Forge

[Todd]

This is one of the ones I keep coming back to. I haven't commented up till now as its taken me awhile to collect my thoughts. Hopefully, some of this will help with the revision.

            She was a contortionist sword-swallower and a failure. Her brother, estranged, was a contortionist sword-swallower and strongman with a business, producing bespoke throat bent ironwork. --So we are introduced to the siblings. Very alike yet perceived differently. The big difference seems to be that unlike the sister the brother can bring changes to the blade. She is more of a receptacle. She becomes the art in a way but is not the artist. You see why they are estranged at least on one very basic level. He can transcend the simple elements of their shared craft. I think this is  tightly written and works well. One possible suggestion to keep the structure more symmetrical is to end on business. You could than reveal the type of business in the next sequence (I'm not sure that would necessarily be an improvement just something you might look at to mix it up in the revision). Possibly starting with, "He produced bespoke throat bent ironwork. He'd won prizes..."
            He'd won prizes. He had a profile in the New Yorker, he was an artist. She was just a performer, touring cross country under a shroud of sawdust and candyfloss. This sequence has a good pacing. I like the staccato delivery of it. It also has the sense of being repeated over and over by the sister herself. You can hear the self-loathing in it.
                Every evening she draped herself around a blade, bending with the crowd's ooos.--Transient to her and unsatisfying. She was a candelabra of cutlasses, a human vane in the night-wind.--Very good because this makes her more object than performer. She becomes something that is more acted upon than act. Her own self-identity.  But no matter how good her act, she was not satisfied. For each time the supple metal righted itself, impressed only with the ghostly slick of her gut.--Thematically nice as she cannot change the blade by working with. The key difference between her brother and rival. 
                The tent was put up and taken down. The people blew in then out. The blade inserted and withdrawn. Limbs switched and returned. Her pointless manoeuvres left no imprint upon the sword.--I'm less concerned about the pun and more bothered by having the outcome spelled out for me. I'd consider removing the period after returned and condensing "Her pointless manoeuvres left" to "with" 
                 The taste of metal lingered.--like this. She billowed and bloomed like a jellyfish, transparent and torpid. Her coiled body a fallow tract, a whorl to nowhere, animated only when she put her sword in.--The source of her disappointment, the reminder of her disappointment also is the only time she appears to have a sense of life in her. I like the sequence and the imagery here. I prefer this ending to the original. Possibly you could also choose to end with her unwilling to pull the sword out locked in a Schrodinger's cat type dilemma. It might be good to leave her stuck. Just a thought

Not sure how helpful any of that was, but I did enjoy what you've written.

Best,

Todd