“I’m moving up in the world, Danfrey,” he says with an annoying little pedantic smirk. He gives me a long, exaggerated once-over. “Too bad I can’t say the same for both of us.”
Like a reflex from a phantom limb, I almost tell him that despite what he thinks he knows about me, it doesn’t scratch the surface—I’m not the half-rate gangster chump he thinks McEvoy has discarded, who he needs to believe he’s eclipsed.
But I manage to quash the urge. Because those days, of making sure the world knows how important Alex Danfrey is, they’re over. There’s just too much at stake. I can’t afford to have any enemies lurking in the corners of this place.
“Listen, How, I’m sorry, about what I said before, that night in the car with Win,” I say softly. “About you, and your family. I didn’t mean it.”
“Water under the bridge, Danfrey.” But his eyes stay hard as diamonds. He flashes me a wolfish smile. “Anyway, that’s your MO, right? Come on strong, then fizzle out?”
I swallow. “Thought you just said it was water under the bridge.”
Howie slaps me, hard, on the back. “Can’t two friends still mess around?”
“’Course.”
Howie looks around. A crowd’s starting to gather in the center of the performance space for the impending finale. “Don’t you owe me a little trick or something, Danfrey?”
I burrow into my pocket, pull out my pack of Luckies, light one, and then float it over the space between us. Howie reaches for the cig, then takes a pull. “Always did love how you did that.”
It’s getting late—the other sorcerers have started to move to their positions around the space’s perimeter. I should go, but I feel like there’s something Howie’s hiding, something he wants to rub my face in but knows he shouldn’t—if I take another minute, push him, maybe I can trick him into it—but then I glance at Joan. When she catches me watching her, a huge grin lights up her face.
“Well, at least you got the girl, man.” Howie follows my gaze and slaps my back once more before leaving me. “Have fun with your tricks.”
I sidestep the patrons who are now crowded in the middle of the floor, arranging themselves into ten-to fifteen-person rows across the performance space. I take my place beside Joan on the right of the crowd, off the aisle. “Grace is about to start,” Joan says nervously. “Remember, wait for my cue.”
I shake off Howie’s taunting, try to settle back into light, flirtatious, performer Alex. Joan’s Alex. “Yes, boss.”
She smiles. “Seriously, don’t get too trigger-happy. This has to be just right.”
I give her an exaggerated bow. “Your wish is my command.”
She rolls her eyes, but her smile only grows wider as she looks away from me and up to the lofted ceiling above the audience. And as we stand here beside each other, waiting, I take the opportunity and whisper, “Is Gunn working the floor tonight?”
She keeps her eyes on the ceiling. “He’s getting ready for a meeting.”
“Here, you mean? With who?” I look around pointedly. “I didn’t see any of the other head honchos here.” I flash her a grin. “You’re making me even more nervous.”
“Don’t be nervous, you’re a natural. Everything’s going better than I hoped it would.”
Before I can press her anymore, Grace starts blinking out all the lights that hang in rows over the space, and soon the entire room is coated in a thick darkness. There are gasps, murmurs from the crowd.
The darkness begins to fade, slowly but surely, like someone’s taken a bucket of midnight and mixed in a steady drip of light. Black, to a rich gray, to a fading silver—
At some point, Ral and Billy finish painting their night canvas. They hand the reins over to Tommy and Rose, who send billowing clouds drifting across the space and splatter shocks of yellow, deep purple, and electric pink above the audience’s heads. The colors begin to deepen and run together. I try to imagine what it must feel like, to have this world of magic hit you all at once, for the first time, not slowly during hours of careful rehearsal and improvisation to make it happen. It must truly feel out of this world.
“Our turn,” Joan whispers.
She sparks to life a small sphere of light, maybe the size of a globe, right above the audience’s heads. And then she breathes life into it, slowly expanding it, like she’s blowing up the world’s most brilliant, glimmering balloon.
I whisper beside her, “Incredible.” Because despite how dangerous magic can be—how it’s been used to hide murders, cover up robberies, send people spiraling into the throes of addiction—there’s just no denying that it is.