“Well?” she pressed. “If this con is going to work, I should know my own fictional father.”
“You will, but for now all you need to know is that the transmutation of the elements is basically the Holy Grail for most alchemists. The good baron died in a fire some years back, along with all his secrets. Or so people thought.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “But now his secret daughter has returned to continue her father’s work. And she’s lonely and afraid and could use a protector.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “And that’s supposed to be me?” she asked, doubtful.
“If you can pull it off?? Yes,” he told her. “As far as Jack Grew’s concerned, you’ve recently shown up in town in need of help from an old friend—that would be me. We just have to make him believe that it would be better if he were the one you relied on. After all, you’d be very grateful to such a person, wouldn’t you? You might even be willing to share your father’s secrets with that person.”
“So we make Jack believe that I have my fake father’s secret files?”
“And we make him think you’re vulnerable enough to give them up with the right encouragement. In this case, an introduction at Khafre Hall.”
“You really think that will work?”
“It’s what we have.”
“Which is such a ringing endorsement.”
“Look, Jack’s been interested in my act for months now, but he’s like the rest of them—he believes that his family’s money and status makes us fundamentally different. That’s what will catch him—he won’t be able to accept that you would choose me over him if you had the option.”
“He’s going to rescue me from you,” she realized, appreciating the simplicity of trapping Jack with his own greed and narrow-mindedness.
“That’s the basic idea. He’ll have to prove himself to you somehow, and that’s what will trap him.”
“But what does this death trap have to do with me being the daughter of some dead baron?”
“You have to earn your keep somehow,” he told her, the corner of his mouth kicking up wryly. “So you’re helping me with my demonstrations.”
“I don’t know,” she hedged, eyeing the box. “That doesn’t really seem necessary.”
“It’s all part of the con.” He ran a hand over the glass case. “That disappearing thing you did was a great effect. We’re going to build on it to hook Jack into believing that you have secrets that could help him with some experiments he’s been doing.”
“What kind of experiments?”
“No idea,” Harte admitted. “I haven’t been able to get him to tell me yet. Like I said, he still doesn’t completely trust me. He’s been using me for information, but he’s still keeping me at arm’s length.” He glanced back in the direction of the stairwell, as though checking to make sure no one else could hear. “So how did you do it?” he whispered. “The disappearing thing. I’m going to need to know what I’m working with.”
“I’d be happy to.” She leaned in. “Right after you tell me what you’re really planning to do with the Book. Because I don’t believe for a second you really plan to hand it over to Dolph.”
He pulled back, his eyes wary. “Or we can work around it.”
She gave him a shrug. “If you insist.”
They stared at each other for a moment, neither wanting to be the first to flinch. Neither wanting to be the one who gave up any ground. To Esta’s relief, his excitement to show her the glass casket won out.
“Okay, then . . . Come take a look at what I’ve done here. I want you to see how it works.” He closed the hinged lid and then opened it, to show her how smoothly it moved. When he depressed a hidden lever at the end of the case, the glass lid slid silently free of the frame, like a car window rolling down. “I’ve been working on this for a while, but I finally figured it out.” Then he grinned.
Esta’s stomach did an unexpected—and definitely unwanted—flip. When his mouth turned up like that, into a real smile instead of the one he pasted onto that smug face of his onstage, he looked almost boyish. Almost like someone she’d like to know . . . if she wasn’t who she was and he wasn’t who he was. If he hadn’t just all but admitted he was making his own plans.
But they were who they were, and she couldn’t let herself forget that he was the one she was supposed to stop. If he betrayed the team, it would mean more than the loss of the Book. But now, it might also mean the death of Dolph Saunders. What would happen to his crew—to all the people who depended on him—if he were gone? What chance would any of them have against the viciousness of the city and the Order that controlled it without Dolph to lead them and to protect them?
“You made this?” she asked, stepping around so that the glass box was between them.
“Yeah. I’ve been working on the idea for a while. I was going to do it myself, but with your . . . whatever it is you do, I think it’ll be better.” He slid the glass back into place and closed the lid. “Most people do this effect behind a screen or with a box, where no one can see what the girl is doing. But with you, we can do something new.” He ran his hand over the glass coffin. “The girl—that’ll be you—will disappear right before the audience’s eyes. No mirrors or screens, no capes or hiding. Poof. ?You’ll be gone.” He eyed her. “Assuming, of course, you can manage it.”
“I can manage it,” she said, “but don’t you think it’s a little risky to have me disappear like that? It’ll raise suspicions about how I did it. Maybe about what I am.”
“No, it won’t,” he said, his gray eyes dancing. “That’s the beautiful thing about it. No one will believe you actually disappeared, because no one will expect you to have real magic. They expect that everything I do onstage is a trick, an illusion. Half the audience will be telling the other half that they knew how it was done.”
Even though she knew he was still up to something, this version of Harte Darrigan was disarming. His face was smudged and his hair was standing up in a riot of loose waves. His clothes were rumpled, and although he was attempting to play things cool, he was practically vibrating with anticipation. It was all a hundred times more compelling than anything she’d seen him do onstage. It seemed so authentic. This Harte Darrigan seemed so real.
All part of his game, she reminded herself. For all she knew, it was just another con.
“Are you going to get in, or what?”
Esta hesitated. “You aren’t going to trap me in there?”
“I’m not promising anything,” he joked, but when she gave him a doubtful look, he let out an impatient huff. “You saw how the mechanism works, didn’t you?” Then he held out his hand, a challenge in his eyes.
Frowning, Esta took his hand and allowed him to help her step up onto the table and into the glass box. It was a tight fit with the bulk of her skirts.
“Good,” he said, looking her over. “Now lie down, would you? I need to make sure it’s not too long or too short.”
She barely had enough room for her hands to be at her sides.