Girl in the Shadows (23 page)

thirty-one

Dez was there to catch him when he collapsed. Brandon had never looked so thin and fragile. Tears streaked both their faces.

They streaked mine too. My eyes burned with hot tears of shock.

I inhaled deeply, searching for a calm that was impossible to find. The crowd stayed quiet, but they didn’t seem surprised. No one else was weeping. No one else had protested.

The Rex stood there staring at the hammer, barely having broken a sweat. “Did I say I was finished?” he asked.

Dez was shaking his head no, even as Brandon, sickly, ghostly pale, tried to fight his grip to get back to the table. His right hand was already misshapen, swelling, the skin an awful, angry red.

“I am done for now. But next time, it’ll be you, Desmond. Those precious knives will not be flying any longer . . . Or maybe that pretty face needs a makeover.”

Then the Rex stopped, turned to me, and winked. “So, girl, who here is your mom?” Then louder, “Who here has been lying to me, keeping a secret child?”

No one responded. My mother’s hands gripped each other tighter in her lap.

Keep it together,
I told myself.
This man just smashed Brandon’s hand with a hammer, and now his attention is on you
. I wasn’t sure I had enough control of my magic to use it here. And I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

The Rex continued. “Nothing is more valuable than our family, than maintaining the numbers of the Praestigae. So why would one of you keep this healthy girl a secret?”

The people gathered craned their necks, looking around at each other.

The Rex took a step toward me, and another. Brandon moaned. Dez held his friend up and said to me, “Run. Try to run.”

“Shh,” the Rex said. “You’re no prince here, boy. You’re just the one who keeps disappointing me.”

“Get a-away from me,” I forced out, backing up a step.

He kept coming instead. He reached out, and I flinched away, but he clapped a hand on my shoulder and lifted the hammer. The two pointed ends raked against my cheek, pressing into, but not breaking, the skin.

My magic rose in me like fire, and my mother did nothing to send it away. I lifted my face.

Concentrate. Don’t lose control now.

I let the heat flood up through my skin into the hammer he held. He dropped the wooden handle, smoke billowing from it.

“Fuck!” He whirled, his hand at his mouth. He sucked at his burned fingers. Then he pointed at my mother. “Why did you do that?”

The people around us buzzed with shock.

I saw her open her mouth to tell some lie.

No,
I thought. I wanted him to know it was me.

“It wasn’t her,” I said.

He turned back, frowning. “Pretty sure I know magic when I feel it.”

Why hadn’t I made him pass out or something?

“Don’t,” my mother said.

That was all he needed. He gave me a closer look. He
saw
me for the first time. “Chin up, darling,” he said. Then, “The eyes.”

He faced my mother again. “I’ve looked into a twin pair so many nights in bed.”

“Moira, get out of here,” Dez said. “Now.”

“Like you care,” I said.

Okay, maybe that was unfair. It wasn’t like I’d never lied. Or like I thought he wanted the Rex to have his way with me.

But as far as I could tell, everything about me and Dez had been a lie.

“Shh,” the Rex said. “Explain. Why didn’t I know about my child?”

My mother hesitated. She was frightened. “She’s not yours.”

The crowd around us erupted in shocked conversation, and the Rex’s face grew steadily redder. I did not want to be near him when he exploded.

The moment ended anyway, the crowd hushing as he raised a hand. His eyes raked over me, obscene and considering. “Nineteen years ago. When you were working the job in Vegas so long . . .” He barked a laugh. “You were on that magician, trying to find out if he had our lucky coin. I guess you got lucky instead. Well, hell, we all did. She’s one of us
and
she has magic.”

“I am
not
one of you,” I said, and I took a step back.

The Rex watched me.

I took another step away from him.

The people nearest me rustled, and I knew they’d grab me the moment he said to. The yard had grown more crowded, the people from inside drawn out by the action.

“Did you know that Desmond here is at the rich man’s circus because his family owes a debt?” the Rex asked, examining me like he was looking at a prize mare. “I didn’t think so.”

I still wanted answers about Dez. I stayed where I was, and he went on. “His father, with his silver tongue, lost our luck to Roman Garcia in a poker game.” He gestured to the arched scrap behind their wicker thrones. “This is a piece of the Gate of Luck recovered from this very city many years ago. Your mother, my queen, sensed its presence, and so we have a place to rest our heads while we are here. But we will not need trinkets like this with our birthright back. It is the coin that belonged to the first Rex and Regina of the Praestigae. Part of the prize for escaping the Circus Maximus, infused with all the lucky magic of our first Regina.”

If what he said was true, the Garcia coin wasn’t the Garcia coin at all.

“I can see this has all been a bit much for a welcome,” the Rex said. “I’m no savage. You need time to get used to the idea of all this splendor. It’s part yours now, princess. So you can help get the boys back to the circus and use your gift to find the coin. Don’t think to run. Moira, was it?”

“Why didn’t you listen?” My mother’s voice was accusing.

When she’d told me to stop taking chances. When she’d told me that I was in danger. When she’d told me to leave.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Go,” the Rex said, “I need to talk with my wife.”

He waved a hand in the air. “Never forget.”

The crowd around us responded by rote: “Only the Praestigae are free.”

Even Brandon, who looked like he was about to pass out, clinging to Dez, tried to join in the chant.

“Let’s go,” I said to Dez.

No way I was hanging around until this Rex psycho changed his mind.

Dez gingerly lifted Brandon into his arms. “Easy, okay, buddy?” he said.

Brandon grimaced against him and held his hand to the side. It drooped. His eyelids fluttered.

We moved fast to get out of there. I opened the front door, and as soon as we were outside, I said, “We have to get him to a doctor.”

“No ambulance,” Dez said. “No cops.”

I heaved out a breath. “We have to get away from here. He might decide to come after us.”

Dez nodded, and I summoned a car to the next corner using an app on my phone. We stood, tense and quiet, Brandon no longer conscious, waiting.

Come on, come on, come on,
I thought, willing the car to come faster.
I don’t want him to say anything. I don’t want to hear it.

“Moira?” Dez said, soft as a caress.

“Please don’t.” I kept my eyes on the street, watching for our car. “I’m sorry . . . about Brandon. There was nothing you could have done.”

“It’s my fault.”

The plain maroon sedan I’d called came around the corner, and I waved it over. I was afraid the car would leave when the college-student driver saw Brandon, so I grabbed the back passenger door before she could and motioned for Dez to get him inside.

I circled around and climbed in the front seat.

“Does that guy need a hospital?” she asked.

Brandon moaned.

“Take us to Kidd Stadium. To the Cirque.”

“Oh, you’re with the circus!” she said, like that explained everything.

Maybe it did.

I nodded tightly and thumbed out a text to Thurston’s assistant:
Brandon got in a bar fight, won’t let me call 911. Can you get the doctor ready? Broken hand
.

Understatement of the year—I wondered if it was even possible to treat the kind of injury Brandon must have like this, with a road doctor. The Rex’s swing had been so hard, the hammer so high when it came down.

Dez spoke, “Moira, you have to call your dad. You need help.”

Tears pricked at my eyes. “I know. And . . . I will want to talk. Just not right now.”

Right now I was trying to get Brandon’s scream out of my head. Trying to get how my mother hadn’t attempted to fight out of it.

Trying to scrub the Rex’s existence from it.

And failing utterly.

thirty-two

Thurston’s assistant met us at the edge of the property. “Doc’s waiting,” she said. “I don’t think Thurston would like this, not reporting it to the police.”

Dez smiled at her, and I was surprised he had the energy to. “I know it’s not the best,” he said, “but Brandon had some trouble as a kid. Doesn’t need more of a record. Okay?”

“We’ll make it work.” She frowned at Brandon’s condition. “He looks shocky.”

Waving us forward, she rushed us across the artificial turf—not that far, thankfully—to the medical bus parked behind the big top. She opened the door and left us to it. The interior was state-of-the-art, with gurneys, lab stuff, machines, all the things you’d expect in a clinic—just in this case, a clinic on wheels. But would it be enough to fix up Brandon?

The doctor raised his eyebrows, gently assessing Brandon’s hand. “Morphine,” he said to the nurse, who turned away and rushed to unlock a cabinet. “What happened? This isn’t from punching someone.”

“It got mashed. A guy threw a keg on top of it,” Dez said. “Hard.”

I blinked.

Pretty good story. He must have come up with that one in the car.

“You two get out of here and let us work,” he said. “Does he have any family?”

“Just me,” Dez said.

Outside, the sun beat down on us. A few other performers hurried past to rehearsals or on other business, acting as if it was a perfectly normal day. For them, it probably was. Normal felt lost to me.

I’d been wondering something on the ride, once I started to get past the immediate horror of what had happened. I assumed the answer would be no, but I had to ask. “My mom . . . have you ever seen her fix an injury like that?”

Dez looked at me. “With magic? No, I don’t think healing is a thing, not for bodies.”

“I figured.” I remembered blacking out when I tried to change the penny back. Maybe repairing a person was sort of the same thing.

It broke some rule.

Though it was hard to believe in rules, that the universe made any kind of sense at all, after seeing the Rex’s cruelty in action.

Dez sank down to the outdoor steps that led into the medical bus.

“I’m going to wait,” he said.

“Me too.”

“You should call your dad.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them, he was watching me with what seemed to be intense longing.

Remember that charming smile he turned on Thurston’s assistant. You just want the comfort.

“I need answers.” I carefully moved to sit on the next step down, leaving a foot between us. “No one’s around to overhear anything. I don’t want to wait.”

He raised his hands. “I have no more secrets to keep. I never . . . I never wanted to.”

“To be with me, you mean?”

“No! To lie. To keep things from you.”

I didn’t want to talk about the us part yet. The rest was bigger, more important. Even if my heart wanted those answers first, these were the ones my brain demanded.

And my brain was officially back in charge.

“What did he mean, use my power to find the coin?” I asked.

“You still want to help her. After she let him find out about you?”

“That was my fault,” I countered. “Not hers.”

Dez shrugged. “I assume it means you can. Magic calls to magic? You just try?”

Frustrating. “So you don’t really know anything about magic?”

“Not really, not much. Stories. What I’ve seen.”

I kicked the step. “Tell me about the Praestigae. The word’s Latin, right?”

He settled back against the door. “Started that way at least. It means something about the ones in the shadows, tricksters, jugglers. The reason you haven’t heard of us is because no one talks much about us. No one needs to. No one ever leaves.”

“Great,” I said. The Rex clearly expected me to stay with them, become one of them.

“The Praestigae
are
a family.”

“A megadysfunctional one.”

“No argument there,” he agreed. “It wasn’t always as bad as it is now. Sometimes when the Rex isn’t around, people talk. They liked Dad and the Rexes and Reginas before. Your mother can be kind. My dad was disgraced after losing the coin, the Praestigae’s greatest prize. He died last year—he was older when he had me—and not long after, there were rumors that the coin was back. Somewhere at the Cirque. Roman always refused to play for it again, and others said Nancy Maroni had it, but there was no evidence. We knew she had magic of her own. Anyway, now I have to make up for what Dad did. The Rex decided, and when the Rex decides—”

“I can tell.” I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I stopped myself. “It wasn’t your fault back there.”

He stared out in front of us at nothing. “Brandon is like my brother. Always has been. But he was wrong. I would leave in a heartbeat if I thought I could get away.”

Brain in charge, not heart
. “Keep talking,” I said. “I want to know everything. How far back do the Praestigae go?”

“There’s a whole legend how the people started, back in Rome. A beautiful daughter whose merchant father sold her into the gladiator pits. She had magic, like yours. She could transform things. She partnered up with this other prisoner, a criminal who was a former gladiator. She could make a handful of dust into a deadly mace for him. They won their freedom and never looked back. Her magic passed down from Regina to Regina. The Praestigae vowed never to follow anyone else’s rules again, besides their own rulers’.”

How was it possible to escape people who didn’t have to play by anybody else’s rules?
“What about that chant?” I said. “What did it mean?”

“‘The Praestigae are freedom,’” he said. “‘Anything else is death. We must always remember.’ That’s what we—they—believe.”

“I don’t think I’ll like that kind of freedom.”

Dez grew even more serious and looked straight at me. “Moira, he knows you exist now. I don’t know how you can get away, but maybe your dad can help. I believe the Regina was trying to protect you. Keep you out of this.”

“Those maternal instincts really kicked in today,” I said. My mother had barely moved.

“I didn’t know at first why she wanted me to get close to you and keep it quiet from him. When one of them asks for something, though, you do it. I thought it was because I told her Nancy Maroni was interested in you. But then . . . it made sense. When you told me the truth.”

“When did she ask you?” My heart waited for the answer. “Before that first date?”

He nodded. “Right before.”

“Was any of it real?” I asked. Or was I a magician fooled by a regular old liar?

He raised his hands in front of him, looking frustrated. But he answered. “What was between us was real. You lied to me too, but it didn’t make everything a lie. I know it’s over. I was never good enough for you.” His lips twisted into a smile with no humor in it. “We’re from two different worlds.”

“Stop.” He was giving up. I wouldn’t let him. “You could have told.”

I hadn’t seen it before, but now I couldn’t see anything else. This was about punishing himself. He didn’t deserve it.

“What?” he asked.

“You could have told the Rex about me. After I told you about my magic. You could have done it days ago. You could have done it today, and . . . you didn’t.”

“Don’t make me more ‘noble’ than I am. Remember, Brandon’s in there. And I
thought
about telling the Rex . . .”

“You thought about it, and you
didn’t
do it. None of this would have happened if you’d sold me out. You’d be back on top. You would have gotten credit for bringing in another girl with magic, the next Regina-to-be. But you didn’t say a word.”

“I couldn’t. Okay? I should have. But I couldn’t.” He sounded angry at himself.

“Look at me.” I stood up and moved in front of him. I reached down for his hands, and he let me take them, though he looked skeptical. Like this was all a trick.

I pulled him to his feet. “I trust you. Mostly.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m not running. We are going to do this together.”

“You have to go.”

“Dez,” I said, “I think I love you.”

He had nothing to say to that. His eyes went watery, like pennies at the bottom of a fountain. “I think I love you too, Moira Mitchell. You do know I’m the worst idea you’ve ever had, though?”

“Back at you,” I whispered.

“We are so screwed.”

His lips met mine, and he wrapped me in his arms, and I held on to him as tightly as I knew how. We sealed our truce, our partnership, our honest agreement, with a kiss. It was bittersweet. I had no idea how either of us would get out of this, if we even could. Maybe we would fail miserably. But we would do it together.

For once, I was in a situation that seemed truly inescapable.