Joan smiles, her eyes still on her bright globe, which keeps expanding. Men and women, young and old, they all arch their necks up, watching Joan’s woman-made sun bask them in a warm light. And then she lifts it higher, the sun rising, rising—
And now it’s my turn. I take her sun manipulation and slowly crack it open like an egg, watch the brilliant yellow run like a yolk across the lofted space, bleed into a huge, vast, spectacular morning. Tommy and Rose step in once again, bring their full and bulbous clouds drifting under the ceiling, and the audience bursts into applause.
The world’s first enclosed sunrise.
After our magic immersion, the crowd is now even hungrier, wants to ingest and swim inside the magic that has bewitched them. We sorcerers all climb the stage, as our team of stagehands gathers around the base, waiting patiently with trays of empty shot glasses to fill and hand out to the patrons.
Each of us takes our place in front of the seven bottles on the altar. In unison, we wrap our hands around our glasses, each channel our magic touch right into our bottle. We do this one more time, two tricks of twelve ounces of sorcerer’s shine, before the stagehands pour our bottles into shot glasses and hand the patrons their elixirs.
Soon the entire crowd falls under our shine, and as Joan warned, the place erupts into a strange mix of insanity and abandon. People dash across the space and spin around like children. Some dance, others sing, still others hopscotch through the performance space. Some drag lovers into dark corners, letting the shine speak for them, maybe in ways they hadn’t had the courage to do on their own before—
Not that everything’s so sensual, or freeing. A stagehand rushes a young girl into the corridor toward the bathroom as she sputters and chokes—my guess, an overdose, despite the Den’s firm rules of one ounce per patron. A few feet away from the mouth of that hall, I spot that same older lady—the one with the painted face I was going to charm—crying away her makeup, pleading and pounding on the cinder-block wall of the performance space. It brings me back, to strange, terrifying nights working with my father when he was high. Because as invincible as shine can make you feel, it doesn’t let you escape yourself forever. In fact, eventually, it just makes everything worse. This is why you’re doing what you’re doing, why places like this need to come crashing down.
“You did wonderfully, Alex,” Joan interrupts my thoughts—like always, bringing me back to her, to the now.
“Thanks to you,” I say, as she falls in line beside me. “You saved me earlier. And our replica trick you came up with is something special. You heard the crowd. They were wild for it.”
Under the bright lights that highlight our stage, Joan positively glistens. “My mama used to always say that magic is alive. That if you want things from it, you need to respect it, listen to what it has to say.” She looks away from me, back to the crowd, drops her voice to a seductive hum. “And there was real magic on our stage tonight, Alex.”
And for one quick, hot moment, I almost reach out and grab her, pull her into me, make her mine like I do in that trick. “I think your mother was right. And I even think we did one better.” I throw her a wink but fold my hands on the altar, forcing them to stay where they are. “I actually think we went and spellbound the magic itself.”
She looks at me strangely, like I’ve said the wrong thing. But then she laughs, a big, freeing, bold laugh. Her smile grows wide, her eyes expectant. “I think you’re righter than you know, Mr. Danfrey.”
By this point, Tommy, Rose, Billy, and Ral have all left our stage and angled the stagehands for their own glasses of shine, so Grace crosses the empty space and sidles up to Joan and me.
“That little mirror trick of yours is going to run the rest of us out of town,” she shouts to both of us over the jumpy jazz. Her voice is warm, but even still, she takes a step closer. I swear I can almost feel the pressure from Grace trying to mine her way in and figure me out. Thank God Joan warned me about Grace’s special gift, and every time she gets close enough to burrow her way into my mind, I picture a fortress, sky-high and insurmountable.
On the surface, of course, I flash her a grin and wiggle my thumb playfully toward Joan. “That trick was all Joan’s idea.”
Grace mentally retreats. Maybe she senses she’s not getting in. Or maybe she’s decided to trust Joan, who’s now shooting Grace a pleased, loaded look over my compliment.
I can’t help but smile too, as I glance back to the main space—