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RMS ETRURIA
7 JANUARY 1889
“No, no, no.” Anishaa shifted my ungloved hand down several inches. “If you hold the baton too close to the flame, you’ll set yourself on fire. The skirts of our costumes are highly flammable with all the tulle. You need to hold it near the end. Good. Now just move it around slowly, pretend you’re painting the sky with flames.”
I quirked a brow. “‘Painting the sky with flames’? Sounds like a dramatic canvas indeed.”
Anishaa slowly cracked a smile. It had only been a few hours since the discovery of Lady Crenshaw’s body, and tensions were still high. “I used to paint back before my life became this.” The grin faded. “My family encouraged my creativity, though they never approved of the circus.”
A few moments of silence passed between us, broken only by the soft crackling of the fire. If I wasn’t holding a torch, I’d give her a hug. “Well, now you’re a living bit of artwork. And that’s an incredible—”
“I read the letter! How are you going to deny it?” Liza’s piercing voice rang out. I briefly closed my eyes, not surprised but dreading the fact my cousin was unleashing herself now. We were so close to New York, if only she could have held off for a bit longer. “This is over, we are over! I do not wish to see or speak to you again!”
“I ain’t been writin’ to no one!”
Liza, her face near burgundy, stomped through the dining saloon, ignoring each attempt Houdini made to halt her procession. Anishaa and I exchanged nervous glances, but kept our mouths shut. I wished to be back on the trapeze with Cassie and Sebastián, far from the fireworks that were happening offstage. One more look in Anishaa’s direction proved she felt the same; the flame eater stared longingly toward the curtains, probably wishing she possessed the escape skills Houdini did.
“Liza, the only woman I write to is my mother! You gotta believe me—”
“No, Harry, I don’t ‘gotta’ do anything!” She marched through the room and threw her mask at his feet. “Take your lies and sell them to someone else. This conversation is over!”
“I swear—”
Mephistopheles strolled into the room with Jian and Andreas, halting when he saw Anishaa and me holding on to our flaming batons and Liza and Harry storming around. “Lovers’ quarrels are not permitted during practice. Please save the added drama for a private show only.”
Liza offered her most withering glare to the ringmaster and lifted her chin. “We’re through here. Make sure he stays far away from me, or you’ll have an entirely new spectacle on your hands.”
With that she slammed the door, rattling the glassware that had already been set up for tomorrow night’s dinner. Harry made to follow after her, but Mephistopheles stopped him with a hand to the chest. “Let her collect herself. It’s never wise to push a person who’s upset.”
“But I ain’t doing anything wrong!”
“Let’s go get ourselves a nice drink.” Mephistopheles wrapped an arm around the escape artist and escorted him around the tables and through to the other side of the room. “We’ve got to stick together now. The show needs you at your best.”
With one look over his shoulder at me, he led the distraught Houdini out.
Anishaa shook her head. “We should probably put these out. I’ve got to get some rest and you need to do the same.” She leaned in and sniffed my hair. “You might want to bathe before morning, your hair smells a little like kerosene now. It’ll be hard to hide that from Thomas or your uncle.”
I absently nodded and followed Anishaa to a bucket of water that had been set up for us, extinguishing my flaming baton with a hiss of steam. Something about Houdini’s insistence of innocence bothered me. He appeared genuine, his face screwed up in pain. Either he was an expert liar, or he’d been telling the truth. Or a version of it.
Which meant there was a strong possibility the ringmaster had crafted yet another illusion. One more lie to add to a list I feared was never-ending with him. Perhaps Houdini wasn’t the one Liza needed to escape from after all.
A few hours later, I slipped from my chamber, hoping that enough time had passed for me to find who I was looking for. He wasn’t lurking near the prow, which meant there were only two more places he’d be at this hour.
I checked over my shoulder, ensuring I was alone, then headed toward the stairwell. I flew down the stairs, the metal biting into the soles of my feet, reminding me of how alive I was, and how fleeting that could be.
I burst into the animal cargo and Mephistopheles jumped a little but quickly recovered. He studied me from the shadows and I replied in kind. His mask was firmly in place, though his shirt was wrinkled and damp. He appeared as horrible as I felt.
“You lied to me.” I watched him closely, searching for any crack in the armor he wore as often as his masks. “About Houdini’s letter. He was writing to his mother, wasn’t he?”
Mephistopheles didn’t so much as blink, his gaze traveling from my eyes to my mouth, smirking a bit when he elicited a scowl. “I didn’t lie, my dear. If you recall that night, I never claimed he’d been writing to a secret lover. Did I?”
“Oh? You didn’t?” I scoffed. “Then I suppose I produced the half-destroyed letter myself and crafted a story to go along with it all on my own.”
He held my gaze, expression wiped clean of humor. “Consider it your first true lesson in sleight of hand, Miss Wadsworth. Sleight of word is also a valuable tool for any magician or showman. Our minds are magnificent conjurers, capable of endless magic. What I said and showed you that night was simply a half-ruined letter. Your mind fabricated a story—it jumped to its own conclusion. I never said he had a secret lover. I never claimed anything other than he writes to someone and sends a letter from each city.”
I shook my head, wishing I could shake the man before me. “But you said he loved her.”
Mephistopheles nodded. “I did. I imagine he loves his mother very much.”
