could happen, she also knew it was unlikely. "It fits! The Tong sent an assassin to England-"

John interrupted him to sass, "Dressed as a tightrope walker?" Before Sherlock could specify that he was actually an aerialist, the shorter man spat, "Come on, Sherlock, behave!" Her brother had better things to do than act as a cockblock most of the time, but John was apparently convinced that Sherlock wanted attention. "And how come you didn't stop him?"

Emili picked her head up again when she was spoken to and lied, "You weren't answering your phone when I called." Before he checked his phone to see if he actually had a missed call – which he didn't – she went on, "Realistically, this is the place the killer's going to be during the show. Would you rather find out afterwards that you were oblivious that you'd brought your date to the company of a trained killer?" Unfortunately, it wasn't a rhetorical question.

"We are looking for a killer who can climb. Who can shin up a rope." Sherlock stressed, and pointed his arm out towards the entry to the performance hall. "Where else would you find that level of dexterity?" In another plea, he reminded, "Exit visas are scarce in China. They need a pretty good reason to get out of that country." A circus – which advertised talent, kept them culturally engaged with the rest of the world, and might influence some tourism – was a good reason. "Now, all I need to do is have a quick look around the place-"

John held up his hands to stop him, not interested in hearing anything more. "Fine," he relented with forced calm. "You do that. I'm gonna take Sarah for a pint."

Sherlock scowled at John. "I need your help," he said, making a slight face like the words were sour. Or maybe just unfamiliar.

"You have Em following you around like a duckling!" John exclaimed, gesturing at the girl in question emphatically.

"Hey, I resent that!"

"What do you need me for?"

Sherlock looked to his side at Emili as if sizing her up. She glared weakly at John, hands stuffed in her pockets. Just because she was at Sherlock's beck and call for the case didn't mean she wanted it pointed out. She didn't want her pain-in-the-neck sibling to be getting any ideas or expectations.

After a few seconds, during which John smugly thought he had made his point, Sherlock declared persistently, "We need your help."

Emili covered her mouth to hide a snort. "Trying the flattery thing?"

Sherlock nodded to her. "I want to see how it goes." His lip was just barely curled in shared amusement.

John looked aside. Emili's right was his left, and he glanced over the people walking past to see if Sarah was returning from the bathroom yet. He rubbed his hands together and turned back to Sherlock. "I do have a couple of other things on my mind this evening," he tersely objected.

Sherlock looked totally affronted. "Like what?"

John just stared dully and dropped his hands. "You are kidding." His question was flat.

"What's so important?" Sherlock questioned, not taking the hint.

John glowered. "Sherlock, I'm right in the middle of a date! Do you really need me to chase some killer while I'm trying to-" He caught himself right before he said something else and his cheeks turned a shade darker. It was barely noticeable. He pursed his lips tightly and looked away, checking for Sarah again.

Emili saw her when she did the same, pulling her hair down to lay over her shoulders smoothly. "What?" Sherlock asked, drawing John's attention away before the veteran had rotated his neck far enough to see.

Unfortunately, he rose to the bait, raising his voice to snap. "While I'm trying to get off with Sarah!" Right then, she reached their party and stopped at John's side, quietly asking him what he'd just said while looking uncomfortable. John awkwardly pasted a smile on his face. "Heeeeey…"

Sherlock thought through the words and acted as though they disappointed him, shaking his head and departing for the show. John apologized to Sarah very awkwardly, she equally awkwardly told him it was nothing, and let him force some excitement back into their tones while he offered her his hand.

They left Emili standing by the wall for a moment. "Get off?" She repeated after John, blinking. "What does that – oh." She remembered the slang suddenly and felt a wash of severe secondhand embarrassment. "Oh."


It took prodding from Emili, but she convinced Sherlock to let John have some of his privacy. The circus looked to have a much bigger crowd when people were passing in the reception space, but in the recital hall, people were more able to spread out. Sherlock, John, Sarah, and Em all went to the left side of the building, standing in the dry, dusty bleachers under yellow and orange lights. To their right was a quick exit, though dozens of people were between them and the door. To their left, a short stage only two feet high sat, only five or six feet of which protruded into the performance hall from the backstage, which was the furthest part of the building.

The stage was closed, dark blue curtains pulled across to signal its inactivity. The ring in the center was marked off and illuminated in a warm, comforting glow of tall candles nestled safely inside steel trays, so even if they were knocked over, the fire would be contained. Even with all the fire, the space was large, and so the lighting remained only just enough to watch the show. Emili had to applaud the setup. It seemed mysterious and gave a certain atmosphere of anticipation and suspense.

Sarah and John stood only a foot back from one of the candles, in the first row so they'd have an excellent view. Emili didn't want to be so close to the front in case Zhi Zhu really was there and recognized her, so she dragged Sherlock a few rows back and remained standing to see over the people in front of her. Sherlock stood with her and put his arms around her, holding his hands clasped in front of her stomach so that they were close enough to talk and wouldn't be jostled apart by the people moving to find spaces.

Because they'd been waiting for Sarah to use the bathroom, they didn't have very long to wait before the show started. Three heavily cloaked figures walked out from backstage. One was short and done up in elaborate Chinese performance makeup, her face done in a porcelain white with rouges around her eyes and crimson lips. Her headdress was a mix of whites, silvers, and reds, with golden feathers peeking out on top and braided tassels hanging down towards her shoulders. While the other two people both wore plain black robes, the elegant woman wore a long dress with a collar up to her neck. It looked like satin or velvet. The flickering lights of the candles meant Emili couldn't tell whether it was maroon or dark pink, but either way, it looked gorgeous, especially with the elaborate lavender and gold sewn and embroidered on in vaguely floral patterns. Her sleeves went down to her wrists but stopped at precisely the right length, while the hem of her gown almost touched the floor, tailored for her height and body.

Someone out of view began to make a drumbeat. It was loud and thrumming, echoing around with fantastic acoustics, but the hand beating the drum began striking harder, creating an eerier, deeper noise that became more militant the closer that the woman in dress came to the center of the ring. The men who had come out with her each carried with them something. One wheeled a tall rectangular shape with a cloth over it to conceal what it was, and the other carried a bulky, awkward object, also underneath a black sheet. They both placed their objects in the ring while the drumbeats reached a crescendo and the woman stood patiently, perfectly still. The bulkier one went to the lady's right, while the rectangular one was stood up on its own and remained closer to the stage.

Both of the black-clad men moved to the outskirts of the ring, halting by the stage and turning so that they were facing their ringleader. The Chinese casted her eyes, sharp and cunning, around the ring. Emili lowered her chin slightly, hoping not to be seen. Swiftly, she raised her left hand. The drumbeats abruptly stopped, and in the reigning silence, Emili felt her heart still pounding to the rhythm.

Sherlock lowered his head so that his chin was by her shoulder. "In a traditional performance," he whispered so as not to disrupt, "That would be the Opera Singer."

Emili could believe it – the makeup looked dramatic enough. It was pretty, though it made the woman difficult to identify. As they watched, the Opera Singer took the cloth off of the object placed in front of her. On a small, wheeled wooden table, a shiny plastic crossbow sat. A precisely-carved wooden arrow was already notched on the bow string, which was pulled taut. The man standing closer to the rectangular prop pulled the cloak off of it to show that it was just a wooden stand while the leading woman plucked one of the golden feathers off of her headdress. The feathers on the arrow matched its color.

After turning around in a full circle so everyone in the audience could see what she was holding, the Opera Singer looked down at the crossbow. There was a small, shallow bowl on one end that served as the trigger mechanism. She let go of the feather. It floated down quickly and brushed into the weight dish as it landed, and the moment it dropped in, the arrow fired to the wooden board.

Emili jumped. Several shocked exclamations and anxious gasps made their way through the surprised and excited audience. People always seemed to enjoy watching sharp objects be used for entertainment. Sherlock didn't react, and his hold on his sister remained constant.

Sarah was one of the audience members who reacted viscerally. Emili wasn't entirely convinced that her dramatic gasp, followed by the hand over her chest, was completely authentic. John laughed when Sarah did and pushed his hands into his pockets, watching with interest.

The strictly-timed drumbeats began again. This time there had to be two of them, because the sounds were layered over each other, even louder and more foreboding. The Opera Singer gingerly laced her fingers in front of her abs.

From the stage came a loud, enraged roar. It served its purpose and got everyone's attention as three more people came out from backstage. Two of them, again, were in the plain black cloaks, while they wrested the third between them while he appeared to struggle. All of them, Em guessed, were men. The one in the middle was wearing lots and lots of chainmail, so much that every step and combatant shake of his shoulders rattled. The ornate costuming made him look like an ancient warrior, and he even wore a large, carved mask over his face, through which Emili guessed there were small holes in the pupils of the mask to see.

Both of the black-clad aids had linked chains dangling around their arms. The warrior character fought and growled, snarling like a caged tiger. The illusion was almost lost when his guides pushed him up against the wooden post and he stayed instead of running away. While he puffed and fumed for the benefit of showmanship, the demonstrators wrapped their chains around him at once, pinning him quickly to the wooden board. The chains looked like they had some slack, but not enough to escape. One of the men, who had a hood from his cloak up and kept his head down to obscure his face, held a padlock over his head for almost fifteen whole seconds before he added it to the act and locked the warrior in.

At the same time, the Opera Singer withdrew another carved arrow with the same color of feathers from the second tier of the wooden table. She nocked it into place on the string and pulled it back tightly, hooking the string around the little ledge that was pushed down when triggered by the weight. The crossbow was pointed right at the warrior, and if the display a moment ago had used the same adjustments, then the next arrow was perfectly positioned to slam through the man's heart.

Emili didn't realize that she was breathing slower in anticipation until Sherlock spoke in her ear again and startled her into jumping. "Classic Chinese escapology act," he muttered. She sighed and looked away, swallowing and recomposing. "The crossbow's on a delicate string; the warrior has to escape his bonds before it fires."

One of the men in black pulled on the chains from behind the block. The warrior's collar was pulled back flush against the board and he shouted gutturally and incoherently to protest. Emili flinched sympathetically and scratched her fingernails against her palms. It looked very uncomfortable, and very dangerous. The two men in black stepped away and they moved to take up positions across from the first two.

The drumbeats came faster and closer together. Whoever was hitting them was doing it harder now and the emphasis on the loud, harsh repetition put Emili's body on edge. As the drums reached a new crescendo of volume, cymbals, or at least the sound of them, were used. The sounds of the metal slamming together made Sarah jump, this time less dramatically, but she seized the opportunity to up her flirting game.

The doctor grabbed onto John's arm, even though if it had been impulsive, she would've done it when she heard the cymbals, not several seconds after. "Oh, God, I'm sorry!" Emili was barely able to hear her yell to John over the clashing cymbals and the banging war drums. John smiled at her and laughed politely, and he kept smiling down at her hair for a few seconds, even after she had looked to the circus again to watch the act.

The teenager was beginning to detect a routine. As she had with everything she'd used so far, the Opera Singer first showed the audience her knife by holding it above her head. It was a cute little dagger whose blade twisted and came to a glinting point. Behind the scenes, someone must've operated a pulley, because Emili saw a tan bag being lowered down to less than two feet above the Opera Singer's head. Positioned directly above the weight on the crossbow, just a couple feet away from the bag, also descended a black, circular lifting weight.

"She splits the sandbag," Sherlock explained, walking Emili through the steps just moments before she saw them for herself. The Opera Singer looked up to her knife, turned it in her hand so she held the handle firmly in her palm, and stabbed it into the tan sack. She withdrew the knife and Emili could just barely see the grains of sand beginning to spill out, and only when the light flickered the right way. What she could see was that one of the ropes on the sand bag grew slack as the pulley that had been used to hold it and lower it was cut and withdrawn, leaving it to pour out its sand and rise gradually while the weight on the other end of its rope sank. "The sand pours out. The weight lowers into the bowl."

The Opera Singer took a step back from the sand and from the crossbow to show that she wasn't interfering. It was solely up to the warrior to get free before that arrow went flying at him and possibly speared right through his likely imitation armor. A gong echoed, and the warrior took it as his cue. He began to struggle, yelling in angry tones and crying out like he was making war calls. His arms bulged while he pulled, jerking his body side to side in emphatic shoulder shimmies. The chains were at least half as strong as they looked, and they didn't want to give.

Emili looked to John and Sarah. Sarah's nervousness was clear in how she was actually holding onto John without paying him much attention, fixated on the warrior character. John seemed interested in the way that he was interested when the Daleks fired at the Doctor on Doctor Who reruns – he wanted to know what happened, but he knew it would all be fine. They wouldn't really kill one of their performers, would they?

Em really didn't want to watch someone be murdered. On the other hand, she knew that when circuses boasted seemingly impossible feats, they were typically rigged to avoid the firestorm of misfortune that could come from someone being injured (or killed) in their stunt. The people who walked on tightropes five stories in the air had all the spotlights on them to build drama, but what the lights neglected to show were the safety nets underneath. Performance escapologists were the same way. There had to be a trick to the chains. Maybe there was a camouflaged button release on the padlock, or they weren't actually strong at all and the man was exaggerating for effect.

He contorted his arm in a way that suggested to the pink-haired girl that he needed to go to the hospital, but seemed able to move just fine when he got his left arm free from the chains. The sand kept pouring and the weight kept lowering, only a few feet above the depressor.

Through more grunts, screeches, and determined puffing, the warrior fought against the chains and wrenched himself continually from the board as if that would somehow loosen the chains instead of holding him back and giving him bruises. The other arm came out so quickly that Emili wasn't entirely sure how it had happened. All that was left were the chains binding the man's shoulders, stretching horizontally across his collar.

The weight dipped to less than two feet above the cup. The warrior reached both freed hands up to either side of his neck, grabbed the chains, and pulled, struggling with them with the illusion that he was using his full strength. Although she was picking apart ways that it could be set up, Emili had to applaud the performance. Even though she was pretty sure it would end fine, she was still wound up tensely when the weight came so close to the crossbow that it seemed certain the arrow would fly right then.

She, and most of the audience, were so fixated on watching the weight fall that they ceased watching the warrior. When the crossbow was violently sprung and the arrow sailed, two loud thuds were audible. One came from the warrior dropping underneath the false bindings and landing solidly on the ground, "narrowly" escaping certain death. The other was from the arrowhead embedding itself almost entirely in the thick wooden post.

Sarah sighed in relief and clutched her hand over her heart. "Thank God!" Em heard her pray, and she thought she heard John say something, as well.

The army doctor looked over his shoulder and up to check on them. Emili forced a smile to prove they were okay, but John frowned over her shoulder and turned his questioning eyes on her. She tipped her head back and realized with a shock that Sherlock had disappeared sometime during the last part of the trick, and she had been so distracted by the act that she hadn't felt his arms moving, much less seen him walk away.

She felt cheated, almost. Why would he bring her here, but then abandon her? If he saw something that made him realize the circus was just a circus, why wouldn't he attempt to drag herself and John out to be more productive? Her frown settled on her face and deepened into a scowl, exacerbated by her headache, which had come throbbing back to life by the drums.

During the loud, rambunctious applause for the near-fatal performance, the drumming stopped. The warrior was helped up by the two men who had come into the hall with him and aided to his feet. Then one secured the chains to the board, another retrieved the unloaded crossbow, and they all quietly, sneakily returned to the shadows by the stage to disappear behind the curtain.

The Opera Singer raised her hands halfway. "Ladies and gentlemen," she called, speaking for the first time. Her voice was definitely feminine. Her English was clear and her accent was noticeable, but faint. "From the distant moonlit shores of the Yangtze River…" Sarah excitedly turned her head to John, glancing at him before looking back at the performance ring. "… We present, for your pleasure, the deadly Chinese bird-spider."

The spider.

The Opera Singer began walking in the direction of the stage, her dress following after her. It was longer in back than in front, which Emili hadn't noticed before. She hiked it up a few inches as she stepped over the candle ring to make sure it didn't catch light.

As she stepped neatly up the stairs to the stage, headed after the other three who had just left, the two black-clad assistants who had come out with her initially followed in single file behind her at a nonverbal cue, right as a large figure began to fall from the high rafters.

It only took Emili a second of the surprised murmuring to realize that it was an aerialist. The acrobat rolled down a long, thick, red nylon ribbon and caught himself about six feet in the air, holding himself parallel with one hand wrapped in the cord above him and another clutching the length that hung below.

"Did you see that?" John asked Sarah, impressed, clapping his hands with the crowd politely.

Emili had always loved to watch aerialists, but this particular performer had none of her admiration. "Zhi Zhu…" she whispered to herself. His face was hard to discern in the lighting (which she was beginning to think was intentional), but it had to be him. He wore long, billowy black pants that cinched at the waist, and a tight black muscle shirt tucked into the waistband. His arms were strong and muscled, much like his defined abs visible through his shirt.

Zhi Zhu changed his balance and reached with the hand below up, grabbing the nylon above him. His legs shifted down and he bent his knees to give himself more of a swing. On the return swing, he split his legs and hooked one around the ribbon, holding it in the crook of his knee while keeping the other gracefully extended. He swung in gentle, slow circles around the nylon while he skillfully let it slip through his hands, bringing him down close enough to the floor to straighten his legs and land.

He split the band of ribbon and gave it a yank like someone would to unfold a sheet. The ribbons separated more noticeably. Both were thick and strong, but seemed more manageable as two pieces. Zhi Zhu gripped one silk in each hand and wound the cords around his wrists, leaving only about two feet extra.

The man began to run, prancing around the marked-off arena in a wide circle. Emili watched his hands carefully. As he moved, he slowly rotated his wrists so that he was subtly taking up more and more of the slack. Before long, he had enough momentum to pick up his legs and swing out, over the candles, and kept rolling his wrists so that the ribbons took him higher. He seemed to fly, with his knees bent like he was sailing, the remaining ends of the ribbons streaming in his wake.

Sarah and John were impressed. John, Em was frustrated to note, didn't seem to be drawing the connection between the amazing acrobat and their no-longer-anonymous assassin. Where is Sherlock? She wondered again, looking briefly over her shoulder to try to catch a glimpse of the detective. He should be seeing this.

The Spider kept the small crowd occupied with his tricks in midair. He twisted and turned, always gracefully holding onto the aerial silks with at least one hand and often had them wrapped around part of his body. His preferred method of entertainment seemed to be demonstrating different ways that he could scale up the heights almost to the rafters, then descend again without missing a beat, and sometimes he would even make thrilling "drops" and long swings to catch himself.

The location was perfect for making sure Zhi Zhu was the center of attention, and that's why it was so weird when the stationary curtains, which hadn't moved at all since the start of the circus, fluttered up on the stage. It stole her attention away from the athlete for a second and she eyed the place as the fabric settled. Less than a minute later, it happened again a little further down.

Zhi Zhu, who was suspended halfway between the roof and the floor, had his arms and legs spread. The ribbons were wound around his wrists again. Putting his legs together, he swung three, four times and got enough power to do a flip. He kept going once he'd started, backflipping his way closer and closer to the floor as the ribbons unwound, finally landing neatly on his toes to more quiet applause.

As the silks sashayed with new slack, the peaceful reverie of the recital hall went to hell. A person's body came flying out from the center of the stage between the curtains. Emili recognized Sherlock's Belstaff coat in a second, and pursuing him was the Chinese warrior from the first act. A strong kick to Sherlock's stomach and a shove on his shoulders sent him sprawling on the floor way off the stage and inside the circle of candles.

Emili didn't waste any time. Sherlock was alone in the ring with a very muscly combatant and an assassin who had already kicked her own ass twice before. John was only slightly behind her in crossing into the ring, and the delay was just because he had to shake Sarah off his arm first.

The warrior leapt heavily off the edge of the stage, landing in front of Sherlock. He was holding up what looked just like a huge, primitive brown club. Sherlock started rolling aside as Emili shrieked, purely to surprise the warrior when she slammed into him from his side.

The warrior, to be fair, was not going to be taken down by a sixteen-year-old with no real fighting experience to speak of. Emili was pretty sure she winded herself more than him, but her sudden tackle pushed him to stagger aside, and his downward swing with the club missed Sherlock entirely, between the displacement and her brother's own flight. The club dropped to the ground and a massive, meaty hand grabbed her through a rubbery glove meant to look like ancient iron gauntlets. She squeaked, and with a knee to her thigh and the hand giving her a hefty push, the warrior made her feet leave the ground, too.

Her distraction gave John the chance to get over, but before John could even attack, the warrior had grabbed him and stuck out a leg, shoving him forward to trip him over. Emili rolled onto her side and saw that the small audience was running, panicking and rushing the exit as quickly as they could. Zhi Zhu was still standing in the ring, ribbons around his wrists.

She locked eyes with him for a second and recognized him beyond a doubt. Those were the eyes she'd looked into when she'd thought for more than just a moment that she was going to die.

Right as she came to the conclusion that they were all royally screwed, Zhi Zhu released his silks and ran, sprinting for the exit. Emili swallowed hard and crawled further away from the scuffle, getting up to her feet again.

A sharp rubbing sound of metal on metal met her ears as she turned around, putting her hand down to open up her small purse. The warrior brandished an iron dao sword and swung it around like it belonged in his hand the way Indiana Jones could wield a machete.

Sarah had skipped the fight entirely. John was still down and Sherlock was holding his head, trying to shake it off and come back, and haltingly shuffling back from the fighter and his weapon. The blonde doctor bent over and stood up again with the first arrow that had been shot. The aids had had to remove it before they could bind the warrior onto the block for the escapology trick, and they must've left it on the ground.

Sarah grabbed the end with the feathers, crushing them in her hand, and rushed the warrior from behind. She smacked him in the back of the head as hard as she could with the arrow. He had on his mask still, keeping them from seeing his face and stopping the arrow from doing much more damage than stunning him.

The teenager found what she was looking for in her bag and rushed to help. If it were just Sarah and her arrow versus the really pissed off warrior, the blonde would be snapped like a twig. Right as he lumbered around, raising his sword and advancing on Sarah, Emili shoved her elbow in to push Sarah out of the way and pressed down on the depressor of her pepper spray. Her canister hissed while orangey fumes blew at the mask. She concentrated it in swipes across the eyes, knowing that enough would get through the eyeholes to temporarily handicap him.

While Emili's eyes watered from the proximity, too, the warrior screamed in Chinese and dropped his sword, covering his face with his bulging forearms. Emili stepped back, coughing, and shoved the top back onto her pepper spray can.

"Liver shot!" She yelled, gasping and blinking tears from her eyes.

Sarah understood immediately. She switched the arrow to her other hand and changed her hold so she could swing it like a pipe. The blonde swung it hard at the warrior's torso, hitting underneath his pectorals. The warrior groaned and screamed, and Sarah repeated her hit a second time. This time it incapacitated him, and the Chinese collapsed to his knees and then to the ground, all but unconscious.

Emili coughed again, eyes still burning. It wasn't nearly as bad as it would have been if she'd gotten the full blast of it, but it was not pleasant. "That was awesome!" She cheered anyway, blinking rapidly.

Sarah dropped the arrow and put her hands on her hips, stretching her back. "Just another Sunday night, you know?" She panted, preening a little in pride.

Em laughed in relief and the women high-fived over the warrior's legs. John stumbled towards them with an arm down over his ribs. Sherlock, finally with his breath back after the hard fall he took, doubled over and pulled off the warrior's right moccasin. There on his heel was the tattoo of the Tong.

Sherlock dropped the shoe and gave the warrior's leg a light kick. "There could be more of them," he warned, looking around guardedly.

John grabbed Sarah's hand, wheezing slightly. "Come on," he hurried her.

"Are you okay?" Emili asked, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head.

Sherlock nodded and groaned softly. "Just winded. Let's go."