Looking at the pitiful, disgusting face in the water, his hands balled into fists. Crying out, Edward slammed them into the current, destroying the vague image. Through the ripples, he saw the horrible face beginning to form again. He wished he could kill it once and for all, never to see it again. “Edward,” Jacob called. “Hurry up. We have plans to make.” Gritting his teeth, he gathered his robe and tome. Fake hair in hand, he returned to his companions.

  “A mere man of cheap imitations,” he muttered, a weak curse at a weaker soul.

  “Now that is much better,” Alexandria greeted him, smiling from her place in the driver’s chair. “It’s impossible to talk to you when you are dressed as the man of the dead.” Jacob leaned against the carriage with a map in his hand. “Where should we go next?” she asked, her foot prodding his shoulder. “What about a place with some truly great jewels? You know, one of those old villages with treasures dating back before the dawn of the new world.”

  “Someone’s getting greedy,” Jacob mused as he glanced over the map. Since they began their little con, he took the role as their chief conspirator, planning out what they should do. “The people of Ehud are supposed to be connected to the Great King himself. Rumor has it they were the first village after his kingdom fell. If any small village has the gems you’re seeking, we already have them.”

  This was their life. It was a straightforward act. For the better part of two years, they travelled to the distant corners of the continent. Upon arriving at a new village, they sent Alexandria in to gain a better understanding of the people while Jacob and Edward gathered the necessary materials for the next part of their plan. They made sure to collect most of their resources during their travels, but there were always a few pieces missing. A plan needed some level of flexibility. Once Alexandria’s research was complete, they built a stage under the darkness of night, shielded by a large tent. This hid all the finishing touches, the bits that made the show spectacular.

  During construction, the trio watched the nearby townsfolk become restless, eyeing something they did not understand. What the people could not see was that underneath the night sky and the billowing tent, the trio plotted out their performance. They practiced each trick to perfection. Edward served as the point of focus while Jacob and Alexandria worked behind the scenes, making sure that everything went according to plan. Before the main attraction, the pair hid amongst the crowd, pushing them to become a mob, ensuring that no one left. Their preparation would mean nothing if half the audience lost interest.

  None of their tricks were hard to understand, if one knew they were false magic. Cutting a few taut ropes sent the tent flying into the air. Black powder, a resource many did not know about, created the various explosions. In advance, they filled walnuts with the powder. A piece of flint and stone laid inside the nut. The tiniest impact would make a spark. Despite not being as flashy, these took longer to step up than any sword or spike tricks.

  Standing on the spikes was easy, since the points were many, dull, and spread out. Gathering the materials took time, but that was the only difficulty. Only a moronic creature would end up skewered on them. Grigori’s demon swords, on the other hand, was one of the harder stunts to perfect. It was nothing more than Alexandria stabbing the blades through the slits in the floorboards, taking care to not hit Edward. They practiced this one for months before attempting it in front of an audience. She stabbed his feet many times before they succeeded in synchronizing their timing.

  The crow stunt was simple. When Edward placed his hands on the stage, he always put them on a particular symbol, one resembling a crow. The symbol was on a rotating board. His gentle push flipped around and Jacob slipped the crow into Edward’s awaiting hands. Once the crow was through, the wood flipped over again, the hole disappearing from the audience’s view before they realized it was there in the first place.

  Holding the flame was one of the riskier stunts. Before the performance, he lathered his hands with a special ointment, while coating another ointment on top in the palm of his hand. The second, smaller layer, was flammable while the first layer protected his hand from burning to a crisp. As long as he made no sudden moments, the flame would stay in the palms of his hand. To extinguish it on either hand, he only had to close his fingers, snuffing the fire out.

  The hardest tricks revolved around the disappearing piles of tribute and the flames surrounding the stage. Simple answer: trapdoors and long wicks. To light the torches, Jacob and Alexandria lit long wicks that led up through the pole to the top. To make their loot disappear, they sent smoke through the floor by lighting a small pile of black powder. When the smoke arose, they opened the trap door, and closed the door again before anyone noticed. The hardest part was moving the spoil to the carriage; burning the stage gave them that time.

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  Everywhere they went, they burned down the stage. It was necessary. They could not leave any evidence of their tricks. If anyone knew what they did, who knew how many villages would send mercenaries after them? It would take time for anyone to track them down, but still, once someone found themselves on the run, it never stopped. Jacob knew from experience that news travels fast enough to be dangerous. Everyone was on the lookout for thieves. Out in the sticks, hangings were the best kind of entertainment. Last of all, the audience had to believe that Grigori was dead. Edward could escape through a trapdoor, making all believe his god consumed him. As everyone cowered, the trio fled with no one realizing the truth. They had this con down to an art.

  Despite their efforts, they could not take complete credit for the ingenuity of their performance. While they did create the methods to bring these tricks to life, they did not invent the actual magic trick. The book Edward held so close was the source of their inspiration. Though none of them understood what the words meant, they used the images to deduce the trick’s effect. A picture was still a picture, and with those as their muse, they conned ten villages in the last nine months.

  “But,” Jacob continued. “It wouldn’t be ridiculous to say that we move our eyes to larger prey.” He looked at the map with a creeping smile. Edward felt a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach. From the day that he met Jacob, the false mage hated that smile. It was the look of a man with a sinister plan developing within the dark corners of his mind, and it would not take long before he brought it to light.

  “Alexandria,” he asked. “How would you like to visit the capitol?”

  She gave him the oddest glance. “We’ve been to the capitol before. What’s so special about it now?”

  “Not that one,” he said, turning to look her in the eyes. Both of his accomplices could see the overwhelming desire in his eyes. “I mean the capital of the world.”

  At once, she understood, a smile quite like his own broke out on her face. “And what do you plan for us to do there?”

  Turning back to Edward, he proposed, in a voice smooth as a brook, “Grigori is going to pay the royal pigs of this world a little visit. A divine mission from his god. He’ll have a message for the King and his court, and the gods will not be happy.”

  Alexandria sprung from her seat and grabbed his hands. The two spun around as she asked, “Oh Jacob. You know I’ve always wanted to visit a palace. Will we get to dance at one of their parties? Can I wear one of my nice dresses?” Greed radiated from their eyes.

  “Wait,” Edward interrupted. Pulling the wool over the eyes of the most powerful men and women in the world was not the same as bamboozling village nobodies. “Isn’t this a bit risky?”

  “What risk?” the master planner asked. “Have I ever let haste ruin my timing? We will do as we always have. Everything will be planned out to the slightest detail.” Before Edward could retort, he added, “Besides, no one knows what we are up to. What could go wrong?”

  The false mage couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was not a discussion. Jacob and Alexandria had made up their minds. All that remained was for Edward to go along with the plan. A smoldering body at the end of a noose surfaced under the murky lake of his memory. The image sent a shudder across his shoulders. He couldn’t remember the last time he recalled the frightening sight. “Do you even realize what’s at stake?”

  “Of course,” he spat. “We end up pulling the job of the century. The rest of our lives we’ll retire and live like royalty. Before you argue, think about this. The royalty of the Capitol is filled with superstitious idiots. The King keeps a little monastery with priests and prophets who serve one purpose: tell the King what he wants to hear. Do you think that someone as stupid as that could see through our guise?”

  “But the risks,” he began.

  “You just don’t want us to have any fun,” Alexandria exclaimed, turning to him, her lip sticking out.

  Edward looked back and forth between the two of them, hoping that he would find the tiniest bit of spine to reject their plan outright. Tome in hand, he knew that everything they did was a disgrace to the magic he held so dear. Out of sheer disgust, he should leave at once, leaving them to their own foolish decisions, but in the end, he couldn’t argue. Glancing at his left palm, he stared at a familiar three-pronged scar. More unwelcome memories greeted him. With a heavy heart, he gave in.