Free The Magpye: Circus by CW Lynch Page A

what, or who, it was she was trying to trap.
Magicians took safety very seriously, and safety took planning.
Safety required knowledge. No, she didn't need to meet him...
    "Good afternoon, Grace," said
Marv, sliding into the seat opposite her. He was dressed in white,
an old type magician's stage outfit. Ever the purist, ever the king
of making an entrance. "I see you've dressed for the occasion."
    "Marv," said Grace icily.
"Still clinging to the past."
    "Says the four hundred year old
whore."
    Grace's cup clattered onto her
saucer. "It's impolite to mention a girl's age."
    Marv smirked. "You're no girl,
Grace. You never were."
    "But I can be a woman," replied
the witch, seduction in her voice. She slid her hand across the
table, her fingers crawling up onto Marv's hand. "You used to like
that."
    "That was a long time ago,"
said Marv, snatching his hand back. "What we were is dead and
buried."
    "If I believed that, you'd be
dead too," she replied. She feigned a wounded note in her voice and
dipped her head, hiding her face from Marv behind her cup as she
took another sip of her tea.
    Marv sighed. He didn't fall for
the act, not for a moment, but there was truth to the words
nevertheless. Grace had saved his life, and that meant something.
No magician wanted to be indebted to another, and Marv was in deep
with Grace.
    "And I'm supposed to be
grateful?" shouted Marv. "You told me they were after me! I left
Marissa with the circus to keep her safe, but all I did was put her
in the firing line."
    "I saved her too, didn't I?"
said Grace indignantly.
    "You know that. But don't
pretend that you didn't get what you wanted."
    "Did I? You were supposed to
stay gone," Grace replied. "Never come back, those were my exact
words."
    "I didn't choose this,
honestly. I was supposed to be in town for a night, two at most.
Here and then gone again, and no one would ever know."
    "So what happened?"
    Marv took a breath. Magicians
were, partly by trade but mostly by necessity, masters of
subterfuge. Lying to a magician was hard, even for another
magician. "I saw the circus," he replied, sticking to the fringes
of the truth to support his deception, "And I realised that I
should never have run. I'd been a coward, and my friends had paid
the price. If I'd have been there, I could have stopped them."
    "Could you?" asked Grace.
"You're an escape artist, sweetheart, not a fighter. Not being
there is what you do best."
    "Well, I'm here now."
    "That you are," replied Grace,
"And I must admit I'm surprised. I'd heard you'd burnt out, lost
your gift. But here you are, as you say, and trouble seems to have
followed you home."
    "I don't know what you're
talking about," said Marv, cursing whoever it was who was feeding
Grace her information. It was true, Marv hadn't had the power to
move a card out of a deck since the night he'd turned his back and
run out on the circus. "I've got some... ghosts to put to rest,
that's all. Some unfinished business."
    "Unfinished business with Cane
King, you mean."
    "No," said Marv with a chuckle,
"I'm not stupid, Grace. I came close enough to run in with the
Kings last time I was here, I'm not going back down that road."
    "Do you think I'm a fool?" snapped Grace. "You've been
hitting King's operation. Your fingerprints are all over it.
Impossible break-ins, impossible escapes. The violence... that's
new, but you always did like things a little rough, I
suppose . "
    "You're wrong, Grace. Dead
wrong," said Marv. He felt a trickle of cold sweat run down his
back. If he told her the truth, that he didn't have enough magic in
him now to take on King even if he wanted to, he'd be exonerated
and it would maybe even take Able out of the frame for a little
while. The problem was, you didn't admit to not being a magician
anymore in a room full of magicians. The only thing keeping the
peace in this room was that there was nobody without power to take
anything, especially revenge, on any of the others without
consequences. And there was a