Page 91 of The Trick of It

One did not need confusion to feel disoriented by a mirror in the dark, after all. Seph always avoided the ones in her own apartment when she had to get up in the night for water or to relieve herself.

No one likes an uncertain reflection, and that was the entire point of this trick.

She hadn’t eaten much at dinner. She needed to move quickly and lightly, and that was easiest on an empty stomach.

Rhys, in all his beautiful foresight, had quietly instructed the staff to cover their picked-over dinners and leave them upstairs in the master suite so that they could eat afterward, once the rush of excitement had drained from their bodies and full, round stomachs could be slept on, rather than avoided.

They dressed with their backs to each other, Rhys dabbing kohl over his lashes and shaking out his arms in the loose tunic he wore for this performance—provincial and flexible.

Seph loosened her hair and combed it to a sheen, weaving in the palest of the flowers, the golden ones, at her brow while Rhys tied the matching kerchief around his throat. She tied her medieval dress tight to her ribs, to keep her upright and precise throughout what was to come.

They wore one pair of shoes.

The others were hidden, along with the flowers and kerchiefs downstairs. Every switch would very subtly change these accessories. The flowers would shift to a darker shade and then back again, but as lilies rather than roses. Rhys would do the same with his kerchief, fabric and pattern and hue all changing just enough to be unsettling without being obvious.

They faced each other, mirroring a quick series of stretches, and then counted together and exhaled as hard as they could.

An old ritual for dispelling nerves.

A good one.

And then, it seemed to Seph, that they traveled without walking and appeared in the ballroom, in front of their curtain frames, assembled before their audience. It seemed to her that they had skipped the journey and arrived just after their exhaling ritual.

The lights were dimmed.

The crowd was hushed.

And her extremities came alive. They came alive in a way she hadn’t felt in a decade, since the last time she’d performed on a stage rather than behind a till. Something lit inside her, sparkling and sweet, and she could not remember any nerves or uncertainties anymore because she was home.

“There is an old story,” Rhys began, carrying a lantern toward a small table at the front and center of the panels and setting it down, increasing the light until his kohl-lined eyes glowed, “in the hallowed and ancient hills of these lands, where things have never quite been tamed. You have heard this story, perhaps. You have heard whispers of Tylwyth Teg, or auf, or ‘the good neighbors.’ And whether you know it or not, you have met them too. Because among us walk the changelings.”

Seph passed behind him, her shadow and reflection bouncing and dancing in the dark and isolated light. He waited until that shadow passed over him and stepped backward, allowing her to loop around him.

“Infants taken from their cradles,” she continued, bracing her hands on either side of the lantern. “Replaced with a lookalike from the other side. Why do the fae take our infants? Why do they give us their own? Some say it is not for us to know. Some say it is to learn, to watch, to listen. That is not the question you should ask, however. The question you should ask is not why or how, but instead examine the reasons we are allowed to be aware of it happening. Question the clues … because if the fair folk did not want us to notice, be assured, we would not.”

“For the satisfaction,” Rhys suggested, passing carefully to her left and walking behind her.

She jerked up the lantern, spinning to confront him, and found only his shoes, one in front of the other, as though he had vanished mid-stride.

She knelt, touching the heel of one of the shoes as the others gasped and his voice sounded, echoing from the other side of the room.

“Or perhaps for the fun?”

She stood quickly and spun to find him leaning against the wall, examining his fingernails, a smile wide on his face. When she swung the lantern back to the floor, the shoes were gone.

“Looking for these?” he asked, gesturing down at his own feet. “They are mine. You cannot keep them.”

There was a smattering of awe throughout the gathered, whispers and shifting in their seats.

Rhys strode across the room, hopping back up onto their elevated stage and stalking toward her. He snatched the lantern from her grip and gave her a gloating grin. “You think you’re so different to me?” he asked, crowding her so that she stumbled backward—one step, two, and—

There was a gasp from the assembled, loud and synchronized this time as Seph appeared to fall backward, to exist and not exist, and Rhys slowly, gloatingly lowered the lantern to the pair of half-stepped slippers at his toes.

“A prize,” he said, lifting the lantern to his face and leering ghoulishly at the audience.

“Not for you, it isn’t,” Seph’s voice told him.

He whipped around to find nothing there, just the shoes, then gave a relieved little laugh, like he had imagined it. Then he turned again to say something to the audience, only to find Seph nose-to-nose with him, somehow in front of the table.