by Gwenda Bond
He circled Dez and then me, looking at us both. “I don’t see any under-eye shadows, any signs of frantic despair. I don’t think you’ve been trying hard enough. How best to motivate you?” He made a ticking sound, his tongue hitting his teeth.
In my mind, I heard Brandon’s scream. My own breathing grew shallow. I also didn’t know how to use my magic against the Rex. Not with nothing in my hands. Could I try to transform a stray coin in my pocket into something of his to hurt him, like I had accidentally done with the penny and Dez? Incapacitate him that way?
“Rex,” my mother said, “you’re scaring Moira.”
“It’s time to scare Moira. She’s one of my subjects now.” He lifted his hand and slapped me.
My cheek stung, and my hand went to it. I couldn’t believe it.
“Interesting,” he said. “You don’t know how to fight back. Good. Your little trick with the hammer made me wonder.”
“I do,” Dez said.
“I do think you are a good motivation for her,” the Rex said. “Old Silver-Tongue’s son has clearly inherited his charm with the ladies.” His eyes migrated to my silent mother for a moment. “Here’s your new motivation. If you don’t find that damn coin before this foolish season ends, then Dez gets the dirt. The worms. The rot. The endless silence. You get what I’m saying?” He clapped his hands together. “Now do you still need Mommy’s help?”
I nodded, my hand on my stinging cheek. “I wasn’t lying.”
“We’ll leave you two to it, then.” He clapped a hand on Dez’s shoulder. “It’s time for your performance, isn’t it? I’ll help you. I’m beginning to feel like maybe bigger things are in store for you after all. You’re important now.” The Rex turned and met my eyes with his. They seemed to be all pupil. Black and filled with endless meanness. “She’s made you that way.”
Dez stiffly left with him. I prayed he’d return unharmed.
Neither my mother nor I spoke until after I went to the tent flap and checked outside. “They’re gone.”
“You’re lucky it was just a slap,” my mother said. “Now you understand. Why I didn’t want him to know about you.”
“Yeah, well, too late.” I considered her. “Do you really not fight because you’re low on magic?”
She looked down. “If you fight and you lose enough times, you decide not to go into battle anymore. Dez’s father . . . I could have been something like happy with him. But this Rex started out bad and got worse. That’s why I didn’t want you there. Why I went to your father.”
“Why have me at all?”
“The Regina must pass on her power. Otherwise we’re cursed. The Rex doesn’t know that. The important thing is I saved you.”
I couldn’t read how she felt about any of this. She wasn’t giving me much in the way of emotion.
“Thanks for trying, but I’m not feeling all that saved. If only you and Dad would have told me the truth.”
Was that fair? Would I have let it go, or would I have investigated and tried to find her? It was impossible to know.
She stood up. “Give me your hands.”
She took them in hers and held them lightly. “The magic in the coin is akin to your magic. To find it is a sort of call-and-response. Think of opening a door, and your magic is right at the threshold, all of it. You have to call it up. Or imagine the magic being right at the rim of your cup, if you’d rather think of it that way. And then call out for more of that same magic to answer you. You should be able to go right to it.”
“I don’t get it. You haven’t done this already because you don’t have enough magic left. How do you reach out and push mine away, then?”
She hesitated. “That’s different. My magic isn’t close enough to the top to call out for more. There may be less magic in the world now, but it’s still here for a reason. It has its own fail-safes built in. If every person running low could just gas up with more or steal from others, then it would all burn out in no time.”
“You mean the way you plan to use the coin?”
She shrugged one beautiful shoulder. “Its magic is our birthright, and our magic is special.”
I tilted my head, considering. “Would you use that magic for battle?”
My mother was still. “My battle days are behind me.”
“I’ll find it.” I pulled my hands out of hers.
But would I hand it over? Not without some way to avoid the Praestigae, becoming a shadow instead of a magician at center stage. And not without a way to keep Dez from the dirt.
“Don’t wait too long,” she said.
I thought about telling her Dad was coming next week. Even if I’d found it, I wouldn’t want to hand it over before then.
“He said Dez has until the end of the season.”
“I’ll try to remind him of that, but in case you missed it, he’s not the most patient.”
“Whatever you can do.” The heart-shaped penny was in my pocket. “One more question,” I said, taking it out to show it to her. “I made this, back at the beginning of the season, and Dez felt it. He collapsed with heart pain. If you won’t do battle, maybe I can. Is this how’d I use my magic to . . . hurt someone?”
She motioned for me to drop it in her palm, and I reluctantly did. “Dez wasn’t hurt after you made this, though, not permanently?”
“The doctor said no.”
She weighed it in her palm and passed it back to me. “Sometimes our magic knows more than we do. There is a magic behind things that it can touch, but we can’t, not directly. You transformed something that was real but insubstantial into something with form. You hold Dez’s life in your hands. You have since you made this.”
Her words stole my breath. Dez’s life was mine to protect?
She gave me a tentative smile. “Probably since you met each other. I didn’t have to try hard to recruit him as my spy.”
“Are we having a girls’ moment?” I asked, incredulous. Not wanting to show her how much Dez’s life meant to me.
“Is that so hard to believe?” she asked. “I’m your ally. Not your enemy.”
The tent flap rustled, and the Rex came in first. I closed my fingers around the penny and put it in my pocket.
“Now this is a sight I like to see,” he said. “My beautiful, dangerous girls together.”
Dez behind him had a thin cut slashed on one arm, seeping blood. I went to his side. “What happened?”
The Rex answered. “Just a little nick. I helped with his act, like I said.” He grinned. “We’re just one big happy family, my girl. As long as you do exactly as I ask.”
“You’ll have your coin by the end of the season.”
He walked over and offered his arm to my mother. “What if we want it sooner? The Praestigae have struggled for too long.”
“You made a deal with me,” Dez said, “and, by extension, with her. By the end of the season. We don’t break deals with our own.”
“She didn’t know that,” the Rex whispered. “Fine,” he said, raising his voice. “Just find it.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
“Do better than that,” he said. “Show her something real, my queen.”
Between one moment and the next, my mother went from beautiful with tacky lipstick to a wan woman with a swollen lip, a bruise on each of her cheeks suspiciously like thumbprints. Her appearance had been an illusion. She was using her magic.
“Enough,” he said.
And she was back to beautiful and perfect again.
After they left, Dez pulled me into a hug, both of us shaking. I held on to him hard.
“I’ve never seen her end up hit before,” he said. “Or so quiet.”
I had no reason to doubt that my mother cared, that her concern for me was genuine. How far that went versus her loyalty to the Rex, I couldn’t say. She’d been using her magic, but how much it cost her to was an open question.
“There’s no way to know what’s real,” I said. “But we do know what’s valuab
le to them.”
I had to find the coin, fast.
thirty-five
I picked at my waffle the next morning at the breakfast mess.
Dita had her practice clothes on. The Garcias were rehearsing a new bit this morning. And I was going to summon all my magic to find this coin.
Dez and I had been too rattled to do much more than report back on our conversations the night before. He’d been spooked by what a good mood the Rex was in. I had told Dez everything except the part about holding his life in my hands.
“Hey, I’ve been wondering,” Dita said, “is something wrong?”
You could say that. “No, why?”
“You’re barely eating, and you’ve been really quiet lately. Is it something to do with Brandon?”
He’d gotten released from the medical bus, and he was now on strong painkillers and staying in a much better spot, which he called “a pity upgrade.” He called it that to Dez, at least. He more or less ignored me.
“Or Dez?” she asked.
“It’s a lot of things,” I said. “Nothing I can really talk about. What about you?”
Dita glanced around us, as if we were in danger of being overheard. We weren’t.
“I’ve been seeing someone.”
I hadn’t expected that. “Who?”
She gave a wry smile and tapped her fingers nervously on the tabletop. “Not like that—a therapist. For a few weeks now. Thurston set it up. Over Skype.” She was quiet, then she said, “It’s helping, with the Sam stuff and the rest. He gave me something, and it’s really been good, I think. Although I felt a little fuzzy for the first week. Now I . . . I only imagine screwing up in the air every few days.”
“That’s great,” I said, and meant it. “I’m glad you felt like you could tell me.”
I also felt like dirt, because she shouldn’t trust me.
Remy and the blonde twin flyers who were also in their act were approaching, so I gave a warning. “Your rehearsal partners are here.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You can tell me, whatever is bothering you. I just want you to know that.”
Oh, but I can’t.
“Thanks back. Now go spin around really fast in the air.”
She laughed and got up. I did the same, dumping my barely touched waffle on the way out.
I made my way to Dez’s compartment, which was where we’d set to meet this morning. He was waiting, sitting on the edge of his bed, watching for me. “Hi there,” he said, and gave me a lingering kiss. “Are you sure about doing this?”
“Once we have the coin, we have something they want.”
“You are something he wants.”
“Well, he can’t have me.” I hesitated. “Do you think my mother’s telling the truth about her magic being almost gone?”
What he’d said about her acting differently and not usually being a victim of the Rex’s violence had stuck with me. I had a feeling there was more to her story than what she’d confessed to me so far. But I also felt guilty for doubting her, and for wondering how much she was capable of manipulating me.
“I don’t know. They would never admit she’s running low to anyone. You were the first I’d heard it from. They said they wanted the coin back because it was ours, would make us powerful and lucky again.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know. If she runs out, she dies.” Yet she’d been using magic to change her appearance the other night. She said casting illusions used less magic than transformations did, but based on the times I’d seen her at shows and at that house in El Paso, she did it constantly.
“There’s no way you would run out,” Dez said, “is there?”
“I don’t think so. Not soon,” I said, though I had no idea. According to my mother, what I was about to do took a lot of magic, more than she had left. But better for him not to worry about that. I waved him aside. “Move over.”
After he did, I sat down cross-legged on his bed.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
“Just magic.” I closed my eyes and did as my mother had said.
I called to my magic, and when it came, the feeling of being in a fixed place in the universe faded. The bed I sat on might as well have vanished. I pictured the magic filling me up, almost running over the edges of the cup, and when it felt like it was bigger than me, like I was a speck in its ocean and it would protect me from everything, taking me anywhere I needed to go along its currents, I sent out my request . . .
And the other magic answered, like a distant voice responding to my question. Like it was pulling me in toward it, so I could hear it better.
The thing is, I recognized it. It wasn’t mine, but I’d felt it before.
That first day in the tent, that sensation of something pulling me up toward the top of the tent.
This had the same . . . texture. A taste, almost.
I stood up. “This way.”
I led us across the grounds, floating on the fullness of my magic, toward that answering call.
When we turned away from the big top, I frowned. But the call was strong, and I followed it into the maze of performers’ homes. We wound through trailers until we were at the familiar silver Airstream, the mural of Remy and Dita on the side.
“Seriously?” Dez asked. “It’s been here the whole time?”
I didn’t bother to shush him. The call from inside was too forceful. I unlocked the door and went straight back to . . . the room Dita and I shared. The call reverberated through me so loud that it took a moment to pinpoint the location.
I went to the closet and brushed my hands across Dita’s suits. Then I knelt and reached toward the very back. There was a rough carpet on the floor, and I tugged up the edge and felt for the point that was calling to me.
My hand closed around a small piece of metal, and the jolt of power nearly made me black out. I scrambled back and closed my eyes, curling my fingers around the coin tight. I wanted to hold on forever. My magic didn’t want to let it go.
“Moira, are you okay?”
The fear in Dez’s voice reached me.
With effort, I forced my fingers open and dropped the coin onto the floor. Then I pushed my magic back down inside me, silencing the call. It didn’t want to go, and for a moment, I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it. That this time it would consume me.
Finally, it ebbed.
I opened my eyes.
Dez was obviously freaking out, hovering over me.
“I think I’m all right.” My voice sounded strange to my ears.
“That was insanely scary,” he said.
He pointed at the coin on the bare space of floor between the closet and Dita’s bed where I’d dropped it. “So that’s it. It was right next to you all along.”
“I don’t think it was here all along,” I said. “Dita hates it.”
I remembered Jules and Remy’s whispered conversations, and then Jules showing up with that gift for Dita. Those slippers. The coin seemed to whisper yes to me.
“They planted it on Dita. She must have figured it out.”
“Do you think she’ll notice it’s gone?”
I considered. My fingers itched to grab the coin again. “I doubt she’s even looked at it since she put it there. We should just be glad she didn’t know how to destroy it.”
Dez leaned over to get a better look at it. I did too, though it felt dangerous, like tempting fate.
Closer, I could make out the shape of a head engraved on it, and Roman numerals. An ancient Roman coin from the Circus Maximus—valuable even without a drop of magic in it.
The front door opened, and Dez and I both jolted.
“Moira?” Dita called out. “You here?”
Using my T-shirt to keep my skin from making contact with the metal, I grabbed the coin and jammed it in my pocket. I didn’t want to touch it again because of how badly I wanted to.
Dez jerked me over onto my bed, mussed my hair and put his arms around me.
Dita appeared in the door
way and immediately looked up at the ceiling and turned around. “Oh God, guys, I’m sorry. I—”
“No,” I said, sitting up. “We shouldn’t . . . We didn’t mean to . . .”
I still felt strange. The presence of the coin in my pocket was impossible to ignore.
Dez jumped in. “What I think Moira’s trying to say is we accidentally got carried away. Sorry.”
“It’s your place too,” Dita said weakly, disappearing in the direction of the kitchen.
When she was gone, I looked at Dez. “I don’t want this near me any longer than it has to be.”
The dry, dramatic desert landscape we drove through from Albuquerque to Phoenix was a perfect mirror for my internal state, particularly the way it was punctuated by giant mountains and deep canyons. My nerves over what would happen when Dad arrived—and everything else—made me feel just as jagged around the edges.
I hadn’t kept the coin on me. I’d put it back where it was, under the carpet.
And I checked daily to make sure it was still there.
It was.
Tonight I did have it with me as I paced through the backstage of my tent. I’d stashed it in a carrying case with a few other coins in my pocket. It felt less dangerous without my magic actively calling to it, but not by a lot.
Dad would be here any minute now.
Dez pulled aside the tent flaps and entered. He’d dressed up in his suit for my dad.
“You’re giving me a weird look,” he said. “But it’s okay, because I still dig the mask.”
“I’m too nervous for flirting,” I said.
He grinned, and it was almost like our old normal. But not quite. We were both tense. This was a big night.
For me in more ways than one.
“Your dad can’t deny what’s in front of his eyes,” he said. “You’re going to kill it.”
So he’d sensed I was as nervous about finally performing in front of Dad as I was about the things my rational side knew should be much more important. It was probably ridiculous, but a fact was a fact.
“Let’s hope. You still feel good about the plan?” I asked.
“Yeah, I do. It gives us leverage, like you said.”