Page 85 of The Trick of It

“Elders and children are often more delicate than we are,” Seph reasoned, her hair glinting in the afternoon light, casting golden prisms on her white-and-pink collar. “Or they are shy. Or they simply don’t like to socialize. Who can say? But no, I don’t think anyone has been rude.”

“Not exclusively to them, anyhow,” Father Wheeler said mildly and with his eyes on his own food, which still managed to make Master Yuri go a bit red about the ears.

It made Merlin chortle softly, into his napkin, a sound that got smiles out of everyone. Even Yuri.

“It is my turn tonight,” Nini said, grinning. “Are any of you brave enough to volunteer?”

“Would it matter if we weren’t?” Rhys mumbled, making the mind-reader grin and quirk her head.

“I’ve been told,” she said wryly, “that it’s rude to rummage around in minds that didn’t invite me.”

“And yet,” said Seph, matching her tone, “we keep finding you there.”

Later, after they had all separated to attend their respective rehearsals and personal errands, Rhys found that the shoes he had ordered had finally arrived. There was a neat, paper-wrapped parcel in front of the doors to the master suite, and seeing it made his heart drop just a little lower because it meant the passing of time had been real.

He picked up the package carefully, rotating it from one side to the other, and heard his new shoes clatter against the delicate gold-and-blue slippers he’d chosen for Seph. At least now he’d get the pleasure of giving them to her.

He pushed the door open, bracing himself to cut the thing open, and found her, once again sat in the center of the bedchamber, her skirts flared out around her in a circle. This time, she was surrounded by thin, pale-colored paper in strips and snips and a pile of carefully created butterfly shapes next to a pair of glinting, silver scissors.

He appeared to have walked in just as she was placing something in her mouth.

“Seph?” he said, blinking a few times at the scene and then at her smiling face. “I thought you were attending Merlin this afternoon?”

“I was,” she said, beckoning him closer. “I was. Watch this!”

He closed the door behind him, setting the parcel aside, and drifted toward her as she took up three little butterflies in pale blue, yellow, and pink and showed them to him, one side, and then the other. She palmed them, folding each in half and then rolling their centers so that they were more accurately shaped like the insects they resembled.

Then, humming a little to herself in evident excitement, she drew her other hand back from the palm where they rested, and all three began to lift, fluttering gently in thin air, following the urgings of her hands and sway of her body.

He watched, his jaw going slack as he slumped to the floor, while she made these little paper butterflies flit and flutter and sway in the air.

She giggled, her eyes sparkling as she watched his face, and then passed her hands over, under, and around the hovering butterflies to demonstrate that they truly were magically afloat.

He began to smile, giving her a little round of applause as she stifled more giggles and urged her little paper bugs back to the carpet, where they settled softly, one by one.

Then she reached into her mouth again and appeared to mime removing something. The miming continued around her fingers until finally, she stretched her arms out to the sides, sighing in contentment.

“This is one of Merlin’s tricks,” she said at last, gesturing to the butterflies. “He tore this single page out of his book of illusions for the express purpose of being turned into one of my magic kits. He wants me to sell it at the shop.”

“He wants that?!” Rhys exclaimed, surprise swelling to bafflement in his chest. “He wants you to tell his secrets?”

“Just this one,” she said, sighing softly. “To let people discover the delight of astounding their friends. It is simple and inexpensive and very clever. I can make the kit with just a few stacks of paper and shaved fishing wire. I will put his name on the boxes and do demonstrations when the high season comes again, in the summer. Shall I teach you?”

He nodded, watching in helpless, dazed awe, thick in the mire of his infatuation as she showed him how to wrap the thin, clear twine around two fingers and then anchor one end between one’s teeth.

“Butterflies are perfect for this because no one will become suspicious as you bend and twist them around the threads,” she said, wrapping his fingers for him and placing two of her cut-outs in his palm. “He did say that sometimes he anchors the thread behind a till or table depending on the day and the frequency of performance. I suppose a bit of adhesive would manage that. But for us, tonight, it’s the teeth. Ready?”

“Ready,” he said, opening his mouth as she dropped the twine in and using his tongue to anchor it.

He pretended to concentrate very hard, and one by one, used his powers of mental magic to raise the three butterflies from the carpet, forced to control his urge to grin at her theatrical gasps and applause.

It really was a very good trick.

“You should use the tissue paper in the external packaging,” he told her, stroking the scraps. “It looks very vernal.”

“What does that mean?” she asked softly. “‘Vernal.’”

“‘Spring-like,’” he said, chuckling. “Like autumnal.”