Right now it’s almost four o’clock, and my mind’s been wandering all afternoon. I try one last time to focus on rehearsal, on the heady feeling I get when I throw myself completely into performance magic and manage to forget everything else. Tonight Gunn has a new finale idea he’s billing as “A Magical Storm,” and it’s supposed to be a true Category Five hurricane. Our visual experts Tommy and Rose are conjuring lightning, with Grace, our amplifier, on galloping thunder. Billy and Ral will send slick curtains of rain from the ceiling to a few feet over the crowd’s heads, while Stock and I will work together to churn hurricane winds, meant to span from the double doors all the way to the back stage, with the storm’s eye falling right over the audience in the center.
But our performance hasn’t come together yet. The lightning feels off, sporadic, dangerous. Grace’s amplified thunder is kind of ill-timed, and Ral slips up once and sends the rain pummeling to the floor. While I’m to bring the winds and Stock, our motions expert, is in charge of churning them, we can’t find our footing together, and we end up picking at each other through the entire dress rehearsal.
There’s a hum of discord in the troupe’s usual melody, a tension, even in the magic. And as much as I try and deny it, instinct tells me it’s got something to do with me. How I’ve been slowly disrupting our rhythm as I get pulled, further each day, into my own strange dance with Gunn.
Around four thirty Gunn calls it quits, despite how unready the troupe looks and feels. He mumbles, “Good luck” and heads into his office alone—but I know it’s just a matter of time until he emerges and comes looking for me.
“Well, that was ugly,” Billy declares to the troupe near the base of the back stage. “If tonight’s show’s just as hideous, I’m going to down a shot of shine to get through it.”
“Don’t fall down the rabbit hole. Not too much, we promised each other,” Ral scolds him softly. “Drink it after the show, if you want to celebrate, not before.”
I’ve been noticing Ral and Billy on the floor more and more each night at the end of our performances, taking a shot of shine right along with the audience. Billy doesn’t surprise me, as even back at the warehouse clearing it was obvious he was often tempted to drink the stuff. But Ral does. Then again, guess he’s been working hard, and I’m sure he welcomes the escape from missing his family—I just hope he really does know how much is too much, and when to slow down. Trouble is, I barely get any downtime with him or the rest of the troupe anymore, considering my side venture with Gunn. I doubt unsought advice from me would go over so well these days.
Billy shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Then I’m taking a nap.”
Grace smirks. “Ral, you’re in charge of waking him up on time,” she says. “I’m sure as hell not trying to wake a dragon.”
I give a laugh beside her as Billy and Ral head back to their room. She hops on the stage next to me, while Tommy, Rose, and Stock walk off toward the double doors, arguing about whether they’ve got time to sneak in a motion picture before our own show.
“We should get some air too.” Grace turns to me once they’ve gone. “Catch a smoke and walk around the block or something. It’s been a while since we’ve managed to sneak out of this place.”
She’s right—we haven’t done our coffee-and-fire-escape ritual in over a week, and it would be smart for me to come up for air. Between rehearsals, my secret meetings with Gunn, and our nightly shows, I barely have a moment where I’m not focused on magic of one sort or another.
Besides, things have felt . . . different between Grace and me since I started meeting with Gunn about the blood-magic. When I first shared some of Mama’s spells, when Gunn said no one could know about this magic but him and me, he mentioned, in passing, that I’d need to protect myself a little more, close my mind and keep my thoughts neutral so “certain talents don’t go fishing around inside.” Of course he was talking about the troupe, Grace’s mining skills in particular, so when I’m around her these days I picture my mind a house, and keep all the doors locked but the breezy foyer.
Grace has to feel it. In fact, I feel her, trying to lock-pick her way inside, trying to use her magic to link us back together.
But Gunn’s warnings, the extra payments he’s funneling me for the cabin, how much I stand to win if the blood-magic comes through as Gunn hopes, or lose if it doesn’t—I’ve got no choice but to keep her out.
That doesn’t mean I don’t miss her. “Let’s do it.” I flash her a smile. “Haven’t had a smoke since this morning.”
“That’s ’cause you never buy your own packs.” She laughs, and I laugh with her.
“That’s ’cause I never step foot outside this place anymore.”
“I know,” she says, and her laughter falls away. “Maybe because you’ve been spending an awful lot of time with someone else.”
“Gunn just wants a second opinion on our show sometimes,” I say slowly.
“Not sometimes.” She cocks her head, studies me. “You’re in there every day.”
“You stalking me, Grace Dune?” I try to make my tone light, but Grace’s face says she’s having none of it.
And of course, Gunn decides at that moment to bellow for me, like an owner calling for his dog in the hall. “Joan, come on, don’t have all night.”
Grace and I stare at each other, for a second, a minute.
“I’m sorry, I—I better go. Would have loved to step outside, though . . .”
“Hope you’re being careful, Joan.”