And then I can’t help but step in. “Enough. She’s doing her part, same as you. You saw her on the stage.”
“Yeah, but how’d she get such a leading role, you understand what I’m saying?” Tommy says, as Rose laughs. He takes a step closer to me. “You two were thick as thieves, partners in your little circle, am I right?” he says. “Did you really not know about any of this?”
I keep my eyes on the newly conjured shine between my hands, will my pulse to slow. “I didn’t.”
“She could have told us about the spell,” Rose presses, “it could have been a team effort. Instead she kept it to herself to cozy up to Gunn. She played all of us.” She raises one eyebrow at me. “Especially you, Alex.”
Tommy adds, “Yeah, she’s all yours, until you find her in bed with Gunn.”
Like a reflex, my fingers tighten around my shine bottle and squeeze. The red, glistening shine explodes and splatters onto the folding table.
“Alex!” Ral rushes to my side to help clean up the mess. “Get some towels from the bar,” he tells Grace and Billy.
“Christ, I’m sorry.” I take off my sweater and throw it on the shine, which is now seeping into the carpet and soaking its fibers red.
Grace comes back quickly with some towels. She bends down next to me. “Pat it. There you go.”
No one says anything for a long time. We don’t have the luxury of sparring in a twelve-by-twelve room, with our gangster keepers down the hall, and we all know it. Especially me. I’m too close, there’s too much at stake to lose control.
“Tommy, take a break, grab a smoke,” Ral says quietly. “Alex, why don’t you get washed up, use my room. I’ll cover for you if Win comes checking.”
I nod slowly in thanks.
But as I head down the opposite hall and to the back stairs leading up to the sorcerers’ rooms, I can’t help but stop, right in front of Gunn’s office door. I can almost feel Joan behind it. I’m sure Gunn’s in there too. I want to break down the door, insert myself right in between them. I want to tell Joan the truth, get it over with, have her forgive me, so that we can move forward and put Gunn and the rest of his thugs where they belong.
Tonight’s my last chance. Tomorrow is Thursday, when Colletto is due to arrive.
I’m going to need to get to Joan and explain things another way.
CONFESSION
JOAN
I’m in my performance circle, surrounded by feathers. The club has been closed for the better part of the week so we can focus on Colletto’s shipment, but tonight there’s a -special performance. Tonight, Harrison Gunn sits with my baby sister and cousin on the benches around my old stage to watch me like a circus act. The rest of my troupe? Down the hall, brewing shine in a dark, windowless lounge.
I’m not sure who has the better deal.
“What’s she going to do with those feathers?” Ruby says.
Ben shushes her. “Don’t talk so loud. You’ll break her concentration.”
I hear Gunn answer in a low, almost seductive hum, “This was your sister’s signature performance trick. She used to have half the crowd around her stage, clamoring for a glimpse of her magic.”
“Really?” Ruby whispers.
“Indeed. Joan is our magic haven’s most talented sorcerer. It’s why I need her here.” Gunn nods toward me. “Watch and learn.”
I know Gunn wants me to look at him and give him some kind of acknowledgment, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Instead I focus on the feathers that line the edge of my stage, and not my sister chatting with a gangster. I focus on the trick, instead of thinking about the message Gunn is trying to send me by taking my family under his wing.
It’s not that I don’t want Ruby and Ben here—it hurts as bad as a cut sometimes, when I wake up and forget that Ruby isn’t sleeping by my side. But it turns everything around. It makes me ashamed of all this, angry with it, makes the truth of what I’ve managed to justify and shelf—turning shine into a shippable product, allowing the underworld to deliver it across America, ruining families like mine—inescapable.
Magic is what you were made to do, I remind myself. Everything you’re doing, the caging spell, the shine, the deal, it’s all for them.
But the reminder isn’t loud enough, isn’t strong enough to banish Alex’s words: What about Ruby and Ben . . . You could end up behind bars for life. . . .
They tease me, taunt me, keep poking at me from the inside.
“Something wrong, Joan?” Gunn calls from the benches.
“No, sir.”
I concentrate back on the feathers, until I can actually feel my mind reaching out like a hand and lifting them. One by one, the feathers dance a few inches off the ground until they form a slow, spinning circle above my head. They spin fast as the wind, then a tornado, then start to bleed into one long trail of white. And out of the swirling madness, a dove flaps its wings and flies up to the rafters.
Ruby leaps to her feet and claps. “Oh my goodness, Joan, that was wonderful!”