Washington Square at dusk is a stage clearing its throat for the real show—buskers testing amps, chess hustlers tapping clocks, skaters carving arcs between toddlers with balloons. The arch goes pale gold; the fountain is a black mouth humming coins. I pick a patch of stone near the ring of benches because the acoustics there are honest and the cops are lazy about shooing people until the late crowd shows.
"You’re going to perform?" She does an excited hop—pure Lucky-at-dinnertime energy.
"That’s the idea."
She flushes. "I’ve never watched you perform in public."
I tap my coin against my knuckle. "Then let’s fix that."
Set-up is a conversation with my hands. No coin-walking—too familiar. Tonight it’s paper: a clean deck, two rubber bands, and a napkin folded into a rose that will be ash by the end.
The crowd builds without looking like a crowd: a circle of space and the edges of people pretending not to be edges. Charity stands just off my shoulder, where I can feel the warmth of her without losing the thread.
"Evening," I call, voice pitched just loud enough to ripple through the circle. "Name’s Draco. If you like what you see, drop a bill. If you don’t like what you see, drop two—then I can afford to practice."
A couple laughs. A kid in a Mets cap scoots to the front like this is church and I’m the only priest who doesn’t make him fall asleep.
I teach the audience how I steal from them while I steal from them. Rubber bands trap and melt through each other with a pop that makes the back row lean in. A card turns face-up in a face-down spread like it changed its mind. The napkin rose blooms in my palm and wilts into smoke that smells like cheap barbecues.
Charity’s hand finds my elbow when the smoke curls past her cheek. Her eyes are wide, her breath catching like she’s forgotten the world has air.
It rains ones and coins and a couple of fives. Nothing flashy, nothing I can’t carry. Enough to eat and enough for tomorrow’s trick.
And for a beat, I’m back in the Subura—barefoot, grubby, eight years old—flipping stones across my knuckleswhile the other kids lifted purses from the distracted crowd, the air thick with piss and smoke. Coins clattering into a cracked bowl, tinny echoes that meant bread, meant water, meant maybe my ribs wouldn’t ache so hard when I curled up to sleep. Each drop of copper was a lifeline, every alley a battleground where kids like me learned to run before we learned to read.
Later, in the arena, the same lesson played louder. Dust choking my lungs, the copper tang of blood in the heat, the crowd’s roar slamming into my chest like a physical thing. Win their eyes, win their favor, and maybe you walked out whole. Maybe you lived to fight again. Spectacle was always the only armor I could afford.
And, Goddess help me, even now, the ripple of attention hits the same way—too close, too loud, too much like the sand under my feet when I was a boy who had nothing but tricks and fury.
But the joy is different. Not survival this time. Not the desperate thrill of scraping out one more night of breath. Bigger, brighter—becauseshe’shere. Because Charity’s smile lights the edge of the circle and makes strangers drop bills just to be near it. That’s its own kind of sorcery: turning her light into currency, watching it multiply in my hands.
And the want that rises in me is dangerous. Not just for applause, not just for coins. I want her to look at me the way she just looked at the fire curling out of my palm—unguarded, dazzled, like I’ve cracked open the dark and pulled something impossible into her world. I want to keep that light aimed at me and me alone, greedy in a way that feels more perilous than any blade I’ve ever faced.
Her hand brushes my elbow again, dragging me back to the present. She leans close, whisper-soft. "How?"
"Misdirection," I say, under the patter of my street voice, but only for her. "Always about what you want them to see."
When the last trick fades and the crowd disperses, she's staring at me like she's never seen me before. Her eyes shine with something that might be tears, or pride, or wonder—maybe all three.
"That was…" She can't finish. Just shakes her head, speechless.
And that look—that unguarded awe—is worth more than every coin in my hat. More than every coin I’ve ever earned.
After, we split a slice from the corner place that burns the cheese just right. She licks sauce from her thumb without thinking, and I look away like a gentleman. It doesn’t help.
On the walk north, she tries to hand me a folded fifty from her messenger bag. "For… supplies."
"Nope," I say, breezy. "You keep it."
"I grabbed it from the house this morning," she blurts. "I didn’t bring a wallet last night," she blurts. "I didn’t think of it, and you gave a stranger your money, and I… I want to be useful."
"You are," I say, more blunt than I intend. "You pay attention. Most people don’t."
Her cheeks go pink. She hides in the steam of a street cart and orders two hot teas just because the words feel brave in her mouth. When the paper cup warms her hands, she looks like she’s holding a tiny planet and has to figure out what to do with it.
We cut east. A metal door halfway down a block that looks like it’s given up on itself. Two knocks, one knock, two knocks. The kid on the other side is a baby with a tattoo and a scar like a comet. He sees me and opens without asking names.
Inside is a basement strung with Christmas lights that never learned about seasons. The air tastes like beer foam and dust. A circle of kids—magicians, dancers, drifters—swap tricks like trade secrets.
