Chapter Two: Conflict of Interests

Mary had a steady job working for the tax division. A conflict of interest, to be sure—the other members of the company often teased her about it. Gregory, in particular, made a point of it—saying that if pressed, the others might rat one another out for being magic handlers, but only Mary would rat them all out for cheating on their taxes. She joked back that what was there to rat out—joking was the only way to deal with Gregory—but truth be told, hearing him egg her on about reporting anyone always put her on edge. After all, she had been asked before.

The government wasn't entirely unaware of what its agents did in their free time, even if they weren't, strictly speaking, the ones hired to track down and arrest the magically inclined. She couldn't count how many times she'd had to undergo interrogation, lie to them as they asked her: is Jed a magic user? Are you a magic user? Is anyone in the stage group you perform with capable of using magic? The answer was always the same—no, he wasn't, she wasn't, to the best of her knowledge all of it was illusion; her act certainly was, they had seen—but they still insisted on asking her, once a month, regular as clockwork. Always on those alternate Tuesdays, when they knew she'd be performing—as if they knew she would be performing that night, and were hoping that they would be able to get some information out of her; that she would crack under the simple stress of having too much on her mind; that it would all come spilling out—yes, she was a magic user, no, she didn't know if Jed was, but she could name at least one other person in the company that had the ability . . .

Thank God she had something of a gift for staying calm during the interrogations, thank God that she'd managed to keep her lies straight, thank God that she'd never been interrogated by one of the special agents, with all their tricks for proving you false. Thank God Jed and Sarah let her stay with the company, where she could work some of the magic out, even if she was working for the same government that kept investigating them. Thank God, thank God, thank God: funny, how the contradiction of working for the enemy (as Gregory called it, when he was feeling particularly venomous) while performing with the company had restored her faith.

She mused over this as she climbed out of the costume she wore in the second act, when she did her vanishing trick, and into the bright blue dress she wore when she was no longer the vanishing act, but Jed's “beautiful assistant.”

“Not that I really am 'the beautiful assistant,'” she informed her reflection, as she fussed with her hair. “More like the walking prop.”

It was true. She didn't so much assist Jed as stand up on stage and distract the audience, telling jokes and handing him other props while he focused on the sleight of hand (or so he called it) that made up his part of the show. Really, she distracted them while Jed failed to perform the sleight of hand, and instead did—well.

She couldn't say it was actual magic. She never saw what he did, and there was always a feeling when someone else in the company used actual magic—a sort of burning ache in her fingertips. But she knew. Instinctively, and even if she had spilled everything under interrogation, she wouldn't report Jed, because she wasn't sure—but she knew that, somehow, his tricks were more than sleight-of-hand. They couldn't be sleight of hand—he kept his hands exposed at all times. They weren't smoke and mirrors, either—there were no mirrors on the stage, least of all when Jed was performing.

Mary had asked him about it, once. Just once, when they'd just finished doing a set together, and she knew that the flowers he'd claimed to have pulled out of his sleeve had not been there when they dressed.

“Where did those come from?” she'd asked him, casually, as they exited the stage together. “Sarah said you didn't have time to go to the florist today.”

Jed's ears had burned red at that, and he'd muttered something about having gone during the first act, then let the subject drop—but that was what solidified it, for her.

“You were watching Edward do his tricks, I thought,” she'd continued conversationally. “I guess I was wrong.” And she let it drop.

Still. That was all it took. She knew. There was no real proof, but it didn't matter. She knew. Jed could use, just like her.

She'd never tell anyone, but there was some comfort in knowing she wasn't the only one.

“I have to do something to keep the magic at bay, after all,” she told her reflection, as she finished pinning her hair into place, and moved on to applying the stage makeup that Sarah insisted they all wear, saying they looked too pale without it. “If I didn't use it . . .”

Mary let her voice trail off as she thought about this, remembering what it had been like before she'd found an outlet for it. Small accidents at work—coffee mugs breaking as if squeezed too hard, regardless of how tightly she held them, papers somehow falling everywhere—when she was having a particularly bad time of it, her colleagues found themselves without working computers or phones. The magic found ways to manifest itself, if it wasn't used. Ways of making itself known, of reminding her.

“Never again,” she muttered, as she outlined her lips in bright scarlet. “Never again.”

“Never again what?” asked Sarah, as she pushed the door to the dressing room open. Her arms were full of costumes, likely needing repairs.

“I'm never going to fumble my act quite that badly ever again,” Mary lied cheerily. A half-truth; she had fumbled her disappearing act.

“Jed told me,” commented Sarah, dumping the clothes onto a nearby chair. “He was relieved; with the crowd tonight, he thinks the fumble proves that you're human, and not using actual magic. It might be what keeps him from being interrogated.”

She sighed. “I don't know if they will bother interrogating him; they were after me yesterday, asking how I did the trick. They seem to think I'm the only magic user in the company.”

Sarah laughed hollowly. “You think that'll stop them from investigating Jed and I again?”

Mary shrugged. “It has before, I think. When there have been agents in the crowd.”

“There's always agents in the crowd, though,” said Sarah tiredly. “With the new regulations, things have gotten worse. They're looking to fill quota, reporting magicians, and we're left scrambling for new tricks—ones that aren't quite so hard to explain to someone that doesn't understand why you'd want to do stage magic in the first place.”

“Is that why Jed's gone mostly to sleight of hand?” asked Mary idly. “I mean, he's not phasing out the big acts, is he?” This was a new development; she hadn't known that the two of them—her leaders, really—were worried about what was happening.

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Sarah corrected hastily. “He's gone mostly to sleight of hand himself—things that are easy to explain, and to recreate in front of the agents—but he's of the opinion that if the lot of you want to risk your necks to perform the tricks that you do, that's your decision. He . . . doesn't think that he'd be at any risk of arrest, should one of you be arrested, and I agree with him.”

She was lying, of course—everyone in the company knew exactly how Jed's wife felt about the way things were handled, and how she worried that they would all hang together one day—but Mary didn't have the heart to call her out on it.

“If one of us is arrested,” Mary said carefully, “I don't think it's Jed they'd go after. He's been interrogated how many times now?”

“Three.” Sarah sighed heavily. “It's almost time for the two of you to go on, isn't it?”

She nodded. “Half-past, he told me—and it's five till right now; I'd better head out.”

“You'd better,” said Sarah. She surveyed her outfit, and made a face. “Here, slip out of that, and I'll give you something else to wear.”

“I'm used to the gown, Sarah, and there's really only four minutes till I'm meant to go on stage,” Mary began helplessly, only to be cut off.

“No, really. The hem's ripped right out of it—hadn't you noticed?” Sarah asked, pointing to the hem, which had ripped neatly across the front. “You'd best change into something else, unless you want to trip and fall halfway through the act, and show everyone in the audience that those flowers were up your sleeve the entire time.”

“You have a point,” Mary admitted. Quickly, she unfastened the gown and slipped it over her head. “Should I go out in my second act costume?”

“Here, wear this,” said Sarah smoothly, shoving a mass of green fabric into her arms. “And hurry!”

She slid it over her head, nearly losing herself in the folds of fabric. “I think it's too big,” she began, but Sarah, shaking her head mutely, deftly zipped up the back, proving it wasn't.

“There,” she said, satisfied. “Much better.”

Mary surveyed her reflection in the mirror with a critical eye. Dark green, to match the rhinestones on the pins she'd put in her hair tonight, with a full skirt. Not what one thought of when they cared to think of magician's assistants at all, but it was lovely. “It's nice,” she admitted grudgingly. “As usual.”

“Good,” said Sarah. “Now, you're due on stage in two minutes. Run!”

Glancing at her watch, Mary ran.