The girl stood and waved. “I’m over here,” she called from one of the center rows of the theater.
The people around her startled. She might as well have been a ghost the way she’d appeared in their midst. Their mouths hung open as she excused herself, climbing past two people who sat gaping as she moved toward the center aisle.
At first the audience was too shocked to do anything more than stare, and a deafening silence filled the cavernous house. Even Harte couldn’t do much more than stare. She’d managed to seat herself in the middle of a row without anyone noticing her. ?As he gaped, dumbfounded at how she’d outmaneuvered him again, the applause started slowly and then grew until the audience began coming to their feet, whistling and calling for more.
The girl was already half gone before he came to his senses and realized he needed to go after her. She blew him a kiss and gave a wave from the back of the theater before ducking through the doors to the lobby. Harte found Nibs sitting in the middle of the standing ovation. He gave Harte a smirking salute, then got up and started pushing his way through the frenzied crowd, following the girl.
MASTER OF THE OTHERWORLD
Esta let her feet carry her out of the theater—and far, far away from Harte Darrigan. She barely noticed that night had already fallen over the city; the icy chill in the air didn’t even touch her. She couldn’t feel anything but the shock of finding herself no longer inside the cabinet onstage but out in the audience.
Pushing her way through the crowd gathered on the sidewalk outside the box office, she didn’t bother to apologize or slow her steps, not even when she careened into a large man helping a woman out of their carriage. She had to get away.
She had to figure out what the hell had just happened.
She remembered getting into the cabinet, remembered feeling the sizzling heat of his magic against her palm and knowing he’d done something to her. She remembered the wink he’d given her—the one that promised trouble—before he locked her into the wardrobe. But after that . . .
Nothing.
Nothing at all until she found herself watching Harte Darrigan from the audience again. Not until the audience’s laughter at seeing the cabinet empty shook her from her stupor.
She didn’t know how she’d come to find herself in the middle of the theater—much less in the middle of the row—but she could guess. From his clear agitation when he realized he was alone on an empty stage, Esta understood that she was still supposed to have been inside that cabinet. She must have decided to leave, to use her own magic and get herself into the audience without any of them realizing. But she couldn’t remember actually doing it.
From the moment Nibsy had said Harte Darrigan’s name, Esta knew she was about to meet the person she’d been sent to stop—the Magician. The moment he’d walked onstage, she’d also recognized him immediately as the boy from the Haymarket. At first she’d been uneasy, but after watching him for a few minutes, her worry turned to relief. With his overblown drama and tacky stage magic, she couldn’t believe that this was the Magician. Stopping him would be easy, she thought.
But sitting in the audience, shocked and without any understanding of how she’d gotten there, she realized the Magician was more than he appeared to be. That he would be a formidable opponent.
Luckily, it had taken her only a second to gather her wits and retake control of the situation. The surprise at seeing her in the middle of the audience had transformed his entire face. He’d looked so disarmed that she almost felt guilty for the laughter her little disappearing act caused. Almost.
But then the look on his face changed from surprise to something else, and she knew she had to get out of there—fast.
“Esta!”
She barely heard the voice calling her name as she darted through the crowd, faster now as she tried to outpace her panic. The Magician must have erased her memory or manipulated her in some other way. It was magic, clearly, and not the half-baked stage magic that made up the rest of his tricks. But what was his affinity, and how far did it reach? Could he still affect her now—still control her?
The thought made Esta shudder for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold. Professor Lachlan was depending on her to stop the Magician, but he already had the upper hand. And now he had her on the run.
Esta pulled up short, coming to a dead stop that forced the people behind her to dodge around her. No. She wasn’t going to let him chase her off. That wasn’t going to happen again.
She turned back to find the street sign of the intersection she’d crossed, but lurking above her, as though she’d conjured him in her thoughts, was the Magician.
Larger than life, Harte Darrigan looked down with stormy gray eyes from the huge billboard that took up most of the theater wall behind her.
“Esta! Wait!” Nibs finally caught up to her. He was panting, but his face was glowing with excitement as he caught her arm. “That was excellent. I couldn’t have planned it better myself. How’d you manage it?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, pulling away from him. She was quickly growing aware of the cold now, of how it cut through the velvet of her dress, and she rubbed her arms, trying to ward off the chill.
Nibs handed her the cloak she’d left behind. “You don’t know?” he asked, surprised.
She shook her head as she pulled the cloak around her, but it did nothing to dispel the cold. “I can’t remember how I got out of that box or how I ended up sitting in the theater.”
“Interesting.” Nibs glanced over his spectacles at her.
“You could have warned me about what he could do,” she said, turning on him.
He didn’t so much as flinch at the heat in her words. “I thought it would be better for you to go in without expectations. Anyway, you played it brilliantly. ?You threw him off, which is something I’ve never managed,” he said, admiration clear in his voice. “Dolph’ll be pleased.”
She couldn’t quite feel buoyed by that news. Not at that moment.
“I wanted to see what you could do. ?And you weren’t ever in any real danger. I was only trying to get his attention.” His expression was smug behind the thick lenses. “And you certainly did that. Dolph was right to keep you,” he said.
She glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said. He made a good choice in not giving you back to Corey. ?You’re a damn good thief, but there’s more to you than that, isn’t there?” he asked, squinting through his lenses at her.
“There’s only one way to find out,” she challenged, making sure to meet his eyes. Daring him to accept it. “Give me something to do other than stealing purses.”
He studied her a long, tense moment, and she could practically hear the calculations he was making in that mind of his. “Maybe we will,” he said.
They walked in silence for a while before they found a streetcar heading in the right direction, but all the time, she swore she could feel the eyes of the Magician following her home.
OLD FRIENDS