Page 67 of The Trick of It

“I should have brought my sister Hattie,” Rhys mused. “She would have talked your ear off in a dozen different languages.”

“Ah, yes, your siblings,” Merlin said, turning toward him with interest, his blue eyes still bright and alert in the sunken lines of his face. “I confess I wished to invite them all, but this house has limited space, and alas, their talents are miracles of the mundane sort. Not like your claims to fae origin.”

Rhys licked his lips and gave a nervous clear of his throat. “Speaking of that,” he said, holding a finger up. “A saucer of cream for outside our chambers tonight would be most welcome.”

Father Wheeler, all the way at the end of the table, chuckled.

Seph looked back at him, her brows raised. “You find precautions against the unseen things in this world foolish, Father?”

“Quite the contrary,” said the priest. “I find them rather honorable.”

“So you think such things work?” Master Yuri asked, frowning deeply. “Protection charms and the like?”

“I am Catholic,” the priest replied, raising his brows. “What else is a rosary? A medal of St. Benedict?”

The Russian sniffed. “Perhaps we are more sensible on the eastern side of the chasm.”

The father tittered. “Perhaps. Though I do believe all the Sons of Abraham have equivalents. The Jewish have their mezuzahs. The Moors believe a copy of their holy book protects their homes. Do your people also not have prayer ropes? Ah, what is the word …?”

Madame Ivanova brought her head up, a sly smile on her lips. “Filakto,” she provided softly. “My father was Russian.”

“Of course he was, dear,” Nini replied, patting the other woman’s shoulder. “By way of Brixton?”

Seph braced, expecting the medium to either react with anger or humiliation, but instead, she just smiled widely, revealing a glint of silver in her back teeth. “Calais first,” she answered, dropping her ridiculous accent entirely. “Mum was French, wasn’t she? But once they saw I had the Sight, they wanted me in a city. What city is there in all the world like London?”

There was a murmur of interest, bodies shifting toward the medium around the table. This unveiling of her true self was perhaps more impressive than any illusion Rhys and Seph could create for this particular assembly of people.

The medium gave a laugh, tinkling and sincere, and heaved a sigh that sounded like relief. “What’s the point of continuing the act with a mind-reader at my side? And tell me, Mrs. Winterstone, with all your powers to reach into my mind—can I speak to the dead?”

“Of course you can,” she answered, winning a few gasps from around the table.

Madame Ivanova gave a smug smile and took another bite of her dinner.

“Of course,” Nini added, holding one of her dainty fingers up, “anyone can speak to the dead. Captive audiences, aren’t they? Corpses. The real question is whether or not they answer.”

The priest chuckled again, but Merlin scratched at his chin, considering. “I think, Mrs. Winterstone, that the question is whether or not they can answer. Plenty likely choose not to. Surely, the dead are just as frequently contrary as the living.”

A little frown played on Rhys’s lips that looked different than his usual performative pouts or disapproval. “And some things,” he said softly, “are not dead or alive. They are something else.”

It brought everyone’s attention around to him, usually something he would have relished in, but instead, he dropped his gaze down to his plate and said nothing more.

It took a moment before the table found another topic, the murmur of conversation resuming in a slow crescendo back to normalcy.

Under the table, Seph put her hand on Rhys’s leg and gave it a reassuring squeeze. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and gave her the slightest tick up at the corners of his lips.

And that was enough for her to relax again and know that he was all right.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Will it be the Dancing Skeletons?” Father Wheeler wondered aloud as they were all ushered down the hall and to the left, toward the little ballroom that would be their performance space. “Or perhaps the Melting Lady …?”

“Do you think he will be so kind as to bequeath tonight’s trick to all of us?” Madame Ivanova wondered. “I haven’t much use for a book of acts for illusionists, but I do yearn to know their secrets.”

“Yearning,” said Master Yuri with an exaggerated wink at the lady, “is the spine of romance.”

It made Madame Ivanova blush a shade of soft pink and giggle the rest of the way down the hall.

“Do you remember the one with the toad?” Seph asked, spinning to take Rhys’s arm in both her hands, holding it by the bicep like a turkey leg instead of doing the dainty linking fingers at the elbow that he had expected.