“Luxe? Can you hear me?”
Pain exploded through my chest. I cried out, hands searching for whatever knife was stabbing my stomach, but my leotard was too tight.
The show.
Dewey Chronos.
I fell.
“Lie down!” Nana barked. “Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere,” I grunted. The pain was blinding, worse than the magic, because I couldn’t make it stop—
“Fetch Dr. Strattori.” Footsteps scurried away. “Someone help me cut open this leotard!”
They rolled me onto my side, and I shrieked as darkness overtook me.
“Luxe?” Nana tugged at my faux lashes.
I forced my eyes open. Still in the tent. Still alive somehow.
She pressed her cool, dry hand to my head. “Dr. Strattori is here. She needs your consent to proceed.”
I tried to sit again, but my arms gave out beneath me.
Uncle Wolffe patted my shoulder. “Don’t try to move. Just give your consent.”
I glared at them. The Strattoris could remove any ailment—but only by transferring it to someone else. Both participants had to be willing.
“Don’t be stubborn,” Uncle Wolffe warned.
My family had sacrificed enough for me, from the food they didn’t eat so I could save my strength to the extra shifts they worked in the Fun House so I didn’t have to. “Not a chance.”
His gaze flickered toward the theater. “I need to be out there. Make sure she agrees.”
“No.”
“Do it, Luxe. That’s an order.”
He was gone before I could protest further.
I sunk against the pillow as Helen Strattori suspended her hands over me. Not touching but sensing my injuries. The Strattoris’ strange religious morality made them wary of our lifestyle, so most didn’t come near the Big Tent. Fortunately for my family, Helen Strattori was a lush.
“You’re not dying,” she slurred, her breath spiced with gin. “Though from that height, you should have.”
So consenting to her magic wasn’t murder, just torture for another Revelle.
“You have two broken ribs and a frightening bruise forming on your left side. And there’s some strange internal damage, too, maybe an older injury you aggravated tonight.” Dr. Strattori looked troubled, but there wasn’t a Revelle alive without their fair share of half-healed injuries.
“We won’t be requiring your services.”
Her frown deepened. “You won’t be able to perform for several weeks.”
Weeks? I didn’t have minutes, let alone weeks.
It had been going so well! I couldn’t even count how many lightstrings I’d held. The audience had rained jewels on us quicker than my little cousins could sweep them away. Most important, Dewey Chronos had literally attempted to climb out of his seat to reach me. He would have given us anything I desired. Booze. Jewels. A unicorn named Woodrow Wilson.
I had to finish what I’d started before he realized I’d been charming him—and left the Big Tent for good.
Shifting my weight onto my elbows, I bit my cheeks to keep from yelling out again. “Help me up. I’m going back out there.”
“Hush,” Nana hissed. “No one can see you like this.”
Of course not. The Radiant Ruby of Revelle had to be perfect. All the time.
Even when she ruined everything.
Closing my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath. “How in seven hells am I alive?”
“The tourists broke your fall. Thank God we were at full capacity tonight, or . . . damnit, Luxe”—Nana’s voice broke—“we almost lost you.”
“I’m okay. Really.”
She clasped my hand, shifting her fingers over and over again. Nana could never stay still, not even when she held hands. “You scared your Nana,” she whispered.
Her face was as ghostly as it’d been seven years earlier, when Edwardian police officers had tiptoed into the Big Tent during our vigil for my missing mother and aunts. Nana’s face growing whiter with each nightmarish word. Found. Drowned. Condolences.
Dr. Strattori stood, leaning on the cot to steady herself. “Will you be requiring my services, or can I get back to my night?”
“No,” I replied firmly.
At the same time, Nana said, “Yes.”
With a sigh, Nana lowered herself so her face was inches from mine. “You heard your uncle. We can’t afford to sideline our star for weeks.”
Letting go of Nana’s hand, I covered my face and tried to slow my breathing. The orphans usually volunteered for Strattori magic, always trying to make themselves useful. Feisty little Clara could have her ribs broken because of me.
No matter what I did, my family suffered.
“I’ll do it.”
I turned toward that silky voice, deeper than I’d last heard it. “Roger?”
There he was, touristy top hat and all. He stood in the doorway, painfully familiar and yet changed. Still as skinny as a string bean, but he’d grown taller, almost as tall as Uncle Wolffe. His hair was shorter, too, combed into the conk style the Black tourists favored. Colette’s glittering eyes, Aunt Adeline’s easy smile, and those scars. Those damn scars he’d gotten before he left.
“You’re back?” It was emotion, not pain, that stole the strength from my voice.
“Just visiting.” He hopped onto the cot beside me. “Look at you, bleeding all dramatically. Aren’t you afraid I’ll use your blood to summon magic-sucking shadows?”
“I’m not seven anymore. I know shadow magic isn’t real.”
He chuckled. “When I left, you were a mousy fifteen-year-old with hair twice as big as your hips. Now look at you. Here.” He tossed me a copper mainland penny.
I turned over the dirty coin. “Why are you giving me this?”
“The mainlanders think they’re good luck. Besides, I know how much you loved mainland money when you were younger. Remember those pictures you cut from newspapers and magazines? All those places you wanted to visit—”
“And then I grew up.” And stayed, unlike you.
He squeezed my shoulder. “C’mon, cousin. Let’s get this over with.”
A few minutes home, and he was already resuming his role as the family martyr. During the long winters, Roger had always been the quickest to share his plate. Or to charm the worst customers, never complaining about their terrible fantasies. He never let the others call me “ice princess,” never stopped asking me to join them in their Night District escapades.
“You’ve been back for a full minute!” I exclaimed, my ribs smarting. “Do you really expect me to hurt you right away?”
His smug smirk somehow made me miss him more. “Nana, if I take Luxe’s injuries, will you make sure my father provides room and board for my friends and me while we’re here?”
Roger had friends now? He had fifty-three cousins within spitting distance, yet he’d still left Charmant. To make friends.
I could practically see Nana’s wheels turning: Roger was no longer a performer, so there was no loss of income. The only challenge was Uncle Wolffe. He’d practically disowned Roger when he left. Members of the other magical families sometimes lived on the mainland, but we Revelles stuck together. That three-hour ferry to New York might as well be to a different planet.
“I’ll make sure,” she finally said.
“See? Now we both get something out of it.” Roger swung himself onto the sick cot beside me. “You have my consent, Dr. Strattori.”
The doctor winced as he turned to face her. She’d been there the terrible day he’d gotten those scars. “I need her consent, too.”
Nana pressed both her hands on her hips. “Give it. Now.”
I couldn’t let him do it. Wouldn’t let him do it. “No.”
He lay down beside me, turning his head to whisper, “Don’t let my father kick me out.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You know I love the attention I get when I’m a martyr.”
“Being Margaret’s martyr is why you left in the first place.”
Pain swept over his handsome face, strong enough for me to immediately regret my words. Of course he wasn’t over Margaret, over everything that had happened. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t.” Hurt still lingered behind his eyes. “Just do this, okay?”
I blinked back pathetic tears. I’d pushed myself too hard, gotten too greedy with my magic. And now Roger—Roger, who was finally home, who always took everyone else’s pain as his own—would suffer the consequences.
But I had to get back to Dewey. No more booze meant no more shows.
No shows, and we’d be on the streets.
I couldn’t even look at my cousin as I uttered the hateful words that gave my consent. “Just the new injuries. Leave the old ones.”
Before I could change my mind, Nana pushed me down with surprising strength. Aunt Caroline stepped forward to grab Roger. Dr. Strattori laid one hand on my side, and the other circled his wrist.
Roger cried out. I yelled for him, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .”
“Luxe? Deluxe? Delores Catherine Revelle!”
I blinked wildly, Millie slowly coming into focus. Judging by the chipped ceiling paint, we were in one of the Fun House rooms behind the Big Tent. The open windows carried a much better breeze than our bedroom windows a floor below. Always the best for our customers.
“What happened?” I rasped.
“You fell at the end of the act. Uncle Wolffe pretended it was all part of the show.”
Roger’s screams, the regret I’d glimpsed on his face at the onset of the pain . . .
Colette stood by a framed photograph of three beautiful women in matching striped bathing suits. Our mothers, the infamous ABCs: Aunt Adeline, Aunt Bonnie, and my mother, Catherine. “My father asked us to stay until you woke up. If you don’t need anything . . .”
“Colette!” Millie threw her a look.
“What? I want to check on Roger before the customers arrive.”
Roger, who was hurt, because of me. Uncle Wolffe gave me one person to charm, but no—I’d had to charm them all.
My uncle also made sure I woke in the Fun House. Our nicest room, no less.
I shot out of bed, the world tilting on its axis so hard, it nearly knocked me off my feet. Stumbling to the closet, I flung open the doors. My Fun House attire hung on the only hanger.
Uncle Wolffe still believed I could do this.
Colette watched me remove the lacy garb. “What are you doing?”
“I need to find my mark.” I couldn’t get out of my ruined leotard quickly enough. If Dewey Chronos was already gone, we were cooked—
No. I’d hunt him down and charm him into a lovesick puddle, if that’s what it took.
Colette looked at me as if I’d grown Effigen horns. “You can’t go back out there looking like that.”
“That’s why I’m changing.” My bloodied leotard slipped to the floor. Not a mark on me.
Poor Roger.
“Even with my father’s cover-up, the Strattoris will be furious if you flaunt your health. You know how private they are about their magic.”
Damnit, she was right. Some tourists placed Charmantian magic in the same category as palm reading: entertaining but inauthentic. In our Fun House, Revelle customers tasted the truth, but rumors of hallucinogens and other tricks still circulated. Disbelief worked in the Strattoris’ favor. They hid their healing abilities from the rest of the world, providing their services only to other magical families. If the mainlanders realized their ailments could be transferred, the Strattoris would be in high demand. Helen Strattori would steal our gin and run for the hills.
Pulling the lacy straps over my shoulders, I threw Colette a small smile. “Can you escort the bootlegger here?”
“No way.”
“Pretty please?”
“You need to rest! You overdid it tonight.”
“I’m fine, I just—”
“You got cocky. You pushed yourself too far.”
“I know.” All those jewels they’d thrown onstage, and still I’d wanted more.
She opened and closed her mouth, but we both heard the words she bit back: If I were the star, this never would have happened.
Colette wouldn’t help me. In fact, she liked refusing me. Millie, on the other hand, avoided confrontation at all costs. “Please, Mills. Fetch him for me?”
Her teeth scraped her bottom lip. “I don’t know . . . You kind of look like hell.”
I checked myself in the mirror. My curls were a frizzy mess, and dark thumbprints bruised the skin under my eyes. Not a problem; I’d charm Dewey into finding me beautiful.
Gripping the bedpost, I closed my eyes and called to my magic. The pain sparked from my skull, a claw of lightning, blinding, blackening—
I let it go before it knocked me out again.
My secondary magic wasn’t limitless. I’d always pictured it as a little inkwell buried deep in my mind. If I drained it with overuse, the ink crusted to flakes, and I’d pass out from the pain. If I left it alone, it replenished.
Right now, it was bone-dry.
Seven hells. Our survival was a delicate untied string of pearls, and I’d already let them slip between my fingers.
Magic or not, I still had to try. If I had to seduce him the old-fashioned way, so be it.
I scooped my meager breasts over the top of my plunging neckline like I’d seen my mother do countless times. “Uncle Wolffe had you bring me here. This is his plan.”
Millie sashayed toward the door, but Colette blocked her path. “Tell us the truth, Luxe: Why are you doing this?”
“I already told you—”
“Oh, c’mon!” Colette lifted her chin. “You hate the Chronoses as much as any of us. And there’s no way he brought jewels with him. Something’s up.”
Colette never left any stone unturned. I didn’t want her to worry, but I didn’t have time to fight with her. “Okay, fine. We need booze.”
Their eyes widened. Whether out of surprise that I’d been honest for once, or that our liquor supply was low, I wasn’t sure.
Millie blinked rapidly. “We’re desperate enough to buy from a Chronos?”
“He’s the only bootlegger left.” It was hardly a secret. Ever since the Eighteenth Amendment had passed, one at a time, Dewey’s competition had disappeared.
Colette studied me. “So you’re going to try to get him to give you a jewel, then convince him to sell to us.”
“That’s the plan.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Then our doors won’t open tomorrow. “Look, I’m not going to throw myself at him. I’ll just flirt a little so he’ll sell to Wolffe at a price we can afford.”
“Ooh!” Millie clapped her hands together. “Let me do it.”
“That’s not necessary—”
“Did you see that beautiful face? The cat’s meow, if you ask me.”
“No.” My voice was sharper than I intended. “I mean, no,” I said more evenly. “I should see it through.”
“Aww, Luxie, look at you blushing!” Millie pressed her hands over her heart. “You’re going to make sweet, time-traveling babies together, just like I said.”
Colette glanced at the framed picture of our mothers. “If they could only hear us now.”
“Does this mean you’re going to help?” I asked.
“I’ll check the Fun House lobby. Millie, you check the Big Tent. Do not seduce him.”
Millie pouted. “But—”
“Luxe is the star.” Colette’s words dripped with disdain. “We all have to do our part.”
That was all the encouragement Millie needed. She slipped through the door, throwing me a wink over her shoulder.
Colette lingered in the doorframe. “You still look sickly.”
“I’ll use extra blush.”
She hesitated, perhaps considering yet another lecture on all the missteps I’d made tonight. Bracing myself, I turned back to the mirror, but the door clicked shut softly behind her.
If my mother were watching me, she’d be proud, wouldn’t she? For being the star, for putting the family first. No matter the customer. No matter the cost.
Unable to help myself, I rose and walked to the framed picture. My mother stood between my aunts, their arms tangled in an embrace. Over Aunt Adeline’s shoulder was an old wooden dock, the planks carved to resemble the Manhattan skyline that hid beyond the mist on the horizon. The sun was setting, illuminating their laughing faces.
I turned away, but grief had already snuck into my bones, making me tired, sluggish.
No more thinking about them. Not tonight.
