A Criminal Magic (27 page)

“Yes, I will. I'm sorry, sir.” I nod, relief coming out in a small gasp as I push my door open. “Of course I'll find a way.”

WHILE THE CAT'S AWAY

JOAN

At midnight, after the crowd has left the show space and as the stagehands clean the place, I finally release the protective wall I sorcered to hide Gunn's meeting. None of the troupe even notices—my manipulation was flawless, only noticeable if you went ahead and walked straight into it, which none of them are likely to do, seeing as no one uses that hall but Gunn—and besides, everyone is exhausted at this hour, or coming down from shine. Not at their sharpest.

I head upstairs with the rest of the sorcerers, share a whiskey nightcap with Grace on my fire escape—ten minutes she spends grilling me over what I really think about Alex. But her questions are warm, and teasing, and it feels good to talk with her about something real, instead of dancing and sidestepping around my business with Gunn.

Still, as soon as she leaves, my nerves return. I sit in my room, counting the minutes until I'm sure everyone's asleep. I need to talk with Gunn as soon as I can, and his meeting in the VIP lounge has to be wrapping up soon. This can't wait. I might have an answer, the solution he's been waiting for, the missing piece in his plan that will determine both our futures. Alex, of all people, might have managed to help me crack the riddle of the caging spell—

I think we went and spellbound the magic itself.

These simple words of his set off an idea, one that grew strong and fast and stubborn as a weed.
Trick the magic
. That's what we need to do, to get around the problems with the caging spell, make a long-lasting shine feasible, and let a buyer open the damn jar.

Trick the magic itself.

I walk down my upstairs hall carefully, quietly, round the two flights downstairs, then knock on Gunn's office door, barely able to contain the nerves and excitement flowing through me. Then I knock again. It's not like me to be so impatient, but I need to pass this on, and I see a faint light from Gunn's office lamp filtering out through the bottom crack of the door. This caging spell riddle has been a thorn in my side, sharp and relentless. So relentless, in fact, that somewhere along the way of trying to solve Gunn's puzzle, I stopped worrying about the hypothetical people in their hypothetical homes across America—the ones who might get hurt if a shippable shine comes to pass—and focused all my worry on me and mine. What would happen if I didn't deliver, what would happen to Ben and Ruby—

I close my eyes.
But you
are
delivering. Their world is only going to get better. Not just the money from your work in the show, but payments on the cabin. And when Gunn rolls this shine out to the world, ten percent of whatever flows back in
—

The door clicks open, interrupts my thoughts, and I jump back to find that weaselly-looking fella I used to see with Alex when he was still working the street: one of Win Matthews's junior guys, always on the sidelines but never in the spotlight, and almost always shined. Howie Matthews.

“Joan,” he says too warmly, with big shined-up eyes, like we're long-lost soul mates. “Sorry for the wait, doll.” He glances back to Gunn and throws him this disgusting, suggestive grin. “Man's all yours.”

Howie shoves his hands in his pockets as he angles past me. He starts whistling down the hall after he leaves, and I close the door behind him. What the heck is a bottom-feeder like Howie doing with Gunn's ear?

“What is it, Joan?”

“That shiner Howie's working for you now, sir?” I say slowly, as I settle into the chair across from Gunn. He's hunched over a large map. If I squint, I can see the vague cursive of
Potomac
scrawled down the sky-blue river that runs right down the middle.

“He has information on Alex Danfrey.” Gunn traces his finger down the left border of the Potomac. “Information I felt compelled to hear.”

I freeze at the mention of Alex's name. “Is something wrong? I told you I'd keep an eye on Alex, sir. And he did great tonight.”

“I keep tabs on everyone, Joan.” His eyes glance up to me briefly. “It's nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

Everyone
. Including me. When I don't answer right away, Gunn pushes, “You had something to tell me?”

But my twisty, almost electric anxiety has given way to a dull hum. “I might have come up with a solution, to our shine problem,” I say flatly.

At that, Gunn stops looking at the map.

I take a deep breath. “It was something Alex said, in passing, about our double-sided trick tonight. The one we use to enchant the glass stand.” I lean forward a few inches. “You know how you've talked about magic being alive, that it needs and wants things, same as the rest of us?”

“And?”

I study my hands. “What if we . . . what if we somehow spellbound the blood-spell? What if we tricked the magic itself?”

Gunn's face stays stone, unimpressed. I lose some of my nerve but stumble forward. “Before I brew the shine, we'll
spellbind the top of the bottle with a double-sided trick. Like our glass stand manipulation, or a protective wall that shows two different things to those on each side.” I try to think this through once more. “The bottle will appear closed on the inside but will be a pass-through on the outside,” I say. “And then I conjure the blood-spell over this double-sided trick.”

I practically see his mind's wheels turning. “Can someone besides you release it?”

I nod. “They should be able to. Because it will only be blood-caged from the inside out, and not the outside in.” I pick up the bottle of water on his desk. “Imagine a stopper sitting right here”—I point to the neck of the bottle—“a stopper that's separated into two manipulations: the one facing the liquid inside is a closed container, and the manipulation that faces upward is an open container. I conjure the blood-spell over this stopper”—I point again to the neck of the bottle—“but we seal the bottle with a cap up here.” I slap the top of the bottle. “A buyer can open the real cap, because the magic inside is none the wiser. It still thinks it's trapped, blood-caged. It has no idea it's been tricked.”

The beginnings of a smile slowly start to pull at Gunn's face. “But the shine would still be bound—”

“It wouldn't be bound, it'd be released,” I interrupt. And then I stop, take a breath.
You don't talk over Gunn
. “Just because the magic doesn't know it's been tricked,” I start again, more tentatively this time, “doesn't mean it hasn't been. The bottle would be open. The shine's shelf life would begin.”

Gunn doesn't say anything for a long time. Then he simply says, “Show me.”

He leans over, takes off the cap of the water bottle in front of me, and leans back, waiting for my demonstration.

I swallow down the nerves, the fear, the doubt.
You can do this. It will work. It has to work
. I take the bottle into my hands,
keep my right on the glass, wave my left over the top. “
Conjure and split—to the bottom enclose, to the top release
.” A small glass stopper sparks alive at the mouth of the bottle. And then I close my eyes, brew my shine into the bottle, letting my magic touch flood into the glass, and transform the water into a pure red shine.

I steal a glance at Gunn. “Moment of truth.” He passes me his letter opener without a word. I pause, then draw it quick across my arm. A flash of blood pulses out of the cut, trails over my skin, drops into the bottle and around the glass stopper I've just conjured. Then I slowly place the real cap on top, right over the bloodstained stopper wedged into the bottle's mouth. “
With purpose and a stalwart heart, a sacrifice.”
I chant the spell. “
Less of me
,
an offering to cage for eternity. My wish, to cage this shine forever, or until I release it.”

The bottle trembles, accepts my sacrifice, and shudders once more before it stops.

“When will we know if it works?” Gunn says.

“After at least a full day. We need to make sure the caging spell has preserved the shine beyond the magic's shelf life.” I pause. “And then someone else has to try to open it.”

Gunn leans back in his chair again, pensive, begins to bite his cuticles. He takes a long look at the bottle. “If this works, it will blow the market apart,” he says simply.

But I can't let myself think about that “market,” about all the folks who could get hooked on shine if this comes to pass—their homes that might get broken, their families who might get left behind. And maybe that's gutless, but I never tricked myself into thinking I was a hero. I'm here to do right by one small corner of the world.
Besides
,
Gunn didn't give you a choice. This is the warehouse clearing all over again, the house of magic manipulations.

You or them.

“If you teach the troupe, and they in turn each teach a team of hired sorcerers”—Gunn thinks through it—“we'll be able to
churn out larger shipments. We hire even more magic gofers, and we can mass-produce it.” He gives a sigh. “Ship as much of this as we can manage, anytime, anywhere. The only limitation being, as I understand it, that as soon as you open the bottle, you'll need to drink its contents within a day.”

I chase away my guilt and answer, “Which will still keep people coming back to us and wanting more.”

At that Gunn pops a hard, hungry laugh. “Here's hoping to God, Joan.” He leans forward, opens his notebook, and says, “All right. I'll let you know.”

I walk to the door feeling like I've been released from a set of shackles, and my shoulders actually feel
lighter
. I might have done it. Given Gunn what he wanted, secured Ruby and Ben's future by doing what I needed to do—

“Joan, there's one more thing. You were asking about Alex Danfrey.” I turn back to Gunn, who's still focused on his notebook. “Don't get mixed up with him, you understand?”

“I'm sorry?”

“You heard me.” He pauses. “Besides,” a smug little smile teases his features, “you need to keep that stalwart heart.”

And just like that, I feel caged again, but by a whole different set of chains.

Gunn's got no right. He might control everything else, but he's got no right to control my heart.

“Go on, Joan,” Gunn says when I don't move, can't bring myself to answer. “That'll be all.”

*    *    *

I'm a ball of nerves that my solution might fail, so I try my best to focus on other things: on throwing myself into my performance, on our show, on my crowd-pleasing trick with Alex. Alex and I just keep improving it. On Wednesday, Alex gets the idea to change my replica's
scenery
, and sends my image
on a swim through a lake. The next night I win over the crowd by having his replica trek through a snowstorm. Thankfully, between our heady, nightly performances and the long but delicious days of practicing side by side, the week manages to pass in its own magic flurry—and by the end of it, I've somehow shelved my worries about Gunn.

But Friday morning he comes knocking on my bedroom door. “Mr. Gunn.”

Gunn's eyes are electric, his hands practically shaking. He shuts the door behind him, burrows through the satchel that's thrown across his body, and pulls out my blood-caged shine. My glass bottle from Monday night is still capped, with a bloodstained glass topper wedged into the mouth. And the shine is still a brilliant, glistening, full-bodied red.

He twists off the top easily, and then places it back on again.

“It worked,” I breathe out.

Gunn turns the bottle over carefully to its side. “Oh, it worked all right. I already tested a drop of the product this morning, too. Joan, it's flawless.” We did it.
I did it
. “Some of the higher-ups are already on board. It's real, this is happening. With their support, I'm meeting a distributor tonight, so I'll need you to make another bottle,” he rushes, “see if we can't get him committed to a partnership.”

I exhale loudly, the words, “ten percent,” flashing like a stoplight in my mind.

Gunn tucks the bottle of shine back into his satchel. “Might be a long night of breaking bread, ironing out details. So you need to manage the troupe tonight—pick the finale, run the floor. It's New Year's Eve, should be a festive crowd.”

I swallow. “Excuse me, sir? You mean your meeting isn't here?”

He shakes his head. “It's at Colletto's shining room, out near Union Station—too risky to do it here.”

Wait, Colletto—as in the D Street boss, Colletto?
I might not know all of the Shaws' inner workings, but I know that a meeting between Gunn and Colletto is far more than
risky
, the gangs are sworn enemies—

“The troupe will be fine, you'll be fine,” Gunn interrupts my thoughts, mistaking the worry that I'm sure is all over my face as concern over running the Den tonight. “Just don't burn the house down, all right?”

“Sir—” I leap forward to get more details, but Gunn's already closed my door.

I run my fingers through my hair, pace back to my bed, flop down onto it. I'm managing the troupe tonight. The show is my show. An eternal shine might be possible, shippable. D Street, the Shaws' enemy, is somehow involved.

Then a thought strums and rings out over all the others, a thought that refuses to be quieted:
Ten percent. Ben and Ruby will be taken care of for the rest of their lives.

You run until you win, or until you fall,
Gunn had said of me, all those mornings ago, in this very room. At the time, the words felt almost like a shaming, especially coming from a man like him. But I'm committed to seeing the other side of them. I've given everything I have, things I didn't want to give, things that weren't mine in the first place—but I've done what I came here to do. I'm taking care of Ben and Ruby, changing their lives for the better, in a way me and my family never could have dreamed of before. And for once, I give myself permission to feel pride over that—not regret, or shame or fear.