“No. No, just the opposite, I—Christ.” He starts pacing. “This is all just a lot to take in at once. I mean, how long have you known about what you could do?” He steals a breath. “How long have you been planning this with Gunn?”
“A while,” I say. “I told you what I could last night, but I couldn’t tell you all of it. Gunn’s been so damn cagey about the whole thing, I’ve been scared to breathe a word.”
Alex looks at me strangely for a second. “Joan, are you really sure you want to go through with this?”
Like a reflex, I tell him what I’ve been telling myself. “Don’t you know what this deal could do for someone like me, for my family? For you?”
Alex looks to the door, drops his voice to a whisper. “I know you think you’re a player in this game, that you have control. That you’re making your own choices. But I was once just like you, Joan—my father started working me slowly, carefully. And he had me so far under his thumb by the end, I didn’t even realize I was trapped until I was suffocating.”
“Alex, this isn’t like that.” Although in some ways, of course it is. But it’s for good reason. And I’m not trapped if I accept why I’m in the cage. I’ve made peace with what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it.
“Don’t you wonder what happens if Boss McEvoy gets wind of this, if he realizes his underbosses are planning to cut him out, and he manages to get to Gunn first? What’s he going to do?” Alex glances at me, a fire in his eyes. “Take you out, or steal you. And if it isn’t McEvoy, it’ll be Colletto. Only a matter of time before something goes wrong between him and Gunn—the gangs have hated each other for years.”
Alex is getting cold feet. I know it, I can sense it. It’s nothing I don’t understand, but I’m beyond it. I just need to coax him, steer him back in. “You don’t understand. This isn’t about just me—it’s about all of us. I’m going to teach all of you the spell, Alex, once this first shipment is taken care of. That’s the point of the troupe, don’t you see? And then we’ll teach other sorcerers, until we can produce a shipment overnight. This deal is going to be the beginning of a goddamned empire. This is an opportunity for all of us, to change our lives, to make something of ourselves.”
Alex stops pacing. “And did you ever think that something this big could attract other attention?” Then he takes slow, careful steps toward me, like he’s approaching a lion in a cage. “It’s one thing to perform in a magic haven—we get busted one night, you do a few weeks’ time for sorcering, and you come out the wiser. But to be the key sorcerer behind the world’s first eternal shine? Helping to produce and distribute it nationally? You could end up behind bars for life, Joan. What about Ruby and Ben then? You said this is about your family.”
“Of course it’s about them, but I’m not walking away ’cause I’m scared, Alex.” I give a nervous laugh. “I don’t have that luxury. Besides, I’m not going to get caught.”
He presses his hands into his forehead. “Christ, then what about other people’s families, Joan? People with fathers and mothers and uncles who are going to get hooked on this stuff, break their family apart just like your uncle did to yours? You want that on your conscience? It’s not, it’s not . . .”
“What? It’s not right?” I complete his sentence. “Alex, I’ve spent most of the past year hating my magic with every fiber of my soul, cursing and burying it. But the truth? That night wasn’t magic’s fault. It was mine.” I feel the hot push of tears coming on, so I look at the floor. “I’ve got to live with the terrible choice I made back in Parsonage. To blame the magic is the easy way out. And you and I, we were made to do this. There’s nothing wrong about that,” I say, the truth coating my words with something warm and strong. “Besides, what people do with our magic once we make it? That’s not in our control.”
“You’re telling yourself what you want to hear.”
“And you’re so scared you’re talking crazy,” I cut in. Lord, maybe my performance really spooked him, maybe the stakes have been raised higher than Alex ever wanted to bet. But I can’t let him walk away. I can’t—won’t—do this without him. “Is this about Colletto, about working for the man who brought your father down?” I take another step toward him. “Of course I understand your problem with that. But if you’re in this world, you do what you need to do to survive. You take comfort in the fact that you’re using him, just like he’s using us. Just like I’m using Gunn, and Gunn’s using me.”
“So that’s what you really want?” We’re so close, a foot away. “A world where everyone’s just playing and using each other? A world of tricks and lies?”
“Hell, I can survive it. Especially if I have you in it,” I say. “I told you, you’re my compass through this slippery world, Alex. Just like Ruby and Ben.”
I study his cast-down eyes, the way he’s biting his lip mercilessly. I feel like I almost have him. Besides, I can’t imagine how it would gut me if he walked away.