She smiles. “Think they’re honored about the tribute to their garden.”
I feel myself beaming. “And Tommy and Rose?”
She throws a glance across the show space, where Tommy leans over Rose in the corner, whispering. “As hard to read as ever.” She laughs. “I think they’re fine.”
I laugh with her, squeeze her hand. I’m grateful for her, for everything, and for just one minute I let myself pretend that this really is my place, that there is no Gunn.
I walk with purpose, confidence, through the crowd, excited to get back to Alex and begin the finale. But then I spot him on the other side of the show space—and I realize he’s been pulled aside by Boss McEvoy.
I can’t hear them from here, even if I attempted to use magic, but Alex looks upset. His brow is creased, and he’s using hand gestures, speaking to the floor, as McEvoy keeps interrupting him heatedly, like he’s barking. Even from halfway across the room, I see the deep-purple bruises underneath McEvoy’s eyes, the dull-gray polish to his skin. He’s either hankering for something magic, or he’s coming down. Then he grabs Alex’s collar and yanks him closer.
Panic grabs me and I start cutting through the crowd, though I’m not sure what the heck I’m going to do when I reach Alex. Tell the boss of the Shaws to calm down? Get some air? Gunn’s not here, none of the higher-ups are here to calm McEvoy down—
Thankfully, before I reach them, McEvoy stumbles away from Alex, swimming upstream against a crowd now gathering in the center for our finale.
I tap Alex on the shoulder.
He whips around, looks like he’s just seen a ghost.
“What was that about?” I say breathlessly.
“It’s fine, it’s nothing,” Alex says slowly, runs a hand through his blond hair. “He’s just taking the night off, and he’s all hopped up on dust. I’ve seen him like this before. I’m used to him taking it out on me.”
But I don’t know how someone like Alex can ever get used to being treated like that, can learn to accept it. It makes me hate McEvoy just a little bit more. It also makes me wonder what Alex’s father was like, if this wonderful boy has learned to smile in the face of being browbeaten. “Was it strange seeing him here, in this world, instead of out on the street?”
“Strange, but in a good way,” Alex says. “Reminds me how lucky I was to get out from under his shadow.”
“Come on.” I take his hand, pull it gently. “I think it’s time we got you your own breath of fresh air.”
And our magic immersion finale is just that. Trees sprout up and bloom along the aisle. A huge crisscrossed lattice of ivy runs one story above the floor, from the double doors to the back stage. Birds fly, darting across the two-story space, and grass begins to grow up from the cement floor. And as we watch our troupe’s magic unfold around the audience, Alex takes my hand and squeezes. Long ago there was a sorcerer who met her match, who finally understood all that magic could be—
And just like magic, Alex taps into something raw and pure and electric inside me. I feel . . . light, free, by his side, like I’m riding my own personal high, and without Gunn here to tether and weigh me down, I get an idea, wild and unlike me. A chance to celebrate my recent turn of fate, to reward myself just a little, live a little bolder and bigger in the now. Honestly, I’m not even sure if I want to do it or if I need to do it, if the desire to let go—to forget my charge, my past, myself—has become so strong that it’s taken on a mind of its own. And despite my complicated past with it, I know shine is the only thing that will actually let me get as lost as I want to.
So when we approach the stage to brew our sorcerer’s shine for the audience, I whip around and sputter to Alex, “When we’re done, I think—I think we should join the crowd tonight, on the floor.”
Alex studies me, confused, as we approach the stage stairs. “What do you mean, take sorcerer’s shine?”
I blush and turn away. What if he doesn’t want to? What then? “Tommy and Rose do it every night—and Billy and Ral join the crowd on their fair share of evenings. Only one time, like a celebration. Just once. I thought, I mean, if you don’t want to—”
I let my garbled sentence hang there, watch a storm of emotions cloud Alex’s face. We arrange ourselves onstage, each take a glass bottle that’s been left for us.
Then Alex leans in and whispers, “I want to.”