“Right here. I feel it,” she says, rubbing her hand over the plaster. “Reveal.” And then, like two white curtains are being pulled back, the wall’s plaster peels away to reveal Billy’s original door to the outside world.
Rose lunges for it, pulls it open. Tommy and Stock follow her, and our foursome trails behind them. One by one, we stumble into the soft, moon-drenched grass of the real clearing. It feels like we’ve been transported to another time, another space. It feels like I might not be the same person I was walking in. Billy scrambles to shut the door behind us—
“Erase the door, Billy!” Ral shouts.
Billy waves his hand, and the door to our house of manipulations crumbles and swirls into dust. But it doesn’t erase the world of hell we’ve just created together, a giant structure with domes, enclosed hallways running around it, odd towers that shoot up three stories high over the clearing.
“Now destroy it,” Gunn orders behind us.
We all turn around to face him.
“I need seven,” Gunn says evenly. “And only seven. I never leave loose ends.”
We all look at one another, no one saying a word. Something jabs underneath my skin—something raw, sharp, a double-edged blade of fear and shame. Did I ever want Gavin and his allies gone? No. But is there a choice?
Me or him, I hear from somewhere inside me, a mantra that somehow takes root and grows into a weed all on its own. Us or them. Don’t think, just do. Remember the endgame, why you’re here.
Remember what you did to get here.
And then it begins. I’m not sure who starts it, all I know for sure is that I have a hand in it too. The magic structure we’ve made, with all its domes and hallways, starts to extend like it’s being pulled taut in both directions. The entire manipulation becomes stretched out, and thinned, like it’s being pressed into one long, wide, flat piece of paper.
“We need to fold it up,” Stock says hollowly.
The manipulation begins to fold in on itself, the edges of the left side of the flattened manipulation folding over like the page of a book and meeting the right. And then again, and again, and again, until the entire manipulation has been folded up into a square the size of a window. The magic keeps collapsing, folding into itself, becoming smaller and smaller, a box, a breadbox, a block, until it pinches out into dust.
And then there’s nothing on the other side of the lanterns but a flat scroll of grass.
A strange cross between remorse, regret, and pride, beats inside me like a new heart. I look around. Grace, Billy, Ral. Stock. Tommy, Rose. Me.
Seven sorcerers.
Gunn walks toward us, slowly, carefully, like he’s approaching wild animals that have been released from their cages.
“Congratulations to the future of American magic. This troupe has greatly, greatly exceeded my expectations.” He clasps each one of us in a firm handshake. The sign of a partnership. The sign of respect. “And I promise to God that I’m going to exceed all of yours.”
PART TWO
THE REHEARSAL
EASY RUN
ALEX
It starts tomorrow. My real performance. The one that takes place on a stage beyond these prison walls, the one that all this time inside Lorton Reformatory has been preparing me for. It’s been a month since my cafeteria brawl, a stunt that earned me an extra week on my sentence. A solid month of listening to Howie and his Shaw brothers’ never-ending stories during mealtimes. Of afternoon cigarettes in the quad outside Lorton’s dormitories, just one more duck in a row of gray jumpsuits. Of nights spent scheming and self-aggrandizing with Howie, about how we’re going to set ourselves up on the outside, work our way up, and take over the world.
A month of playing someone else, day in and night out.
I suppose I should be exhausted. I suppose I should be asleep right now, getting as much rest as I can before I stand in front of my parole review board tomorrow and try to convince them that I’m fit to walk the streets.
But I’m not tired. In fact, I feel almost electric. Because despite the sheer terror that pumps through my veins, walking through these halls, showering next to thieves and vagrants, eating lunch with guys who would terrify my mother if I ever brought them around—for the first time in a long time, I feel like I have a purpose. I’m working for the Feds, and not just as some bought man, some interchangeable suit who lets himself be greased by a dollar. I’m undercover, important. Hell, essential, to bringing down the Shaws—and I think I’m actually pretty good at the job.
So maybe I’m not damaged goods. Maybe there’s more to the story for me.
“Alex,” Howie whispers from the top cot. “You up?”