Antony Devrue was seven minutes late to his own show, Cadence noted with a grimace. He showed up out-of-breath and sweaty, without his microphone on, calling apologies to the crowd as the owner of the theatre hooked him up to a lavaliere. He spouted excuses, and some poor teenager with a hand-held camera rushed up to capture his face to project the image onto the big screen. That, alone, took another few minutes—so the show didn’t actually start until ten minutes past the hour. The irony wasn’t lost on her: she had to write about this stupid thing because she was late, and now ten minutes of her time was completely wasted as she waited for him to get his act together.

With gritted teeth, Cadence attempted to shove her annoyance away and get to writing down every detail she could see. The magician looked the same as last week when she came here with Rupert: wavy dark brown hair trimmed to only be a couple inches long, a close shave, a simple v-neck t-shirt and black linen pants. He didn’t dress up, and sometimes his laugh revealed a well-masked nervousness, like when the owner of the theatre rolled her eyes at his excuses. Unrefined and unpolished, yet unapologetic.

That hint of guilt he displayed was enough for Cadence to grant him a bit of mercy in her descriptions. Instead of some of the more spirited notes she considered, she drew upon her first impression from last week’s show when she was in a much better mood and didn’t have to focus. Last-Week-Cadence would have appreciated his tight-fitting shirt better, but the audience for Posted in Portland probably wouldn’t care about it, so she let the thought fade away.

Cadence wrote, “Conventionally attractive in the ways that scream, ‘I’m on the Mediterranean Diet’ but not ‘I regularly get lip-fillers.’ Charming enough for a small stage, but would probably be eaten alive anywhere like Madison Square Garden. Here’s hoping he doesn’t rely on the dark-hair-light-eyes combo and try to jump into someplace like Hollywood.” (Though with the way casting was going these days, producers would fast-track him to star in the next superhero movie and rely on his quick one-liners rather than any acting talent.)

As the magician introduced himself properly to his crowd, voice echoing from the back speakers and face enlarged on the projector screen above the stage, it was fascinating to watch how he slowly melded into his stage persona. He stood differently, even spoke differently. For the first couple minutes of his performance, his words seemed to require more effort; he stumbled. His “ch” sounds were too soft, he even rolled a couple of his “r”s. But, after he got into the groove and he caught his breath, the accent nearly disappeared completely—but now that she’d heard it, Cadence couldn’t place it.

His consonants were carefully dictated, not unlike the way Shakespearean actors held sounds in their mouths. Cadence hadn’t met too many people with Italian accents in real life, but perhaps that way of speaking was the closest she could guess without confirming with him, directly. Antony Devrue recited his words more like a poem than prose, true to the style of a romance language; but beyond that, it was impossible to say where he might have learned to speak, especially with such proficiency. With this in mind, she did write a quick reminder to herself in the margins of the page to be careful of his origin story, just in case he turned out to be some sort of foreign refugee hiding from a dangerous past.

Despite attempting to note every physical detail on paper, Cadence still kept track of the magician’s antics. Antony Devrue pretended to pull a live dove from his pants pocket, touted how “magic” the bird was when it took flight and unleashed different colors of glitters over the applauding audience. For the latter half of the trick, the most impressive part about it was how the glitter seemed to disappear the minute it fell upon a person. And while thankful for it, Cadence messily scribbled on the notebook in her lap: “water-soluble? Semi-combustible? Interaction with oxygen?”

The magician hopped off the stage to direct the bird and glitter around before biding it adieu: “You were very good, Henry! Go get some dinner. You’ve earned it, you little showboat.” And at this command, the bird took off from its perch on his finger and flew to the back of the room, where the owner of the theatre held a simple transport cage. Eager not to let herself get distracted, Cadence returned to the front of the room and continued scribbling.

However, when something blocked the ray of stage lights that she used to see her horrendous handwriting on the page, she instinctively slapped her hand and pen down on her paper. Slowly, she looked up to see the magician in question staring at her, clearly reading what he could of her notebook.

“Are you taking notes?” he asked, seemingly delighted. Cadence didn’t offer a reply. Instead did her best to maintain a neutral expression. “‘Semi-combustible’? You’re making me sound good, keep going!” The sweating teenager from before caught up to him from the other side of the stage, pointing the camera lens right in Cadence’s face. She cleared her throat and closed the notebook onto her pen.

“Oh—sorry,” Antony Devrue continued. He gestured for the cameraman—or camera-teen, more appropriately—to back away a few steps. Thankfully, the kid seemed to take the hint, and panned to focus on the magician that now pulled a box of cards out of his front pants pocket, the same one the bird had come from. It was an exaggerated movement to show off how there were no creases or indications that there could be something else there; his fingers seemed to struggle even getting in there in the first place, with how unforgiving linen blends were.

The magician still stood in front of her, crinkling the plastic that encased the box; for a second, he hesitated, but he covered that moment of uncertainty and instead slapped on his usual smile. And although his hands were steady and he stood with his shoulders straight, something about the way he stood in front of Cadence made him seem smaller than when he was just a few feet away, like he doffed just a bit of his stage persona for this. Her fingers itched to make a note of this, but instead tightened her grip around the spine of her notebook.

“I take it you don’t believe in magic, then?” he asked as he flipped the box back and forth in his hands and put the plastic trash in his infinite pocket.

Cadence hesitated. Him singling her out didn’t necessarily make this observation very objective, but maybe seeing him move up-close would give better insight into his illusions.

She shrugged. “I believe in what I can see and prove.”

They theatre crew must have put another spotlight on his face with how much it lit up. “Ah!” he sounded. “But what about science we don’t yet understand?” Ugh. That’s what her dad would say when she was a little kid, only—well, in the reverse. Don’t be naive, magic isn’t real, it’s just something you don’t understand yet. Part of the reason she hid away and started writing fantasy stories on her own was because of how unsatisfying it was to try and play pretend with her family members.

Antony Devrue considered the strain in her expression for a moment, cocking a brow.

“What about something you can see up-close?” He gestured with the deck of cards in his hand, asking her permission.

Cadence hummed, partially to buy herself time to decide, partially as an experiment to see what he would do with silence. It would be harder to pay attention to everything if he was directly trying to manipulate what she saw, specifically, but then again—

“Wait, I’ve seen you before,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “You were here last week. You sat over there.” He gestured a few rows back, where she did, indeed, sit with Rupert and dealt with her best friend’s mumbled theories for an hour.

“You—remember where I sat?” she echoed. He remembered her at all? She was just one in a crowd of people, obscured by stage lights. For a fraction of a moment, that uncertainty appeared in his expression, the same time heat rushed to her cheeks. He recovered quickly, obviously used to public embarrassment far more than her. At least the camera-teen gave her space, let her tell herself no one could see how embarrassing it was to be recognized at a magic show after publicly claiming she didn’t believe in what he did.

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“Of course!” Antony Devrue answered. Now as he smiled, he didn’t seem quite as small—like he remembered he performed for everyone, and wasn’t just holding a private conversation with her. “How could I forget? I could tell there was something unique about you.” He didn’t even seem phased when her expression fell to passive annoyance.

“Are you saying I’m Force-sensitive?” she asked flatly.

“I don’t watch Star Trek.” The physical pain every nerd in that audience felt was completely enveloped by equal amounts of laughter. On the projected screen on the stage, the cameraman reflected the amused faces of the crowd back to them.

Emboldened by the panning of the camera over the audience, a teenager with a cracking voice shouted from the middle of the theatre: “What about me? Do you remember me from last week?” As expected, a chubby face suddenly took up the majority of the projector on the far wall of the stage. The distraction gave Cadence a moment to slow her breathing, force her cheeks to stop blushing quite so severely.

A flash of warm recognition took over the magician’s features as he glanced in the vague direction of the heckle.

“Lenny, it’s more remarkable if you’re not here every week.” The way the audience laughed so readily in agreement made Cadence glance around where she sat. Was everyone here a regular? Is that why she stuck out so much? Everyone here laughed at a joke she wasn’t a part of like a family at dinner dropping an inside joke. And, just in kind, it left a warm twinge in her chest.

So that’s part of what made this special. It wasn’t just a magic show, it was its own little community.

Antony Devrue gestured with the deck of cards back to Cadence as he addressed everyone. “Can I talk to this lovely lady that’s waiting so patiently, now?” The camera-teen caught her rolling her eyes right on the big screen so that the crowd could laugh. Antony Devrue waited for Lenny’s verbal agreement before he fully twisted back to the front row. His amusement from the banter faded in favor to focusing on her completely with a gentle smile. With all the commotion, it was easier to forget the camera all together.

“Sorry. Your thoughts on magic?”

Wary of what sounded like an incredibly cheesy pickup line in her near future, Cadence shook her head. “I believe in what I can see and prove. Science.”

“Ah, a woman of logic!” he said as he gestured to her for the crowd. “Perfect. Would you help me with this next trick?” Now, Antony Devrue stepped forward, slumped in a way that made it feel like a one-on-one conversation again. Cadence shrugged in the slightest way, but it was enough of a reply for him to hand her freshly un-sealed deck of cards. “Logical, lovely, and gracious. Thank you!” By some miracle, maybe even magic, Cadence managed to hold back her snort. “Please, what is your name?”

“Cadence.”

“Cadence, great to officially meet you. I’m Antony.” Only when he said his name did the tiniest hint of his original accent slip through. She nearly forgot up until that point that she had been listening for it.

“Cadence, could you please open that deck of cards and check it to make sure it’s completely ordinary and normal?” At his request, she used her fingernail to tear the sticker that kept the box closed, took out the cards, and began to sift through them. They were the regular thickness they should have been, the ink was dry and didn’t react to her attempting to smudge it as she sifted through them. They even held that same woody scent new cards had.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything unusual…about the cards, anyway,” was her final analysis. The crowd bought into her jab, chuckling along. He rolled back a bit on his heel, regarding her with a cocked brow.

She met his gaze, the grayish blue that reflected more of the stage light rays than the camera lens beside him. She could almost see the gears click in his mind, the way he started to construct his perception of her. He caught her skepticism, held it easily and accepted it so easily without a hint of defensiveness; a sort of appreciation twinged in his smile. Cadence tried not to focus too hard on how that felt like a relief, for him to understand where she was coming from.

The magician continued, “Ordinary cards, but you’re saying perhaps I’m not?” She nodded. “And you…are? Ordinary?” The cards felt heavy in her hands. And even though she nodded again, the way he asked made it difficult to feel confident in that answer.

She should have known that any change in her expression would catch his attention, though. Thankfully, rather than grinning as much as it looked like he wanted to, Antony Devrue bit back his smile and nodded to her.

“Maybe,” he replied. “Could you please sort out the jokers of this new deck? We don’t need them for this trick.” Easy enough. Cadence turned her attention to the deck she held and flipped it over to start to pull out the jokers, thumbing through carefully to make sure they were together at one end of the deck as expected. She pulled them aside and held them in one hand, the rest of the deck in the other, and looked back up.

Annoyingly, Antony Devrue didn’t seem to be paying attention. While his camera pointed at the cards she held, he looked around at the crowd as if there was something else that was supposed to happen. When he glanced back down to her, he repeated, “Could you please sort out the jokers? We don’t need them for this trick.”

Did he botch an illusion this early in the show? Cadence wiggled the jokers in her hand, but he shook his head.

“No, I see them. But you never know, there could have been a mistake at the factory when they were being made, and there could be more. Could you check again, just in case?” She didn’t hide her annoyance, but instead set the jokers face-up on her closed notebook and started to sift through the deck again. After her thumb passed by only a few cards, she hesitated. Another joker. And later in the deck, another.

“Um—”

“Aha! See?” Amused that his trick worked, he gestured to the four jokers Cadence now held. “Can’t trust it. Can you check again?”

“Are you serious?” Now, though, Cadence sat up straight in her chair, leaned over the deck of cards, and started to feel for the false back or changing ink on each and every one. Yet the three additional jokers she stumbled upon didn’t come from anything other than casually flipping through.

After he asked her to check one last time, she ended up with twelve jokers in her lap, as if more spawned each and every time she fanned the deck. The cards she looked through remained the same. In order by number and suit, never diminishing by any count, never seeming to take the place of what would have been there in a normal, mass-manufactured deck. She sat with over a fifth of a deck in one hand, and what felt and looked like a complete one in the other, and stared up at the magician with an exasperated expression. The joys of the crowd felt so far away while she stared at him and silently demanded an answer.

His feigned confusion wasn’t as amusing, being a part of the trick like this. But the crowd, even if they were all regulars that had seen this before, ate up every moment of Cadence’s annoyance and Antony’s performance even more than the appearing jokers. It was hard to not agree to continue with the show with the palpable excitement emanating from the crowd.

Antony let out a, “Hmmm” as he held out a hand to accept the deck of cards from her. “Maybe there were more than fifty-four cards in the box.” No shit. “Could I ask for you to count out the jokers that were there while I count the deck so we make sure we have the right number of cards, here? We’ll go one-by-one at the same time so that there can be nothing you can’t see.”

Rather than pointing out how absolutely insane that was, Cadence rolled her eyes and picked up the small deck of twelve jokers in her lap, and waited for him to count out “one, two, three….” There were only twelve jokers. But for some reason, every time she touched a card to put in a separate pile as Antony counted out, it was as if it didn’t leave her hand in the first place, just duplicated and joined the pile of jokers in her lap.

Cadence hesitated, as uncertain as the crowd’s murmuring. There was no reason this should be. The cards were the right thickness and never changed one way or another.

The magician hardly glanced at her. “Please continue counting with me so it’s fair to the audience. Eleven, twelve, thirteen….” Not until he was at card number forty, did the jokers stop multiplying when she touched them. While he held fifty-two normal cards in his hands, she now held a complete deck of jokers where there were once only twelve—or two, or maybe none. She couldn’t even feel embarrassed when the camera zoomed in on her expression and the audience laughed at her.

Antony Devrue nodded knowingly, “Ah, you see? You had a whole deck of jokers in here.” He held the normal deck toward her and gestured for hers. “Care to swap?”

“If I see one more joker, I swear—” Interrupted by the laughter of the crowd, Cadence leaned back in her chair with what seemed to be, even at first fan, a deck of normal cards.

Antony laughed with everyone. “No, see, I was just hoping you’d humor me for the trick I meant to do with you.” A mischievous smile. “It’s called Do as I Do.” Anticipating the directions, she held the deck in her hands as he did, his. “If you meet someone and you think they’ve got some sort of special….”

“Je ne sais quoi?” Cadence mumbled, more to herself than to him.

Antony didn’t seem to hear her completely, and continued, “Some sort of special connection to the otherworldly, this trick can show you. See, I’ve got that connection and I think you do, too.” He stood up straighter, back to balancing on the heels of his feet. “You sort through your deck and pick your favorite card, then shuffle it in at random. I’ll do the same with mine.” Maybe if his favorite card was a joker, Cadence thought to herself. “Then we will swap decks and do it again. If it’s the same card, then I’m right.”

Cadence let out a light sigh. “Should I show the camera once I have it?” She glanced down to the regular deck, passively daring any potential joker to show up.

“Nah, then I’ll see which card it is through the reflection or something. This is a genuine check to see if we pick the same thing. Maybe we won’t.”

The audience laughed when Cadence gave a knowing glance to the camera. Still, he sifted through the deck of jokers as if he actually considered each and every one while she looked for the Ace of Spades. And, as instructed, she shoved it somewhere in the middle and started to sloppily shuffle a few sets of cards to make sure she didn’t accidentally mark where it was. And, when prompted, she swapped decks with Antony.

As he casually began to look through the normal deck of cards, she flipped what she held over and gasped.

Sitting on the top of the deck of jokers was a single Ace of Spades with Antony Devrue’s messy signature scrawled over it, ink still shiny and wet.

The audience erupted into a sea of applause and hollers, and Antony stood quietly holding a deck of regular cards in one hand, and an unmarked Ace of Spades in the other. He smiled.

“Not so ordinary.”