Page 36 of The Trick of It

He nodded. “I’ve seen other things too. Fae things. Do you talk to them alongside your ghosts? The fair folk, I mean.”

She gave him a tight, little smile. “I try to avoid it.”

“Wise,” he said, nodding and turning to accept the beverage thrust at him by an irritated Seph. “Thank you, cariad.”

This time, neither of them commented upon or attempted to rectify the slip of his tongue. There was no time.

The braziers by the old stone wall flared and their attention was taken by a newcomer.

A man in a mask made of stars.

Their host had arrived.

Part IV

Recall & Repetition

Chapter Eleven

Merlin strode forward in the crossbeam of firelight before the bonfire, his cloak floating around his lithe body as he moved. It was unmistakable. This was the man they remembered, his hair still neatly parted to the side, still full and white, his skin wrinkled and swarthy, more aged than it had been all those years ago.

It was him. No question. It was Merlin.

Seph held her breath, sucking a slip of cold, foggy air into her lungs and suspending it inside. She felt the clouds floating in her ribcage. She felt them fighting to escape back into the autumn embrace whence they’d come.

“Welcome, friends,” he said, his voice a deep baritone that quivered in the same hue as the night sky, dark and rich. “More of you have come than I could have hoped. You have my thanks.”

Seph glanced at Rhys, who had knelt to place the lantern between his feet and was still crouching around the glow of their little candle’s light. She stepped closer, wanting to share some of that light. Some of that warmth.

Perhaps some of his chaos as well.

Rhys never seemed unsettled by anything. Ever.

“You must forgive my theatrics,” Merlin continued, giving a self-conscious, little chuckle and reaching up for the stone domino mask that glinted on the top half of his face. His liver-spotted hands sank into his hair and loosened it, pulling it away from his face.

Underneath was just a man.

Just any old man.

He gave a wistful, little half-smile and stepped farther into the light, gently placing the dark, glimmering mask on the table with the food, its indigo ribbons spooling out on either side of its carved cheekbones.

Everyone stared at it alongside the man who’d placed it there, only looking back up at him when he spoke again.

“All of you know me,” he said. “And I know all of you. We are brethren in our art forms, even so much as they differ. Perhaps we have spoken before, and perhaps not, but I have seen all of you perform at some point. And I invited you here because in my long and storied life, you are the only people who have ever made me wonder if magic is real. You are the only ones whose tricks I could not glean from the knowledge of my own.”

Seph swallowed, dropping a hand on Rhys’s shoulder where he was still crouched at her side. She could feel the warmth of his shoulder under his shirt. She could feel how soft that angora scarf was against her knuckles.

He was right, she realized. He did run hot.

Merlin heaved a heavy sigh and shrugged, breaking into a toothy grin as he looked over the group he had gathered. “I am at the end of my life,” he told them. “And I wish to go beyond the veil with hope. I wish to believe there is more than the obvious mortal machinations of this world. That is why I’ve brought you here. I am hoping that you might convince me, as my final wish, that wonder is justified.”

“You are assembling a private recital?” Madame Ivanova asked, her odd accent echoing so suddenly in the dark that it startled the others around to stare at her. She frowned, stroking the fur on her collar. “Or do you only wish to know there is life beyond this one? There is, sir.”

Seph rolled her eyes. This woman wasn’t even certain if her fraudulent caricature was French or Russian. She did not trust her to give accurate change shilling to shilling, much less confirm the world beyond this one.

“Why Lewes?” another man asked, stepping forward in a vicar’s cassock. “Why summon us here?”

“Ah,” said Merlin, considering them both. “Admittedly, this is my city of origin, and this place, this ruin of pain and progress, is one of which I am particularly fond. I believe the veil is thin here, if indeed it does exist. Alas, I am too ill to travel. I had hoped for the indulgence of my fellows coming to me, and I thank you for doing so.”