Free Steadfast by Mercedes Lackey Page B

if Lionel slipped, they
     wouldn’t notice his manipulation.
    The “genie” whisked back into the lamp, and the magician turned his attention to Suzie
     again. With threatening gestures, he forced her into the basket while Katie leapt
     and tumbled about with glee. With every thrust of a sword, Katie shouted, jumped and
     clapped her hands. And when Suzie emerged unscathed, she pounded her fists on the
     stage in rage.
    The magician seized her, bound her with ropes, and forced her into a cabinet. He closed
     the cabinet doors, whirled it around four times, and opened them again, and she was
     gone! He closed them again, whirled the cabinet four more times and opened them, and
     there she was! Katie still couldn’t see how this one was done, but she rejoiced at
     her “master’s” triumph in a spiral of cartwheels.
    And now came the finale. Lionel threw a rope up into the air, which remained, stiff
     as a pole, hanging in midair. From here, Katie could see that a stagehand had caught
     the rope and somehow fastened the end of it to a stout hook in the overhead scaffolding.
     With threats, the magician forced Suzie to climb the rope, but when she got to the
     top, she began making rude gestures at him.
    As the magician raged at her below, and Katie imitated him, there was a blinding flash
     and a puff of smoke and Suzie vanished as the rope dropped to the ground.
    Except, of course, two very strong stagehands had actually pulled her quickly up into
     the scaffolding with them and let the rope drop.
    The magician ran off stage, raging, as Katie followed, imitating him, and the piano
     player finished with a few crashing chords.
    “Well
done,
by Jove!” the magician exclaimed, and the piano player stopped playing to applaud.
     “Just repeat that tonight and we’ll be fine!”
    “Too bad you can’t keep both of them,” the pianist said with enthusiasm.
    “Not a chance, you cheeky monkey!” Suzie called down, on her way down out of the scaffold.
     “I told my Harry we can set the date, we’ve already had the banns read, and that is
     that!”
    The piano player struck his chest with one closed fist. “Crushed! Again!” he cried.
     Katie was surprised into a giggle.
    “Now, lads, let’s wheel the cabinet out so Katie can see how that one is done,” Lionel
     ordered, and the stagehands brought the box back out again. And of course, once Katie
     was inside it, she saw how shallow it was compared to the outside dimensions. Of course,
     since it was painted black inside, it was impossible to tell that. She understood
     immediately what he was doing as she braced herself inside the cabinet. There were
two
sections to it, one with her in it, and one empty. When Lionel opened the cabinet
     door on her side, she stepped out again.
    “Now, let’s run through the tricks with you doing them, while Suzie coaches you,”
     the magician ordered. “You’ll be fine bouncing about as you did just now in the shows,
     but making the illusions appear flawless takes some work.”
    A great deal more work, it appeared, than she had thought from her one stint in the
     sword-basket last night. Timing was everything, and so were balance and the ability
     to hold absolutely still. They managed to go through all of the big illusions twice—very
     shakily—when the magician called a halt.
    “I don’t want you two fainting of hunger,” he said. “Off with you. Be back in an hour
     and we’ll find Katie a mask before the first show.”
    The two girls hurried back to the dressing room, which was starting to fill with other
     girls. They changed into street clothes, Katie made sure she still had the handkerchief
     with the remains of her pound knotted into it, and they headed for the stage door.
    The doorman was at his post, of course, with a bottle of lemonade on his desk and
     a brown-paper-wrapped sandwich waiting beside him. “Can we bring you anything back,
     Jack?” Suzie asked, as they squeezed by a couple of men chattering