My eyes blur from lack of sleep. I stayed up all night researching floating card tricks, but I didn’t find anything that rivaled Xander’s butterfly. There are plenty of tutorials on how to levitate a single card or object or even yourself, but nothing that comes close to touching what Xander seems to be capable of.
What I did find was a familiar video. When Joseph Perry left the flashier stages of magic for dark and dingy little clubs where people rarely knew his name, he was careful about making sure nobody knew exactly where he was or what he was doing, so all his shows had “no recording” rules. It’s easy to find videos of him performing before Mom, but there’s only one of him onstage with Mom. Of course it would come up while I’m searching for butterfly magic tricks.
I’ve already watched it more times than is probably good for me.
The clip shows Dad in his red vest, smiling as he runs a hand through his slicked-back blond hair. He stands beside a small golden table with a top hat on it, and he’s watching Mom wave her hands underneath the table and then tip the hat up, shaking it out to prove there’s nothing there. This is my favorite part, not the trick—the way Dad looks at Mom like she’s the magic, like nothing that comes next will compare to her. It makes my chest ache to know that Mom had someone look at her like that, and it got taken from her. I understand why she didn’t talk about Dad that much.
Mom puts the hat back on the table, and Dad steps up behind it, but before anything can happen, a white-haired kid runs onto the stage. Mom and Dad both move to catch me as I reach the hat and nudge it with my hand. Butterflies explode from behind the rim in a burst of color that drifts upward and then spreads as the audience goes wild. It’s a basic trick except for the amount of butterflies, just like Xander’s trick would be basic except he floated more cards than should be possible. But the part of the video that I always rewind to watch again and again is the expression on my parents’ faces: shock. And then something that doesn’t make sense: fear. It’d make more sense if they were performing an ax-throwing act or something, but it was only butterflies. Mom rushes me offstage. Dad stands there for a moment and scans the audience like there’s some type of threat, and then he gives them a dazzling smile and bows before striding off the stage. I’m not the only one who’s noticed how oddly they reacted. I know the comments below the video by heart.
magicianX: am I the only one who noticed their expressions?
Debby B: Clearly they didn’t expect the butterflies.
Ryan464: The kid obviously just tripped the release switch early.
georgeblack: they looked afraid.
magicfreak: That’s Joseph Perry. He died like a week later.
georgeblack: how’d he die?
magicfreak: They say it was a mugging.
georgeblack: they say?
magicfreak: It was all really weird. This is the only video of him in a four-year span before he died. People wondered if someone was after him—money or rivalry or something.
georgeblack: weird
Vampire Biter: I recognize the woman. She died right before vampires came out. They said it was an animal attack, but she was only wounded on the neck.
magicfreak: You’re kidding me.
Vampire Biter: Nope. Did you see the way he looked out at the audience? Maybe they were afraid of something else.
It doesn’t really surprise me that someone recognized Mom. During the frenzy of the vampire reveal, people searched for anything that might have been an attack. Someone found a news report of her death and latched onto it as possible evidence of vampire violence. So plenty of people believe what really happened to her and know the police just wanted to cover it up to avoid mass panic, but Mom didn’t go by the last name Perry. This is the only comment that connects her to Dad, and it’s haunted me for years. What if the vampire attack wasn’t random? What if Mom knew there were vampires before one killed her?
I just don’t want to believe she’d keep that from me. But we were always moving, and Mom said it was so she could find fresh audiences. She was still a performer, but she only did birthday parties and private gatherings. When I think back, I wonder if we were running.
But I know a vampire didn’t kill Dad. The details of his death are easy to find: stabbed three times in the chest. That sounds like an evil person, not an evil monster.
I replay the video one more time and focus on the butterflies—too many to count.
My mind wants to wander to a place I haven’t let it go in a long, long time, because it’s a fantasy world meant for children. It doesn’t make sense. But that trick made no sense, so here I am dreaming of the impossible again.
I reach under my bed and pull out a worn red shoebox. It’s not anywhere near as pretty as the pink one full of treasures that Mom kept. I always used to pull hers out from under her bed and dig through it. It was full of journals—some brand-new with crisp white pages, some so old-looking that the pages were eroding at the edges and the ink was browning, but Mom’s big looping letters covered all of them. And then there were the pictures of Mom on all kinds of stages: sometimes holding a top hat, sometimes in a sequined dress fanning a deck of cards, sometimes with her head and feet sticking out of a box that seemed to be cut in two. Some were in vivid color, and some were sepia or black-and-white—probably promo shots for vintage-style advertisements. Those were my favorite, but I loved every single one of them. I loved imagining Mom as the magnificent stage magician with her wide smiles instead of the tired ones she had when performing at children’s parties. Because before Dad, Mom performed with a troupe of magicians and carnival performers. She actually talked about her time performing with them more than she talked about Dad.
And then there was the jewelry: gold rings, dangling earrings, silk chokers—but my favorite was a gold choker studded with big red gems that she wore in almost every photo.
The shoebox was empty when she died, and I never knew if she’d packed the stuff away or if the vampire that killed her took it. The jewelry had to be worth something.
But they didn’t get everything.
As soon as I was old enough to read, Mom started hiding the box. It became a game. I’d find it, and she’d catch me before I could get very far. But what she didn’t know was that each time I found it, I took a little something: a page from a journal or a photo. Never the jewelry, because she would have noticed that.
I’ve kept them all these years, but it’s been a long time since I looked at them. The pages were always gibberish to me, like maybe she was writing a novel or something. But they’re nagging at me now—enough that I open the shoebox and pull them out.
I pause over the pictures because I haven’t seen them in a while. The first one’s in color, with Mom in a deep-purple corset and miniature top hat on the crown of her head. She holds a white dove in her hand, and she looks about thirty years old. Next to her stands a man in a solid white suit with blond hair slicked behind his ears. It’s not Dad, though. The man stares at her instead of the camera. The other one is a black-and-white image of a man with a broad forehead and a slender, pointed nose. Chains drape across his body. Beside him, dressed in a huge, flowing skirt and a button-up jacket, is Mom. Her face is grim. It’s not a very good promotion shot, but that’s all it can be. I didn’t recognize the man when I was a little kid, but later on I did: Houdini.
My heart aches with the desire to ask her about the photo. I want to know all about the shows she used to do—did she copy Houdini’s tricks? Was that why she had this photoshopped? Why isn’t she smiling?
But those aren’t the answers I’m looking for right now. I shuffle through the four journal pages I have. I’m looking for the oldest one. The one with ink that looks like rust. I pull it out and read.
There’s nothing quite like the thrill of discovering a new talent and watching it morph into something stronger—something that takes their tricks and pushes them just beyond what’s humanly possible and watching the audience’s eyes widen as they try to figure out the secrets, and all the while, we’re smiling backstage, knowing they never will.
I was that audience last night, even though I was on the stage. I craved their secrets, and even after spending all night on websites explaining magicians’ tricks, I’ve got nothing. Beyond what’s humanly possible rings in my ears. That’s why I always thought what I held was a piece of a fantasy. A story Mom was writing that blended fiction into her life. Mom always showed me how she did her tricks if I asked. There was always an explanation. I move to the other one I’m looking for. The page is white and crisp, from one of the newer-looking journals.
The craving to use it is so intense sometimes. Even doing silly little birthday parties, it builds up until my blood is boiling and I think I might explode from it. I want to let it loose—do something truly impossible for those screaming children, even if it’s just disappear the family cat and make it reappear in a tree and then back again. I need that rush of true awe, but not more than I need my family. I can’t risk it. No matter how miserable I feel.
Nonsense. That’s all it was to me, but now my skin tingles with unease. Blood boiling. Didn’t I feel that last night on the stage? Vampires exist, so why not magic? I used to ask myself that question a lot after she died because I needed to believe in something besides horrible creatures that could kill you in the night.
But when she was alive, Mom always made sure I didn’t believe in it.
She even got mad at me once when I said I wanted real magic. She told me I couldn’t have it—not that it didn’t exist, but that I couldn’t have it.
My skin tingles as I pull a quarter from my pocket and hold it against the tender flesh of my palm. Maybe I could push it through. I shake my head and drop the quarter on the bed. I’m being ridiculous. There’s a reason I stopped looking at these journal entries—I always let myself get carried away.
What I really want is illusion. I want what should have been my birthright: a place on a stage with the best magicians in the world. I want the buzz I felt last night—that’s where the magic is. I need to go back. Xander told me to come back.
Deb hollers from downstairs that breakfast is ready. I was so lost in what was and what might be that I forgot what day it is.
Saturday mornings are for pancakes.
The better foster places all have something—taco Tuesday, Friday pizza night, Saturday game night. But in some places, every night is take-care-of-yourself night.
Deb does pancakes.
I can deal with pancakes. I like them with cheap maple syrup—none of that hundred-percent-pure crap. Deb buys both kinds even though she loves all that organic stuff. I almost like that about her.
I smell the batter as the floorboards at the bottom of the stairs creak good morning to me.
Deb must hear them too.
“Pancakes,” she hollers, just in case I’m thinking of slipping out the front door without eating.
I squeak into the kitchen, past Parker and Jacob, already scarfing down their chocolate chip pancakes, and pull up a seat at the table. My finger drifts automatically to the scratch I made in it last night. It’ll stay here long after I’m gone. Every place I’ve been I could probably go back to and find some piece of myself I left behind—my name scrawled on the inside of a closet door, an inconspicuous gouge out of the back deck, a drawing on the underside of a table. Pieces of me are always with them, even if some of my foster-whatevers don’t remember my name.
Deb will have this scratch. She’ll maybe have Parker, too.
Once, I dreamed of turning eighteen, finding a good job, and getting custody of Parker—finally building our own home together. But I’m already eighteen, I don’t have a good job, and Parker… he’s happy here.
I’ve only actually seen him really happy somewhere once before. The first year we were in the system, we weren’t together. They had to place us quickly, and two kids are harder to place than one, but they put us back together in a place that was okay. Nobody was mean, but it felt more like we were furniture than kids. But then they placed us with a couple that wanted a foster-to-adopt situation. He loved it there. But it didn’t last. There was no happy adoption story in the end. Then we got placed in our last home, where we were two of six kids. It felt more like trying to survive at a summer camp than a home. But those foster-whatevers decided to move, and I wasn’t eighteen yet, so they found us a new place.
And after just six months, this is home to him. I can see it in the way he sits there with syrup dripping on his shirt without worrying whether Deb will yell at him for it. She won’t.
I know what home looks like. When Mom died, I was already old enough to understand what home means—that natural and instinctual belonging. Even when that home wasn’t perfect, it was mine in a way that Deb and Jacob can never be, but they could be home for Parker.
Sometimes I worry I’m standing in his way. I know I’m a type of home for him like he is for me—no matter where we are physically—but I can’t ignore that he’s never had a physical place to call home. It’s not the same. I know it. I’m sure he knows he’s missing that too. Like a little kid who has never had candy before. They don’t know exactly what they’re missing, but when they see another kid with a lollipop, they just know it’s something to be desired.
Deb’s humming, and I’m pretty sure it’s the theme song from The Andy Griffith Show. Parker used to like that show. I never did. I couldn’t decide whether to feel bad for Opie because he had only one parent or jealous because he had one parent.
Deb’s a single parent. Jacob’s dad died in a car accident when he was only a baby. But Deb’s a good one, and she has enough money from her late husband’s insurance to work only one job that she loves. Parker would be lucky to have her. But it doesn’t stop me from dreaming.
She stops humming and turns off the stove.
“Anyone want bacon?” She turns and flips her hair from her eyes. On weekends she wears it long and loose and slightly out of control.
“Yeah,” Parker and Jacob mumble in sync. She drops some on their plates and looks to me.
“No, thanks.” I smile, and it’s not for Deb or for me, but for Parker. Because even though I may not feel at home here, he does, and I will smile all day, every day, if it means he can be happy.
She grins back, taking my smile at face value. Most people do. But smiles are my greatest illusions.
Her eyes go to the top of my new green racer-back tank peeking out the neck of my sweatshirt. I pull the zipper higher. I shouldn’t have worn it. I’ve given her some kind of victory now, and that is too much. I don’t like to give foster-whatevers a victory unless it serves my larger goal—whatever trick I happen to be playing on them. Although I’m not actually playing any tricks on Deb. I can see that she cares about my brother. All I have to do is not be an annoyance. But I won’t do any more than that.
At least she doesn’t mention it. She turns back and moves more pancakes from the grill to a large plate and brings them to the table.
We eat in silence for a while. She put fresh blueberries in the pancakes that she probably woke up early to get. They’re my favorite, even though everyone else likes chocolate chip. I like that she remembers that—it feels like one of those little things parents do to make their kid feel loved. Sitting here, like this, I can pretend that I belong here, that this is any other family enjoying a Saturday breakfast together.
My chest aches when I snap myself out of it.
“Parker’s birthday is tomorrow,” I say. I’m surprised she hasn’t mentioned it. She remembered mine a couple of months ago, but I insisted on no presents. I did accept a chocolate cake, though. But you never know, so I’m measuring Deb’s reaction. This is an easy test for whether you have a good foster-whatever or a bad one. Part of me hopes she fails, and Parker will realize I love him more, but I hate myself the minute I think it. I hope she passes—for his sake.
“I know,” Deb says.
Good. Parker will almost certainly get a gift from her. I already bought him a Star Wars movie, but I can’t afford much else.
But then Deb continues. “I actually wanted to talk to you about his party.”
I freeze with a piece of pancake halfway to my mouth. A drop of syrup slides off the bite and onto the table, pooling in my ugly gouge. I always plan Parker’s party: We do the same thing every year. I save up and take him out for a slice of pie if I can. Then I perform coin tricks for him and any other kids in our current foster house.
“I meant to tell you sooner… work’s just been so busy, but I invited some of his class over for a Star Wars party.”
I drop my fork on my plate. It clangs louder than I mean it too. “We usually do something else, just the two of us.”
I turn to Parker and regret it immediately. He winces and shoves another bite of pancake into his mouth, chewing with a slowness he rarely possesses. Swallowing, he meets my stare but says nothing.
“Do you want a big party?” I ask.
I should let this go, but I need for him to say it. Part of me doesn’t quite believe he’d break another one of our traditions. Another, better part of me wants whatever he wants.
“I thought it might be cool,” he mumbles, not looking at anyone. “We could do our thing after.”
“Right. Yeah. No big deal.” I take another bite. I can barely swallow it. “You can’t beat Star Wars.”
I laugh, but it sounds wrong.
Jacob stares at his plate. Deb stares at the side of my face.
“You could do the magic tricks for all my friends this year,” Parker says. His blue eyes are wide and earnest and too much like Dad’s.
“Even better.” I force a smile, and I work my magic so it looks real.
He falls for it.
Deb doesn’t. I feel her glancing at me as I choke down the rest of my pancakes as quick as possible so I can bolt. The stairs welcome me back as I climb them. I need to lose myself, but the magic show’s not until tonight. I settle for a book.
Books, like any good illusion, pull you in, and for a moment there is only Gatsby, Daisy, Tom and Nick, and you, and sometimes, if the writer’s a master, you’re not even there anymore—you’ve disappeared and pieces of you take root in each character. I find myself in Nick and his desire to peek behind the curtain, but also in Gatsby and his ability to create the grandest of illusions, even if the stage collapses in the end. For just a moment, he had his audience in his palm. He got the applause I crave.
I read the whole thing in one sitting, but all I can think about is going back to the show, and I need backup. I need someone to ground me in the real world so my imagination can’t float away like one of Xander’s cards.
I dig out my phone and call my friend Stacie. We met sophomore year when she stopped some jerk from bullying me about my coin tricks. It definitely wasn’t friends at first sight. I’d even say I didn’t really like her that much, but she just kind of kept hanging around. I didn’t let her in until she admitted that she was in the system too.
She picks up on the first ring. “I was wondering when you’d call me back.”
Keeping in touch is not my strong suit.
“Want to go to a magic show tonight?”
The line’s quiet for a moment, but then she laughs. “You’re never going to be into small talk, are you?”
“It’s at eight.” At least I hope it is—that’s the same time as last night.
“You know I’m always up for an adventure.”
I breathe a little sigh of relief. She’s not wrong—if it weren’t for her inviting me places, I’d leave the house only for runs and nighttime prowling. I tell her what time to pick me up.
***
Stacie picks me up twenty minutes late, because her reliability for an adventure doesn’t cover punctuality, so by the time we find a parking spot on the street, the show’s been going on for at least thirty minutes.
I turn to tell Stacie about my weird encounter with the boy on the street yesterday, but she’s got her visor mirror pulled down and is dabbing at her peach lip gloss. I want to tell her to hurry, but I don’t. I’m used to it. I grab my backpack and push my door open.
“Ava, you’re not seriously going to lug your ratty backpack into a club.”
I shrug. “I took it last night.”
“You came without me?”
“It was spur-of-the-moment. I found a flyer on the street.”
Her eyes narrow. “Weird.”
I don’t know what she’s referring to—how I found the show or me doing something without roping her in first.
She shakes her head. “I cannot be seen with you carrying that thing.”
I tighten my grip on the straps.
“Ava,” she says softly. “We’re not going to be attacked in the middle of a crowded place.”
I bristle. She knows what happened to my mom. She knows I carry a stake in my bag. I told her a long time ago, shortly after we met, actually. I usually don’t tell people, because once vampires went back into hiding, a lot of people decided it was a hoax. Ten years later, most people don’t believe they exist. But when we first met, Stacie wouldn’t shut up about how good she’d look with sparkly skin. I think she could tell how on edge I got whenever she brought up vampires, so she started peppering me with questions about my past until I finally caved.
She believed me. She was the first person in my life who really believed me, so when she gently tugs my bag away from me, I let her. I trust her.
Stacie finishes her makeup and finally rises from the car, strutting around it like we have all the time in the world. I link arms with her, and she laughs because it’s the type of thing she’d do, but really I just want to make her match my own pace.
The same girl sits on the stool outside. Her black hair is piled in curls on top of her head, and she wears a silky green dress tonight that hugs her plump curves. She looks like she should be onstage instead of watching the door.
“You’re late,” she says. “I didn’t think you’d be late.”
My stomach clenches. She might not let us in. But more important, how could she have known I was coming?
Stacie raises one brow as she glances at me. “My bad. I took too long getting ready.”
The girl frowns slightly at her, then turns back to me.
“I’m supposed to let you in for free,” she says. “He didn’t say anything about a plus-one.”
My chest tightens. She can only be talking about Xander.
Stacie pulls out some cash. “How much?”
The girl eyes the money, then waves her away. “On the house.”
Stacie nods and pulls me away, opening the black door.
“That was weird,” she mutters.
She stares at me for a moment like I might give an explanation. I nod as I step inside.
The people in the club cheer as we walk in, and for one bizarre moment it feels like it’s for me. My heart pounds in my throat again—every nerve ending in my skin suddenly, painfully alive.
Stacie brushes my arm, and I jump at her chilly fingers. She leans close to my ear. “I think we’re going to have to stand. Oh, wait. I see a spot in the back.” She grabs my hand and pulls me in the direction of a single seat at the end of the back row.
“There’s only one,” I whisper, trying to pull her to a stop. She’s always been surprisingly strong though, and in a second, we’re there, and she’s bending down to talk to the man in the next seat over.
He looks her up and down in an obvious way that probably deserves a drink in the face, but her smile never wavers.
“Would you be so kind as to give me your seat?” she asks.
The man starts but gets up, smiling like she’s done him a favor. He nods in my direction, even though I’m sure he doesn’t even see me, and goes to sit at the bar in the back.
Stacie slides into her stolen seat and then pats the empty seat next to her. I take it.
“I really don’t know how you do that.” I’ve seen it a million times before. She’s gotten us a lot of free stuff in the last few years just by flipping her hair.
She pauses like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, then turns in her chair to give a little wave to the guy, who still watches her. She grins as she looks back at me. “Magic.”
I nod at her joke, but she’s not wrong. It may not be magic, but it’s certainly power.
I tug at the strap of my tank as the lights dim.
The spotlight glares, capturing the appearance of an Asian girl onstage.
Her sleek black hair falls all the way to her waist in uneven strands, like she’s never cut it in her life. The dress she wears is old-fashioned on the top, with billowing white sleeves poking out of a dove-gray corset. Good sleeves for a magician. Her skirt is something else altogether. A cascade of white feathers drops from her hips, flowing down into uneven edges that drift around her knees as she walks to center stage.
She sets an empty, ornate wooden pedestal next to her and stands smiling at us. Her round eyes twinkle. Music whispers out of the speakers, soft and delicate against the heavy, impatient breathing of the audience as she pulls out a silver handkerchief from nowhere. Placing it flat on the pedestal, she pinches the center and lifts, leaving behind the tiniest of finches in its wake. It takes off and flies circles above her head.
We give her a smattering of applause as she folds and unfolds her handkerchief, doubling it to the size of a placemat before repeating the trick and giving us two blue parakeets.
Again, she folds and unfolds and brings to life four doves.
Then she gives us a parrot. The crowd goes wild for the bright red plumes and flashy yellow accents as it launches and dips out above our heads before joining the strange array still circling just above her head.
The handkerchief is the size of a cape now as she drops it over the pedestal, and this time she uses three fingers to pinch the cloth, raising it in the air two feet before twirling it away and revealing an elegant swan.
The swan stays perched on the pedestal, watching us with a keen grace that cares nothing for our clapping.
The girl smiles though.
She shakes out her magic cloth and it doubles again, growing to the size of a bedsheet. Pinching the two longer ends in her hands, she gives us a demure smile before flinging it up and over the flying birds above her head. It dances in the air, like they’re struggling under the weight, before it drifts to the floor and lies there in folds that could or couldn’t have live birds underneath them. She bends over and grabs the sheet, shaking it out like she’s making her bed on a lazy Sunday morning. Smoothing out one last wrinkle with her toe, she steps onto the sheet as everyone applauds. I bring my hands together. For a moment, I think she looks right at me and smiles.
A silly thought, of course—she’d never be able to see me all the way back here.
I almost miss the finale.
She has the sheet off the floor now and is shaking it in front of us. Only the swan stays, sitting on its pedestal, waiting. The sheet drifts over its head, and it’s gone.
The audience sits in silence for a moment and then we all clap. Some stand.
The girl waits patiently for us to stop. We do, leaning forward as one, waiting for what she will give us. She leaves us hanging there for a full twenty seconds before her soft voice caresses the room. “I seem to have lost my birds.” Her gaze slides over the room. “Will you please check your purses?”
I don’t have a purse. I nudge Stacie. She’s so focused on the stage that I have to shake her arm to get her attention.
I point to her gold clutch sitting on her lap. “Open it.”
“Okay. Okay.” She releases the clasp, pulling it open. Nothing happens for a moment, and she sighs, moving to close it again. “She’s just—”
A small blue parakeet soars out, and Stacie jumps back.
All around the audience, birds break free of purses. A chorus of chirping fills the stunned silence as they flit above our heads. The bird girl whistles, and the birds follow the sound, sailing past her and out of sight backstage. She gives us a small wave, no bow, and follows behind them, still whistling softly to herself.
The applause tops anything from the night before. It vibrates against my skin until I feel like an instrument being played.
It’s almost like my blood’s boiling.
But it could be nothing. The adrenaline. The thrill. Maybe that was all Mom meant in her journals—she was talking about big stage productions with technology and props that helped you do the impossible. She said she stopped putting on big productions because of our family. It takes a lot of time to put on that level of performance. She let go of those dreams for me. It hurts to know how much she missed this.
I glance at Stacie. She’s not clapping, but her mouth is open, and she stares at the stage like she’s hungry for more. I can relate.
She seems to shake herself and snap out of it. “Wow,” she says, eyeing the inside of her purse. “I hope it didn’t poop in here.”
I gape at her. That’s what she’s wondering about?
“Can I see it?” I point toward her purse, and she hands it over.
A wallet. Lipstick. Keys. Tampon. Nothing out of the ordinary. Still, I don’t want to hand it back to her—this small piece of the show.
The lights come on, but I barely notice. People walk past us on their way to the bar.
It’s a good trick. A great trick. It’s the kind that draws you in so deep you forget to look for the little flaws and giveaways until afterward, when your brain runs every moment together into one beautiful blur of awe, and there’s nothing to do but accept what you’ve seen and move on.
Unless it’s not a trick. The thought keeps needling in, forcing me to talk some sense into myself over and over again.
Mom always told me my imagination ran away with me sometimes. It’s just been a long time since that happened. The excitement of it felt good.
They may not be real, but I still want to do more than just watch these illusions. I want to live in them with my good memories of Dad and Mom and forget about vampires for once. Magic could help me forget.
“Umm, can I get my purse back?”
I didn’t even realize I still held it. I’m clutching it to my chest in a weird way, so I force myself to give it back.
Stacie chuckles. “I forgot how much you love this stuff.”
I nod.
A small blue feather teeters on my knee, and I reach out and pluck it up, twisting it back and forth between my thumb and finger. It would be easy enough to manipulate a single feather—even I could do that—but an entire bird? My thoughts try to pull me back into my conspiracies. It’s always a trick, Ava. Find the strings. Mom’s voice brings me back. If you hid a bunch of birds around the room and released them at the right moment, people would believe some of them came from their purses. The power of suggestion. None of us saw what we thought we saw.
“Hey, look.”
I glance up to where Stacie points. Xander and the bird girl walk among the audience, shaking hands with people.
“Let’s meet them,” I say, jumping out of my chair. I don’t mention I already met Xander.
Stacie glances between me and Xander, and a knowing look crosses her face. “That one’s all yours,” she says.
“I’m not—”
She glances at her phone. “Actually, something came up. Do you think you could get a ride home from here?”
I sigh. I’m pretty sure she’s just trying to make me look more available, but I don’t really want to argue. “Yeah. I need to get my bag though.” I follow her out of the club and wait as she grabs my backpack from the car and holds it out to me. I grab the strap, but she doesn’t let go.
“Go get him,” she says with a grin.
I frown. “That’s not why I’m here.”
She leans in and air-kisses my cheek. “Whatever you say, babe.” She winks before darting around to get in her car.
My resolve wavers as she drives off. It was nice to have a friend to back me up.
But I still crave more magic. My feet carry me back into the club and toward Xander like they know what I want, even though my head and heart don’t want the chance to be rejected, but then I think of the words of the girl at the door. Xander was expecting me to come back. That puts too much pressure on the encounter.
I veer off course and make my way to the bird girl. Up close, I see that two identical blue parakeets sit on her shoulder, nestled in her hair.
I wait patiently in line, and when I finally reach her, I stand staring at those birds like they hold all the magic, and if I look at them long enough, they might give it to me. All of me buzzes with excitement.
Her smile is warm, reaching her angled brown eyes, even though I stand there without words.
“You were great,” I say, and wince. It hardly seems adequate.
“So were you.”
I start.
“You were onstage last night with Xander.” She brushes a strand of hair from her face, and the birds nestle farther into it.
“That was nothing.”
“It was something. Not everyone can hold their own with him.”
I follow her gaze across the room to the only guy with green hair. A brunette girl in a gold dress clings to his side.
My throat tightens in an unpleasant way.
“I don’t know,” I say. “It looks like assistants are an easy thing to come by for him.”
The girl laughs, soft but sharp as chimes. “True—but good assistants are hard to find.”
I twist the feather still pinched between my fingertips. The girl watches the movement, and I’m vaguely embarrassed to be holding on to it like some little kid saving a memento to tuck away in her diary, but I can’t let it go.
“He’d want you to go say hi,” the girl says.
I nod and take a step back from her, even though half of me wants to stay there and ask her a million questions about the strings behind her tricks. The other half of me wants to follow the string leading me back to Xander. He has more than one trick I need to figure out.
His smile widens as I stop in front of him. I may be imagining it, but gold-dress girl’s smile shrinks the smallest bit.
“You matched me,” he says.
“What?”
He waves a hand at my green tank and then points to his hair.
My face heats. He’s right—a perfect match.
My mouth opens and closes in a way that can’t be attractive while he watches my discomfort with what can only be described as delight.
“I wanted to be prepared in case you pulled me up onstage against my will again,” I finally say.
I try to sound snarky to cover up the lie. He catches it.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t raise your hand.” He leans in a little closer to me, like he’ll tell me a secret. The girl awkwardly follows so she can keep a hand on his arm. “Don’t pretend you didn’t love it up there.”
He stares intently at me, smile gone.
My face must be as hot as those green, smoldering curtains from the night before.
I swallow, and his eyes dip to my throat. I take a quick step back.
“You two know each other?” the girl asks.
Xander glances at her like he’s surprised she’s still there.
“I helped with one trick,” I say. “It was nothing.”
“She’s a natural,” Xander says. “Practically one of us.”
His words make me flush in a new way, not with embarrassment but with something else harder to understand.
“Hey, do you two want to meet the rest of the troupe backstage?”
Backstage, where all the magic can be picked apart and I can puzzle out how he does what he does. I doubt I’ll find anything while the show’s not going on, but I can hope.
“I’d love to,” the other girl blurts out as she shoots me a look I’m not sure how to read.
Xander smiles at the girl, but it seems tight. Then again, maybe I’m seeing what I want to see.
I don’t want to go backstage with her. I don’t even want to go backstage with Xander. Not without the show going on. What I want is to be right on the sidelines again. I want to be part of the tricks, not the one being tricked.
There’s a twinkle in Xander’s eyes that says he’d love nothing more than to trick me.
“I’m actually not feeling well,” I say.
“Do you need a ride or anything?” Xander glances at the black watch on his wrist. “There’s another act coming up, but they don’t need me.”
I ignore the little thrill in my belly. Now I really do feel sick.
“I’m good,” I say.
He looks disappointed.
My heart’s beating way too fast as I head for the door, but I don’t push my way out into the familiar night. I’m tired of the familiar. All the magic and all the good memories of my parents that it brings has me bursting with want. I turn back around. The bird girl and Xander are both still talking to their fans. But Xander’s watching me like he hasn’t taken his eyes off me since I walked away. His expression is odd, like he’s relieved to see me coming back, and then his lips quirk at the corners in a way that makes my stomach flip, and I glance behind me like he must be looking at someone else. His grin widens when I look back at him. I nod in response and take a seat like I’m staying for the rest of the show. I stay there until he looks back at whoever he’s talking to. When I’m sure he’s not tracking me anymore, I get up and stroll through the crowd until I’m at the door that leads backstage. I slide it open and step into a dingy hallway with a naked bulb lighting it. The hallway leads to a back room, and to my left are stairs that head to the side of the stage. I take them two at a time until I’m standing just behind the side curtains. In the center of the stage is a giant tank of water. Maybe the next trick’s an escape artist like Houdini.
It’s different standing back here, where I can see the way the stage curtains are frayed at the bottom, or the gouges in the stage floor, or the bare, dusty beams above. It’s less glamorous than sitting in the audience, but it’s more real. It feels like home.
Muffled laughter and conversation drift under the curtain. I imagine the chairs filling with skeptical people waiting to be lifted out of their daily disenchantment, and those who come enchanted already and want validation that they are right, that the world is magical at its core. You only have to find it.
Being able to give them what they want is where true power lies.
Lights flicker beyond the crack in the curtain, telling the audience the show will go on soon, and I can’t just stand here on the side of the stage where the performers can see me, so I tuck myself behind some boxes that seem to be overflowing with costumes. They’re so dusty I have to hold my breath to stop a sneeze right as the curtain begins to pull open.
Twin girls who look a couple years younger than Parker come out onto the stage in white dresses tied with ocean-blue ribbons. Their blond hair is pulled back in high pigtails. I’m surprised to see kids doing a trick in water, but maybe they were raised by magician parents. Maybe that would’ve been me at age ten in a different life. When I was ten, I was trying to figure out how to make my stakes sharper with the limited tools in my foster-whatever’s garage.
But I don’t want to focus on the past right now. I want to see what’s right in front of me.
The girls don’t speak before climbing the two ladders onto the makeshift platforms beside the tanks. The girl in green who greeted me at the door walks onto the stage and places a hand on a black velvet drape that’s set up to the side of the tank.
A hush falls over the audience.
Twin lights illuminate the girls as they step off into the water. Their dresses rise as they sink, revealing old-fashioned white bloomers. They twirl, bringing their arms down and the dresses with them so only the long ribbons float out above them.
The crowd applauds. Nothing has happened, but crowds are more generous with children.
The girl in green, walking quickly and gracefully, pulls the curtain to the other side of the tank, blocking the girls from the audience’s view.
I wait to snatch up their secrets and store them away, even though I probably won’t ever do this type of trick.
The second the curtain closes, their white dresses turn to black gowns.
They turn black—no quick maneuvering, no wet puddles of discarded clothing hidden behind the tank. That was going to be my guess.
I must have blinked.
The girl in green yanks back the curtain to reveal the new dresses billowing around the entire bottom of the tank. The twins do a slow twirl so they look like giant inkblots spreading in the water, and then the girl pulls the curtain again while I keep my eyes narrowed in on the tanks. The second the curtain closes, the dresses turn blue, with long, flowing sleeves.
I did not blink. The dresses shifted right in front of my eyes. My heart beats in my throat, and I might throw up. I force a breath in and out of my nose, trying to calm myself. This is no trick.
The curtain is pulled, and they blink into orange.
Then white sequins.
Then white covered in an array of multicolored flowers.
Then they explode into flowers. The tank fills with daisies, carnations, and roses all pressing against the glass.
My head jerks upward, looking for where they must have dropped from without my seeing.
Nothing.
I grip a dusty skirt spilling from the box I’m hiding behind and press it against my mouth to stop myself from screaming. My brain’s a jumbled mess of thoughts. All their tricks defy possibility—not because they’re the best magicians I’ve ever seen, but because the tricks are not tricks at all. The thought hits me hard in the way only an impossible truth can. The type of truth that tilts your world and leaves it spinning forever off-balance. Like finding out vampires exist. They may not be vampires, but they’re something. Something my mom might have been as well. Her journal entries were the fantastical things I imagined they were as a kid. But if she had real magic, wasn’t she always warning me away from it? Why?
The tank’s so packed full of flowers that I can’t see the twins anymore.
Until their hands slap against the sides of the glass. The crowd quiets. Unsure.
I don’t know whether this is part of the trick or if I should run onstage and fish them out—human or not, they’re kids. They haven’t been up for a breath this whole time. How long has it been? I can’t be sure. It feels like I’ve been hiding here in shock forever.
The twins erupt from the top of the tank at the exact same time, lifting their small hands and waving at the audience. Wet flowers dangle in their hair.
The crowd gets on their feet, giving them more love than Xander got for his butterfly. I’m not sure what to do. I can sneak away and pretend I never saw this, or I can dive into the water and maybe drown, because one thing I know for sure is that if Mom had magic like this, she hid it from me. But what if she was just waiting until I was older to let me in on her secrets?
She’s not here to ask. These people feel like the closest thing I have to her lost journals. If I miss this moment, if I walk away and they pack up and leave tomorrow, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering, and I’ve already spent too much of my life wondering why both my parents are dead.
My legs wobble as I stand up and head down the steps, turning away from the door leading to the audience and heading back to where the answers are. I expect to step out into a room and have them all turn dramatically to look at me, but there are rows and rows of boxes, like every show that’s ever performed here has left something behind that’s never gotten tossed out.
Cold seeps from the cement floor, and I shiver.
A voice rises and drifts off.
I move around several rows of boxes until the conversation grows louder.
“She left,” a girl practically shrieks.
“What did you want me to do, drag her backstage?” Xander. There’s an edge to his voice.
I scoot around another row of junk and duck. The next row is shorter. Cages of birds sit balanced on top of the boxes. I’m creeping forward like some kind of awkward spy. I pull my hood over my head. I want their secrets, after all. This is one way to get them.
“We need her. She’s the only one who’d even have a fighting chance this late in the game. You have to go all in.”
“You know I hate doing that,” Xander says. His voice is softer, suddenly more like a caress than the blade it was a second ago.
“Think of Sarah.” Another girl’s voice is feather light—perhaps the bird girl.
“I always am,” Xander snaps. “I’m just not convinced this is the right move.”
“It’s our only move,” the feather voice says.
Unease creeps up my spine. There’s a desperation in their voices that doesn’t make sense.
I grip one of the boxes, rising up to peek through the bars of the birdcage. All the magicians sit around a huge wooden table. No one seems happy.
“Then it’s settled,” the original voice says.
I lean forward to see her face, and the box teeters under my grip. I pull away too fast, and the birdcage crashes forward.
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