by Gwenda Bond
“Hang on a minute,” Dez said quickly. “We do have it. Just not with us. You can use it to do whatever you want.”
“I, on the other hand, will never do what you want,” I said. “We have the coin safely secured in a place where you’ll never get to it. We’ll give it to you in Vegas—but only in exchange for our freedom from you. For good.”
“Why didn’t you bring it?” my mother asked.
“Because I don’t trust you. Either of you,” I said. “We get to the end of the season, then we disappear for a while. Give you time to prove you’re not looking for us. You do anything to either one of us in the meantime, you never get the coin.” Dez gave my hand a supportive squeeze under the table. “Dez tells me if you make a deal with another of your own, then you honor it. The Praestigae code.”
The Rex was doing that thing where he coiled like a snake. I’d banked on him not wanting to make a disturbance. But right now I wouldn’t have been surprised by another kidnapping attempt, with him carrying me bodily from this dining room.
My mother put her hand on his arm. “So the deal is you give us the coin, then we leave you both in peace?” She looked at the Rex. “Maybe we should consider it.”
Something passed between them, a look of communing that went on for a long time. Finally, he said, “You deliver us the coin in Vegas, we might leave you both in peace. You don’t, and you’ll never have peace again.”
It couldn’t be this easy. I wanted to jump up and down, victorious, even given the “might.” But . . . it really couldn’t be this easy. Could it?
“I am disappointed, however,” the Rex said, “in both of you. Particularly you, Desmond. You have a responsibility to make up for what your father lost us. You accepted that task, and now you’re planning to abandon your family.”
“It’s being returned,” Dez said. “That’s what you wanted.”
My mother was remarkably quiet, which I didn’t like or trust. We needed them afraid of what we might do, so that they’d be tempted to stick with the guaranteed outcome where they walked away with the coin.
The Rex went on like he was holding court. “Now that this nasty business is settled, we can enjoy dinner. Since we might have such precious little time together.”
He lifted his glass, a signal for us to clink our glasses with his.
Dez and my mother did.
Tink. Tink.
He held his glass there, waiting for me to do the same.
I shook my head no.
I’d never tried anything like what I was about to, not exactly, but there was that time I turned air to water and back again. My mother’s wine-blood illusion had given me an idea. I called my magic and waited for the Rex to lift the glass to his lips.
As soon as the glass touched them, I thought, Burn.
The wine in his glass burst into flame. “Shit!” he said, dropping the glass.
The flames flared and died, with nothing left to keep them burning.
I took a half bow, still seated, so the tables near ours would assume it was a magic trick. They applauded quietly and went back to their dinners, while the Rex pushed his chair back and stared bloody murder at me.
He reached out and picked up a knife on the table. “Rex,” my mother said. Anger rolled off her in waves. At him or at me, I couldn’t say.
I pushed my own glass back. I would not let him see fear. “I’ve lost my appetite. See you in Vegas.”
The Rex was still for a moment. He frowned at me, but I saw what preceded the frown. Rage. He dropped the knife with a clatter and pushed back from the table. “Disloyalty and theatrics always have such a bitter taste. You’ve made a mistake here tonight.”
My mother rose to leave with him, and they exited the dining room without a backward glance.
“That was amazing, with the fire-wine,” Dez said, seemingly awestruck. “And scary as hell.”
The deal we’d come for was more or less in place, and maybe I’d given the Rex something to fear from us. That wasn’t nothing.
So why was I back to fearing what would come next from him?
forty-one
Dez rummaged through his small collection of clothes for a clean T-shirt, and pulled it on over his head. The sun hadn’t been up that long, which meant his tiny compartment wasn’t yet broiling with the heat of the day.
“I’m nervous,” I said.
“About your dad?” Dez asked, pulling me toward him.
I nodded against his freshly T-shirted chest. “He might say no.”
“He’ll probably say yes.”
I had stayed with Dez the night we’d gone to the Magic Castle, and for the next few. After the evening performances were done, we curled into each other in his tiny bunk in the dark, sometimes desperate for each other, sometimes careful and quiet. Sometimes we talked until the smallest hours.
Neither of us wanted to talk about why. But we both knew it was because we couldn’t relax until the deal was completed, the transfer made, and our disappearing act complete. I was also anxious about what came after. We had the few thousand dollars I’d made over the summer to fund our adventures, but that was all.
We’d be together until we came out of hiding, at least.
Our dinner reveal had bought us roughly a week, the first half of which we’d already spent performing. Now came the rest, traveling to and setting up in Vegas, where a last few days filled with endless showstoppers were planned. In my spare moments not making out or talking with Dez, I’d been drawing notes and sketches for the magic grand finale that would assist our escape, making lists of necessary supplies. But I still needed Dad’s input and the assistance of his crew to pull it off . . .
Thurston had been so excited by my request to close out the midway by making the Ferris wheel disappear and reappear that he not only said yes, but he was throwing a party for us tonight. A “welcome to Las Vegas” party. According to Jules, this summer had been relatively light on soirees compared to last year, so Thurston was making up for it. I wanted to celebrate, but I couldn’t yet.
I still had to make my plea to Dad. I wanted to talk to him in person, when we got to Sin City. I planned to do it as soon as we drove onto the Strip that afternoon.
I’d thrown down a major gauntlet—a literal goblet of fire, with apologies to Harry Potter—and I had to pull this off. And I knew we could count on some sort of surprise from the Rex, so we had to be ready for anything.
Both my future and Dez’s were on the line, whether we stayed together in the long run or not. So the bad guys had to end the season believing we had vanished into thin air.
In the car on the way to Vegas, I was too jumpy about seeing Dad to talk or to do anything other than mentally rehearse my arguments to him. The conversation played out a dozen ways: with us shouting at each other, with tearful hugs, with him saying yes, with him saying no.
There was only one thing to do—have the conversation and see what reality produced.
We drove into the side-by-side flashy, gorgeous, and tacky Vegas I knew so well. I broke off from the caravan and its destination of the relatively new festival grounds at the far end of the Strip and navigated to Dad’s tall, ritzy building.
I stopped the car at the curb and gestured Dez to the driver’s seat. “I’m getting out here. You take the car, and I’ll see you later.”
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Dez leaned across the console for what he probably thought would be a brief peck, but I held on to the back of his neck and kissed him hard. When I pulled away, he murmured, “What was that for, so I can do it again?”
“For luck,” I said. “See you soon.”
The doorman, looking sharp in a black uniform with brass buttons, nodded at me and swung the glass door wide. “Home at last, Miss Mitchell. Your dad will be happy.”
“He here?” I asked.
“No, he went out a little bit ago. I won’t spoil your surprise when he comes back, though.”
; “Thanks, Daniel.”
The lobby of our building was a faux art deco paradise. I knew the route to the condo as well as the feel of a coin in my palm, as well as sliding a card into my sleeve. But it was . . . strange walking in here. And I realized it was because I had changed.
Home was the same. I wasn’t.
I waved my wallet in front of the pad to call the glass elevator. A special card admitted only those who lived here.
The doors opened, my floor already selected by the computerized system that read the card. The view on the way up was as magnificent as that from any hotel in town. The desert hovered like a mirage in the distance, and the tall, eccentric silhouettes of Vegas’s famous hotels rose up beyond the glass wall. We lived in the penthouse.
Of course we did.
And Dad should have been home. I’d sent him a text and said I wanted to talk.
He’d written back: Name the time.
I was a few minutes early, though.
My key still fit the lock. The open, airy living space inside was just as it had been when I left to seek my fortune. Part of me wanted to go straight to my room and look at the drawings in my closet—to see if they were as ambitious in design as I remembered. Or to Dad’s study, to see how I felt with all those great men of magic staring at me now, after this summer.
Instead, I took a seat on the leather couch to wait.
It wouldn’t be long. With the way we’d left things, he wouldn’t want to be late.
Or so I’d assumed. Thirty minutes later, I texted him: Dad, where are you? I’m at home, waiting.
He texted right back: On my way. I have great news.
I didn’t want great news. I wanted to tell him my plan and hear him say that yes, he’d devote the guys at the theater to our cause and his expertise to me.
But for now, I was waiting, waiting, waiting . . .
I jumped up as soon as I heard the front door click open.
Dad came in, far more dressed up than I expected for a day off. He was in his schmoozing-investors suit, black like everything else he wore.
“There you are,” he said, smiling, though I detected a nervousness in the awkward way he moved toward me. He extended his arms, and I gave him a hug. “It’s nice to see you here, where you belong. Feel good to be home?”
I decided on honesty and trying not to be offended at the “where you belong” comment. “It’s a little weird.”
“Huh,” he said.
“Where were you? Business meeting?”
“You could say that.”
Okay, he was officially the thing that was weirdest in this house. A sense of uneasiness hit me. “Can’t you just tell me where you were?”
He stood still for a second and then nodded. He crossed to the fridge and opened the gleaming steel to remove a beer.
“Drinking during the day?” I asked. Even late afternoon like this was unusual for Dad. “What, were you at a funeral? Broken wand ceremony?”
When magicians in certain organizations died, their fellows—usually all male—had a memorial where a wand was broken in symbolic recognition that they would never do magic again.
Dad took a long sip. Then he said, “Let’s go into the study.”
His sanctuary.
“I have a favor to ask,” I said.
“You know I’d do anything for you.”
I should’ve found that comforting, but my uneasiness grew.
I took the comfy leather chair opposite the giant desk he sank behind. The greats peered down from the heavy frames along the walls. Carter, Houdini, Herrmann.
“Why don’t you start?” he said.
I slung my messenger bag off my shoulder onto the floor and pulled out my sketch pad. “Okay, that’s good, because I’m nervous. But I think this will work.” I paused. “Getting ahead of myself. Dad, I’m here because I need your help—Dez and I both do. You remember Dez?”
He nodded.
“Also, you have to let go of this ‘You can’t be a magician’ thing. I am a magician.”
“I’ve let go of that. You’re good.”
I smiled at him, a genuine smile. “I’m not sure I’m this good yet, but I think with your help I can pull it off.”
I flipped open the oversized pad to show two full pages where’d I’d drawn the Ferris wheel from the angle I thought we needed to use. The audience was roughed in at a specific angle in front of the stage too, arrows indicating the perspective both would be to the Ferris wheel itself.
“I found your plans in the closet,” he said. “I was impressed.”
He meant the sketches of illusions hidden behind my clothes, on my closet walls. He half stood to get a better look at what I was showing him now.
“I want to do this on our last night in Vegas. I figure the audience is here.” I tapped the paper. “But I’ll need help with constructing a stage and one of those towered arches for the curtain that can conceal the Ferris wheel.”
It wasn’t like I could really make it disappear. David Copperfield’s famous televised disappearance of the Statue of Liberty had relied on a slowly rotating platform to physically turn the audience, a tower to conceal the statue, and some showy lights. I could produce an illusion too, securing my future as a magician when I came back.
In the meantime Dez and I could run. I was going to ask for Raleigh’s help to stage a presentation of the coin in such a way as to hopefully spook the evil king and my mother, getting them out of our lives for good.
“Well, what do you think?” I asked my dad.
“This could work,” he said. “You know I always thought there was a way to improve on DC.”
Dad and David Copperfield were rivals of a sort, often competing for the same treasures from magic history and for the same audiences. I’d never heard him say the man’s actual name unless they were standing in front of each other, politely shaking hands.
“No time for a rotating platform,” I said. “We’ll have to spend most of it building that arch set. I’ll need your guys.”
“It’s doable,” he said.
“How do I account for not moving the audience?”
“The old-fashioned way,” he said. “With smoke and mirrors. But . . . why do you need to do this so soon? There’s more to this, isn’t there?”
He hadn’t said no.
“Yes, it’s part of getting free of the Praestigae. Of my mother’s husband. We made a deal with them, one they can’t break under their own code. We agreed to give them the coin I had you stash, and in exchange we think they’ll let Dez and me go for good. But just in case they feel like breaking it, we’re going to disappear for a little while afterward. Watch to see if they’re after us. I’m hoping I can convince them I actually made the wheel disappear—which would mean that I’m out of magic, or close to it.”
Dad didn’t say anything.
“It’s a good plan, Dad. It’ll work. And we get to one-up David Copperfield.” I smiled at him.
A smile that wasn’t returned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He eased back into his chair. “Moira, don’t be mad at me. But we don’t need to do this. I’ve taken care of everything.”
Cold came over me. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t break my word,” he said. “The coin is locked up safe and sound.”
I stood. “What have you done?”
“Don’t get upset. I was contacted by your mother a few days ago. I made a trade with them. Three magic items from my secret collection to never trouble you again.”
“You did what?” My head was shaking. I was shaking. “Oh my God, what did you give them?”
My mind raced. Mom would have plenty of power again, assuming she could use any object to refill her cup. What would her husband make her do? How could I have any hope of besting her if she turned on me?
Dad rose too and came around the desk. He touched my arm. “Sweetie, you have nothing to worry about. I didn’t give them the coin, because after what you said
. . . I thought you might have need of it someday. And I didn’t want to break my promise to you. But I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. It’s my job to look out for you.”
“What about Dez?” I asked.
All our carefully laid plans, fragile though they might have been . . . He frowned. “What about him?”
“I love him. And they’ll kill him if they don’t get the coin back.”
“He’s not my concern. You’re my daughter.”
I gathered up my sketch pad and shoved it into my bag. Then I sat back down. “I can’t believe you did this. I mean, I can, I get it. But . . . Dad, I really wish you hadn’t.”
He didn’t keep telling me what a wonderful idea he’d had. He must have heard something in my voice that got through to him.
He lowered himself, crouching by my chair, and put his hand on my arm. “Did I screw up?” he asked.
Tears threatened. I sucked in a breath and tried to force them away.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “I can never stand it when you cry.”
I nodded, finding a place of calm inside.
We can still do this, I told myself. You can convince him.
“All right,” I said, “here’s the problem. You’re not one of them. You’re not Praestigae.”
His forehead wrinkled. “Neither are you.”
“Ah, but the Rex thinks of me that way. And Dez is one of them. Since you aren’t, it means they don’t have to honor any deal they made with you. They only keep deals they make with their own.”
He rocked back on his heels and sat on the floor. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Dad look so small. He’d always seemed larger than life to me.
“Oh no,” he said.
“Yeah. Oh no.”
“I should have called you. Moira, I was just . . . I thought I was helping.”
The pain in his eyes was real. “Shh,” I said. “It’s all right. You can make it up to me.”
“How?” he asked.
“By telling me everything they have and what it does, and by helping us with this.” I held up my bag with the sketch pad inside. “We still have a shot.”
“You do?”
“You bet we do,” I said. “No way I’m letting them win without a fight.”