A Criminal Magic (40 page)

Joan shakes her head. “I'm not living behind bars, Alex. And for tonight, there's no pardon.”

She's right, of course she's right, but I can't watch her—the Joan I've come to love, to trust—go. I tighten my hold on her slightly. “Joan—”

“There're certain things that can't be undone.” She shakes her head, her voice breaking. “And I accept that.” She looks at her hands, then up at me, her eyes now wide and resolute. “But you could leave the Unit behind. You could come with me.”

“What? Where—you mean just run? Joan, we'd be fugitives—”

“We'd be free,” she says, determined. “A new city, a new start for you, no Unit, no McEvoy, no Gunn. Just the chance to make magic together. A chance to embrace what we were meant to do, Alex.”

“Joan, think about this, before it's too late,” I press. “You could explain it was self-defense, maybe even cut a plea bargain, if you give up your blood-spell—”

“I don't need saving, Alex.” Joan shakes her head. “In fact, I think
you're
the one who needs saving. I think when you were on our stage with me it was the most awing, wondrous feeling you've ever felt, because it was for me, too. I'm not ready to give that up. And I don't think you are either.”

I stare into her dark almond-shaped eyes, and for one hot, desperate moment, I nearly agree with her. I don't know if I can watch her go. Maybe I
could
turn my back on everything I've worked for—the broken man I've managed to somehow piece back together. The charge I've come to own. The person I've become proud of.

“Joan, I'm not my father.” The words almost say themselves, escape before I have a chance to think them through. But as soon as they're out in the world, I know they're true. Despite how much I want Joan,
need
her, my allegiance, first and foremost, has to be to myself. “I'm different than I was before.” I wrap my hands around her wrists. “I won't hide. I believe in what I'm doing now, and I just can't run away.”

“So that's it?” she whispers. “We say good-bye? Go our separate ways?”

“It doesn't have to be this way, Joan. Please, think through this—”

“But that's the thing, I have.” She moves her hand over to my right ear, and I feel something soft and sweet-scented bloom beside my temple. I carefully pluck the newly sorcered flower from my hair. A black, red-tongued orchid, a spitting image of the one I made for her so many nights ago at the Den, when things, as complicated as they were, were also simpler. “If you're honest with yourself, Alex, you've always known the truth of me.”

I shake my head. She can't go. If she goes, she's a fugitive, a criminal. “If you run, when we meet again, Joan . . . Christ, it's not going to be like this.”

She gives me a sad, loaded smile. “That's assuming you can catch me, Mr. Danfrey.” Quick as a cat, she leans in, places her lips onto mine. “I will never, ever forget you, Alex,” she adds, a whisper. “You helped me become who I was meant to be.”

Of course, I know she's right, because in a strange, twisted way, her words are just as true for me.
And yet the feeling of having Joan so close again is thrilling, addictive. Instinctively, I reach to keep her with me just a little while longer, but that fast she slips away, turns and darts back the way she came. One more step and she disappears for an instant, and through her magic fold, her linked trick, she emerges again near the stairs of the train, down the platform, thirty feet away. “Wait, Joan—”

The train begins to move.

“Joan, wait, STOP—!”

But there's no stopping her, that becomes immediately, painfully clear. She grabs the handle up the train car stairs, gives me this teasing little curtsy, a nod that this is our final performance together, that the world was once our stage. She flashes me that heady smile once more, and despite everything, despite
all reason
, I find myself smiling with her.

Joan steps onto the moving train, and then just like magic,
poof
—

She's gone.

Photo by Pieter M. van Hattem

Lee Kelly is the author of
City of Savages
. She has wanted to write since she was old enough to hold a pencil, but it wasn't until she began studying for the California Bar Exam that she conveniently started putting pen to paper. An entertainment lawyer by trade, Lee has practiced in Los Angeles and New York. She lives with her husband and son in Millburn, New Jersey. Follow her on at
@leeykelly
and on her website at
newwritecity.com
.

ALSO BY LEE KELLY

City of Savages

We hope you enjoyed reading this SAGA PRESS eBook.

Sign up for our newsletter and receive special offers, access to bonus content, and info on the latest new releases and other great eBooks from SAGA PRESS and Simon & Schuster.

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

www.simonandschuster.com
| This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. | Text copyright © 2016 by Lee Kelly | Front jacket photo-illustration copyright © 2016 by Steve Stone | All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Saga Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 | Saga Press and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. | For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or
[email protected]
. | The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at
www.simonspeakers.com
. | The text for this book is set in Bembo Std. | Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data | Kelly, Lee. | A criminal magic / Lee Kelly.—First edition. | p. cm. | Summary: “Washington, DC, 1926. While sorcery opponents have succeeded in passing the 18th Amendment, the Prohibition of magic has only invigorated the city's underworld. Smuggling rings funnel magic contraband in from the coast. Sorcerers cast illusions to aid mobsters' crime sprees. Gangs have even established secret venues called “magic havens,” where the public can lose themselves in immersive magic, as well as imbibe a mind-bending and highly addictive elixir known as “the sorcerer's shine.” Joan Kendrick, a young sorcerer from the back woods of Norfolk County, accepts an offer to work for DC's most notorious crime syndicate, The Shaw Gang, when her family's home is repossessed. Alex Danfrey, first-year Federal Prohibition Unit trainee with a complicated past and talents of his own, becomes tapped to go undercover and infiltrate the Shaws. Joan meets Alex at the Shaws' magic haven, and soon discovers a confidant in her fellow performer. As Alex grows closer to Joan, he begins to fall under her spell. But when a new breed of sorcerer's shine—one sorcered within the walls of the Shaws' magic haven—gets set to change the face of the underworld, Joan and Alex are forced to question their allegiances and motivations, as they become pitted against one another in a dangerous, heady game of cat-and-mouse.”—Provided by publisher. | ISBN 978-1-4814-1033-5 (hardback) | ISBN 978-1-4814-1035-9 (eBook) | 1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Prohibition—Fiction. 3. Washington (D.C.)—Fiction. 4. Fantasy fiction. 5. Alternative histories (Fiction) I. Title. | PS3611.E4498C75 2016 | 813'.6—dc23 | 2015022120