The Illusionist's Apprentice

by Kristy Cambron

  She eased her hands up, taking slow, measured steps, until she was away from both Elliot and Amberley.

  “And yet with each step, things become less and less okay.” Irina lavished a smile on Charlotte as she pressed the gun’s barrel closer to her auburn waves, halting Wren’s advance.

  “Please. Let them go. It’s me you want, isn’t it? Well, I’m right here.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. We can’t possibly let any of you go. Not Charlotte, because she’s our honored guest at the Castleton today. And not Mrs. Dover, because however much she dislikes you, she’s guaranteed to dislike us more. We can’t have an extra witness around telling tales to juries.” Irina lifted her gaze past Wren. “And we certainly can’t let you go, can we, Agent Mathews? Because you’ve already worked all of this out, haven’t you?”

  Wren could hear her own breathing. It escaped her lungs with force, years of pain and fear billowing up from her insides, forcing strength from her. She looked to Elliot, wishing she knew what he was thinking. Praying through the moment for some glimmer of his direction to reach her.

  But there was none.

  Elliot stood still, his body blocking Amberley’s. His jaw just the slightest bit flexed. And then he nodded, once, and said, “You tunneled underground.”

  A wide smile spread the width of Irina’s face. “Yes, we did. Al here was our lead on that, given that he’s worked as a crewman for many a stage. But do you mind telling me how you knew?”

  “The tree, in the cemetery. You tunneled from the vaults under Bigelow Chapel, right into the tree line. That one in particular got in the way, so either it had to go or was an accident. But the ground was frozen; it couldn’t be replaced until spring. A glance at the list of former employees on the grounds crew at Mount Auburn Cemetery showed a familiar name, one we hadn’t thought to make a connection to until now, especially since he’d worked there years back.”

  “Jack Adler, our gardener at Wren’s Beacon Hill estate.” Irina smiled. “Well done, Agent Matthews. I knew from the work you shared with our Wren that you’d checked with the mayor’s office and Mount Auburn Cemetery right away. It didn’t take much money to seal his lips. And paying off a few hungry men assured that the grounds hadn’t been disturbed before New Year’s Eve because that’s what the press was told to believe. And it was confirmed by the mayor’s office, of course, thanks to some behind-the-scenes socializing on Mrs. Dover’s part. She was very helpful to gain the support of the mayor’s wife, though the poor woman was quite oblivious except to believe whatever a well-placed socialite would tell her. All we had to do was press on the thumb of Stanley Dover’s debts a bit to gain Mrs. Dover’s participation.”

  “I didn’t know it was her, Wren. I swear it.” Amberley’s cries came out with unrestrained urgency. “The man at the Oyster House—”

  Elliot held his hand out for Amberley to stop. She obeyed, retreating back into silence.

  A pop, then the sound of broken glass in one of the rooms cut into the silence.

  Irina shifted her glare from Wren to Al and the men they’d brought, the gravediggers who still hovered in the shadows behind. Something or someone was in one of the VIP rooms, it seemed, because she looked the tiniest bit derailed.

  “Go. Now. See who that is.” Irina gave the order, nudging Elliot’s gun with the side of her foot. “And take this.”

  The men obeyed, one stooping for the weapon while the other walked back toward the door.

  Wren’s focus was solely on Charlotte, and the hand that still held a gun to her sister’s temple. She was but feet away. A few more steps and Wren might’ve been able to think of some way to free her little bird. Maybe jump in, try to take the brunt of a bullet for Charlotte. To be brave like their mother had been.

  Every thought of the past and the present mingled together in her mind. Her thoughts were jarred when Elliot’s arm wrapped around her waist from behind, quickly pulling her back with him.

  “Get down,” was all he managed to say against her ear before one of the men turned his hand around the knob and opened the door.

  And the Castleton’s once-lovely VIP hall became the next casualty of Irina’s war, exploding into flames.

  CHAPTER 26

  Shards of stained glass shattered, raining over them like bits of colored ash.

  “Charlotte!”

  Elliot heard Wren’s guttural screaming at once. He’d covered her beneath the force of the blast, but now she was clawing at the hardwood like a caged animal, trying to crawl forward into the path of the flames, desperate to reach her sister.

  Smoke tainted the air, singeing his lungs with each coughing breath.

  The explosion had blanketed the far end of the hall in flames, just as Elliot had planned. It created the diversion they’d needed. A slow burn of the fire he’d set in the VIP room exploded once it hit the accelerant of corn whiskey in the hollowed-out chair legs.

  Al Gruner and the men had disappeared behind the flames and smoke. Whether they’d managed to crawl to the door in the alley, he couldn’t tell. Not through the intensity of flames and thick black smoke that billowed up, along with the force of the fire clawing up the sides of the wall.

  Never mind them.

  If they were still alive, the horde of federal agents waiting on the street would make quick work out of finding them a pair of handcuffs. What he needed to worry about was happening there in front of him: Wren’s desperate cries as Irina dragged Charlotte away, down the depths of a smoke-filled hall.

  For all of the adrenaline that must have carried through her veins, Wren was fighting him like a lion. She pulled away, crying her sister’s name over and over.

  “Wren, stop! Please, stop.”

  Grasping for her ankle was futile. She tore out of his grasp, pulling herself up to run in pursuit. She disappeared down the depths of an adjoining hall, her boot falls fading against the loud popping of the growing fire.

  Instinct told him to help Amberley out first. No matter what came, he couldn’t be responsible for another’s life. If it was Wren’s choice to go after Irina empty-handed, then God help him, he couldn’t stop her now.

  He said a silent prayer because it was all he could do—leaving his love in God’s care—and slipped his arms under Amberley’s legs to scoop her from the ground. She fell into a riot of coughs against his chest. “Hold on. You’re going to be okay.”

  Amberley twisted her arms around his neck, and he ran to the only outlet they had.

  A mosaic of glass pieces covered the ground under the remnants of the window. He kicked at the last shards of glass on the sill, sending colors flying. He took to the boards next, pounding them with a barrage of kicks, even as their world tumbled down into flames at his back.

  He coughed, lungs screaming, Amberley a deadweight in his arms. Thinking of fresh air. Only clean, breathable air.

  Kick. Kick, Elliot.

  Shades of memories passed over his thoughts: His parents. An innocent who’d once died because of his inexperience . . . his inability to protect another. His fear at being able to protect Wren now.

  No one else dies because of me.

  The boards finally gave way against one final slam of his foot and fell in a clatter on the sidewalk.

  The fire sizzled and danced as he carried Amberley out, a red dragon eating up the Castleton’s bones behind them. It wouldn’t be long before the entire building was consumed by the darkness of smoke and ash.

  But just as Wren had written in the margins of her fairy-tale book, darkness could never win. He had faith in that now. For if there was darkness, that could only mean the presence of light was near enough to overcome it.

  Wren would rise from the ashes of her past. And just as he’d told her before, Elliot would always be waiting in the wings when she was through with her flight.

  He deposited Amberley a safe distance from the building, then turned back to the heart of the flames. The dragon roared as he leapt back through the window: a hero ch
arging into battle.

  CHAPTER 27

  The fire created an eerie backdrop of evil hisses and an orange glow down the hall.

  Wren kept running through the darkness. Ducking in dressing rooms. Throwing open doors along the hallway and bumping into walls. She tried to listen past the sound of flames hungrily consuming the back of the Castleton.

  “Charlotte?” she cried out, but heard no answer.

  She tore a strip of linen from her shirttail, then covered her mouth against the growing threat of smoke that was singeing her insides.

  A loud pop froze Wren in her tracks.

  Her breathing shallowed, the linen strip falling from her fingertips to drift to the floor.

  The stage . . .

  The sound had echoed; only an expansive space could do that. Irina must have been close to the auditorium. On that stage. Or in the balcony, perhaps.

  God, please don’t let that have been a gunshot.

  She tore through the darkness, heading for the stage door. A voice echoed, a man crying out, “You’ll not hurt her!”

  Two more pops echoed in succession, ripping the breath from Wren’s lungs.

  The stage finally opened up before her, the grand auditorium hazy with smoke. Irina stood in its center, Charlotte sitting at her feet, cradling something in her lap.

  Wren took slow steps and peered around the curtain.

  Her breath stalled in her lungs when the scene came into view, for it wasn’t a something Charlotte held but a someone. A man’s legs lay sprawled out, his boots still and lifeless against the stage. Crimson marred his torso. And her sister sat, so still, so quiet, running her fingertips over a man’s brow.

  “Elliot?”

  She started to move faster, her heart screaming, but was halted by Irina’s order to stop. “That’s far enough, or I’ll give you what he got.” She trained the gun on Wren without batting an eyelash.

  Wren couldn’t think. Why hadn’t she looked to see what Elliot was wearing? It had been too dark. Too much had happened, and she hadn’t even really looked at him . . . She didn’t tell him how she felt . . . and now, would she ever?

  Sirens wailed in the background, a mournful cry that called through the walls: firemen had been called. No doubt as black smoke curled up into the sky.

  “Please, let me call for help. You can still stop this, Irina. You don’t have to do this. There’s still redemption—even for this. Just let me save him.”

  “Redemption? Don’t talk to me about redemption. It’s not real, unless you grasp it for yourself. Anything I could have become was wiped away the day Olivia Charles died.”

  The sirens, the smoke, and the crackling of timber became a storm around them. But even with it, Wren’s heart stopped when she heard the words.

  “Please . . . I don’t understand. Just let me help him . . .”

  “He got what he deserved. And Jenny Charles? She is just as guilty. She moved to London and the man who had loved my mother, who had promised us the world—he walked away. Decided that he didn’t need an opera singer and her daughter. Raising his niece was all the family he wanted. So we were cast off, and you were moved into his grand estate. My mother died—used, broken, and penniless—in a workhouse not two years later. When we should have had everything, I was left on the streets. To survive alone. And all the truth I needed to know was in finding my own redemption.

  “I followed you to Southampton. And you were so smug with your morality and your plans to work with the great Houdini, not knowing that all the time, my grand illusion had just begun. Wasn’t mine greater that his? I fooled even the great Wren Lockhart.”

  Irina turned, pointing at the boots on the stage. “I was patient. For ten years. But eventually, I knew I’d come back to redeem two lives—mine and my mother’s. And you, Jenny Charles, were the root of my misery. Just like he was.”

  Wren swallowed hard, and a sinking feeling washed over her.

  The man held in Charlotte’s embrace wore boots. Old, scarred, over-the-knee riding boots. Showman’s boots. The kind of costumed wares found on a vaudeville stage—or in a theater manager’s office. But these boots were tired and worn.

  God, no . . .

  Though it took every ounce of courage she possessed, Wren refused to slink away. And she refused to stop. She took one step forward. And another. Until the daylight cast down through a hole in the roof shone enough for her to see her father’s lifeless body.

  And for the second time in her life, sweet Charlotte had blood covering her hands. She stood and raised them, showing the darkness of crimson that had covered her palms.

  “Charlotte . . . please. Back away, dear.”

  “No, she may not.” Irina’s hands trembled, ever so slightly, as she turned the barrel on Charlotte.

  Tears came then. Emotion tearing from her heart up to cloud her eyes, choke her voice, and rip apart anything she might have had left.

  “But why? Why did you wait until Harry was gone? You could have been done with me in England. Away from Charlotte. She’s an innocent! Can’t you see? She couldn’t hurt anyone. I was wrong . . . so wrong. And it should have been me alone that you pursued. So why come here, work with me, befriend me for years . . . Was any of it real?”

  “Real? Yes. It was all real for me. Because I lived the illusion. I fooled this girl here. Why, even you were fooled. And all because the world would never believe in magic as long as Harry Houdini was alive. And his secrets died with him, just as they must now with you.”

  “No—Wren!” Elliot appeared, her love, a ghostly shadow tearing up from the back of the auditorium, a gun in his hand—though useless that far away.

  But it wasn’t a bullet that Wren needed most. His call distracted Irina enough that she looked away for the rarest of seconds, opening a split-second window for Wren to take a single step forward.

  One step was all she needed.

  Wren slammed her boot to the stage, pressing on the trigger for the illusionist’s secret door. And as if on cue, without a word spoken, Charlotte pushed Irina with all her might.

  The furious sound of Irina’s scream echoed as the trapdoor opened and she fell into the depths of the stage below.

  And the Castleton’s auditorium was quiet once again. With ash and flames threatening closer. Sirens beat against the walls and sunlight was choked out by the growing haze of smoke in the air.

  “I’m sorry, Wren,” Charlotte whimpered. “We never push. We never push . . .”

  “It’s alright.” Wren’s voice splintered on a sob and she ran forward, then pulled Olivia’s little bird into her arms. “You did good, my dear. Very, very good. Remember? A hero never causes hurt; she lessens it. That’s what you did.”

  Elliot tore down the aisle and leaped onto the stage.

  He stopped first to look through the secret door. Whatever he’d seen must have satisfied him that Irina was no longer a threat because he ran to Josiah’s side. He eased her father down from Charlotte’s lap, looking for signs of life.

  But she didn’t need confirmation. Wren had seen death before. She’d watched it play out. Tasted every horrifying moment as their mother fell. Remembered the look of a pair of eyes that no longer owned a soul.

  “Come, Charlotte,” Wren beckoned, tugging her back. “Come with me now. You’re safe.”

  Wren couldn’t remember much of what happened next.

  It was a blur, the moments of Elliot helping them outside. Passing by firemen and water hoses as they moved in, attempting to save the buildings of Scollay Square. Amberley was safe, if not terribly shaken up. And both federal agents and police pushed back the press. They’d arrived to a frenzy, much like Stapleton’s show on New Year’s Eve.

  Shackled men were led away as their flashbulbs danced.

  The newsmakers watched as Elliot returned to their side and slipped a coat over Charlotte’s shoulders. And then he stood in front of Wren, soot-covered and eyes searching every inch of her face. Taking his thumb to wipe at the dried blo
od and layers of black dust marring her brow. With empathy for her loss so real, and so deeply felt, Wren could never forget the look upon his face.

  “But how did he know?” Wren’s will was broken. Fear, pain, memories . . . They’d come back to life the instant her father had stepped in front of Charlotte, shielding her from Irina’s gun. “Please, how did he know where to find us?”

  “Because when I was walking out the door to come after you, I told him that I loved you. And if you were going to hear from anyone, you’d hear it from me first. And he stopped me. He told me the truth, that he knew the moment he saw your writing in that book. You’re not to blame, Wren.”

  He cupped her cheeks with his palms, truth and anguish connecting his eyes to hers. “Do you hear me? It was his choices. His rage. His sin that killed Olivia Charles. Not yours. And he came here to tell you that. To absolve you of this guilt you’ve held on to all these years.”

  She wept, tears rolling down, mingling with the soot and skin of his palms holding her face.

  “So can you, Wren? Can you let it go?” Elliot’s eyes searched her face, pleading for an answer. “You can be free if you want to. But it’s your choice. I’ll never ask you to be less than who you are. And if you need to step out on a stage, I’ll always be waiting when you come back. If you want me to.”

  Elliot opened his arms wide. Waiting. As the smoke and sirens and flashbulbs mingled with the sounds of chaos. And without a word or a second thought, Wren slipped into the safe haven his arms provided and closed her eyes as her past burned to the ground.

  CHAPTER 28

  APRIL 20, 1927

  SUFFOLK COUNTY JAIL

  BOSTON, MASS.

  It was jarring, the finality in the sound of an iron door being closed and locked behind her.

  Wren and Elliot followed the uniformed officer down a hallway to a wooden door with clear glass—a private visitor’s room. Elliot opened it, holding it wide as the officer nodded her inside.