The Glass Magician

by Caroline Stevermer

  “I’m afraid I can’t help that. I’ve spent most of my adult life teaching myself to pass as Solitaire, so I’ve done my best to winnow out all my most Sylvestri habits.” Nutall waved his teacup, as if he were dismissing the entire topic of the Sylvestri, and set it down on its saucer. “I’m very sorry I didn’t get the chance to read your letters. You’re a Trader after all. I am surprised.”

  “That’s not all I wrote to you. Von Faber’s stage assistant sabotaged the rifle.” At the blank expression on Nutall’s face, Thalia prompted him. “Don’t you remember the way she poured the gunpowder when she loaded it? She must have known the trick would go wrong. She killed Von Faber. I only have to prove she did, and you’ll be safe. Your name will be cleared. You’ll be free.”

  “I’m sorry.” Nutall regarded Thalia with an apologetic air. “I don’t think that your professional opinion will be sufficient evidence to prove the unfortunate young woman’s guilt.”

  “I’ll convince the police,” Thalia said. “Don’t worry about that.”

  Nutall went on. “I don’t think, even if you do succeed in finding the true culprit and proving their guilt to the satisfaction of absolutely everyone, that I will be free. My family is intent upon helping me.” He pronounced the word “help” with a twist that made it somehow mean the opposite. “They want me to stay with them.”

  That was awkward. Thalia knew that even if the murder charge could be dismissed at once, it would be a few days before they could find a new theater booking for their act. If Nutall’s family detained him, the delay would be even longer. “How long, do you think?” Thalia asked.

  “For good, my dear.” Nutall pushed the sandwich plate an inch farther away. “I am not to waste my time among the Solitaires any longer.” He sounded like he was quoting someone, someone who strongly disapproved of Solitaires.

  “Lucky I’m not a Solitaire, then,” Thalia countered.

  Nutall shook his head. “Listen. From now on, you have to find your way without me.”

  Thalia watched him closely, holding his dark gaze, hoping he would relent. Finally she broke the silence. “Do you want to stay here?”

  Nutall shook his head but murmured, “Yes.”

  Thalia sat back, her thoughts racing. Was someone listening? She looked around the room. There was no telling what lay behind those serene walls. Could there be someone who could hear but not see them? Thalia did her utmost to conceal her instinctive response to take action. Calm. She must play the game for Nutall’s sake. “You mean I should work the act alone? For how long?”

  Nutall looked sad. “When the murder trial is over, when the syndicate takes you on again, you may find someone else to be the host in your act. Or else you can create a new act working alone.”

  Thalia dismissed the idea of permanently working as a solo act with a wave of her hand. “I don’t care about that right now. I care about what really happened during Von Faber’s act. I’m told you were at the theater the night before, or you wouldn’t be in this predicament. Just think. Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything you saw that night or the night before that might help clear you?”

  Nutall sat in silence.

  Thalia hoped he was searching his memory and not just staring at her blankly.

  “I intended to ask Von Faber to waive the noncompete clause,” Nutall said at last. “That was why I was there the night before he died. I couldn’t see how we would ever find you another gig at a decent theater so long as he insisted on that stupid clause.”

  “He refused to listen,” Thalia guessed.

  Nutall shook his head. “I never had the chance to speak with him. He was quarreling with his wife. She’s spent all these years in Baltimore raising their children on her own. When she brought them to New York for a visit, she was far from pleased with what she found here.”

  “Which was what?”

  “The rumors are true. Three months ago, Von Faber bigamously married his assistant, young Nora. He had kept the affair from his first wife, which didn’t seem to surprise her in the least, but he hadn’t bothered to divorce her first. She took issue with that. Most distressing.”

  “Distressing for Nora,” said Thalia.

  “True. His assistant was understandably furious to find herself his bigamous partner, and not legally married, as she had believed.”

  “She didn’t know he was married with children?”

  “Von Faber kept their existence a secret. He told his first wife that he’d done it for their protection. She laughed at that.”

  Thalia asked, “Who else was there to hear the fight? Stagehands, for sure.”

  “Oh, yes. Plenty of witnesses to the argument.” Nutall frowned. “I did not mention it to the police, but as I was leaving, young Anton Ostrova arrived.”

  Thalia frowned. “The lawyers the Rykers hired for us showed me the list of names the police have made of people who were at the theater that night. They know Anton was there. Do you know why he came?”

  “It is barely conceivable that he had been sent there by Madame Ostrova to ask Von Faber about the rifle missing from our inventory. But given Von Faber’s wide range of unpleasant behaviors, it could have been something entirely unrelated to our problem. There were people there that night not directly involved in Von Faber’s show. I’d be surprised if the police know about every single one.” Nutall turned his attention to the final sandwich on the plate. “Won’t you have another? To help me finish these off?”

  Thalia shook her head. “I’m not hungry. I just want to help you.”

  “You can’t. My family have made their wishes plain.”

  “I thought I was your family.” Thalia didn’t know why that made Nutall smile.

  “You were, for a very long and very happy time,” Nutall said. “In a way, you always will be. But I’m subject to my blood kin now.”

  “You don’t have to be. I’ll get you out of here,” said Thalia.

  Nutall went on as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “In a way, it’s a relief to talk about it with you at last. I find Solitaires quite fascinating. It was an interesting exercise, living as one. Ironic, that you were pretending to be a Solitaire too.”

  “I was not pretending,” Thalia reminded him.

  “The longer I spend in sanctuary here, the more my life in disguise seems like a dream.” Nutall took the last sandwich himself.

  “What’s it like, being Sylvestri?” Thalia asked.

  “Tell me what it is like to be a Trader. An immature Trader,” he corrected himself.

  Thalia closed her eyes while she tried to think of an answer for him. “I have Traded, only I can’t Trade on purpose yet. It happens when I’m afraid. So it’s hard for me to tell what it is really like under all that fear.”

  “Despite the danger from manticores, you set forth from your sanctuary without yet being in control of your Trades—dear me. Aren’t you taking unnecessary risks?”

  Thalia admitted, “There’s a chance I’ll attract another manticore, yes. They tell me they are rare, but you couldn’t prove it by me. But I’ve made arrangements. I needed to see you, but I’m not crazy.”

  “Arrangements. Very well.” Nutall did not look convinced. “So you’ve not quite come into your powers.”

  Thalia could feel her eyebrows rise until they were all but knotted in puzzlement, but she couldn’t seem to do anything to stop it. “Oh, do I have powers?”

  “You will.” Nutall’s smile this time was all crinkles and warmth, exactly the way it always ought to be in Thalia’s opinion. “You resemble your mother in more than mere looks, it seems.”

  “Do I?” Thalia couldn’t help the chime her cup made when she put it back on its saucer, the trembling of her hands betrayed by the rattle of porcelain on porcelain. “How do you know about my mother? Why wait until now to tell me about her?”

  “I know what your father told me, nothing more. I’ve seen only what he showed me. The wedding portrait you found among his personal effects—I�
��ve seen that. Your father was afraid—knowing you, with good reason—that if you knew anything more about your mother, you would be determined to know everything. The memory of that loss caused him nothing but pain.”

  “Still.” Thalia swallowed hard. “Don’t I have a right to know?”

  “Absolutely. But your father feared you would insist on looking for your mother’s family. Once they knew of your existence, he thought they would take you from him. When your mother married your father, her parents were furious. He was determined to protect you. I have tried to honor his wishes in every detail.” Nutall’s expression clouded. “You and your well-being were all Jack cared about in the world.”

  “He cared about you too,” Thalia pointed out.

  Nutall continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Your parents met in Vienna, at the World’s Fair held there, as you know. That was a great undertaking, the 1873 Exposition. They changed the channel of the Danube to accommodate it. Foolish of them, as it turned out. The river disliked the disturbance. There was an outbreak of fever.”

  Thalia said, “You make the river sound like a grumpy neighbor.”

  “Do I?” Nutall went on, “Your mother was a swan maiden, one of the Danube river folk.”

  “A swan maiden?” Thalia cleared her throat. “Like me?”

  “Apparently so. After they married, your mother became your father’s stage assistant.” As an afterthought, Nutall added, “She had the original idea for the pigeon squeezer, Jack told me.”

  “Did she?” The knowledge that her mother had helped invent magic tricks cheered Thalia.

  Nutall nodded. “For a long time, they were happy on the vaudeville circuit. Their only sadness was the bad times your mother had when she was pregnant. They lost two stillborn children before you came along.”

  “I never knew that.”

  “Your father told me that the loss of your mother and brother only six months after your brother’s birth nearly killed him too. You were the only thing that kept him going.” Nutall’s eyes were full of pride. “You have grown into a fine young lady. Yet when you Trade, you turn into a swan. How does that work?”

  Despite the terror of her Trades, despite the threat of manticores looming over her, Thalia could not hold back a wild smile. She found herself blazingly happy to be sitting there with Nutall, able to share her new truth. “I can’t explain it. I think it doesn’t matter whether I Trade or not. I am a swan all the time.”

  “Dear me.”

  Thalia went on, “The swan gets scared. The swan gets angry. It hisses and tries to break things.”

  “You always did have a temper,” Nutall said. “From what Jack told me, so did your mother.”

  “I always thought the only things I’d inherited from her were her clothes, her pistol, and her pearls.”

  “She would have been very proud of you.” Nutall smiled sadly. “As proud as your father was.”

  “Did he know you’re Sylvestri?”

  Nutall nodded. “Jack knew all about me. He helped me elude my family. The day I met your father was the first day of my life I felt free, not just of my family’s expectations, but completely free. Now I learn that Jack was a Trader. He must have been, or you would not be able to Trade at all, no matter how strong your mother’s heritage.”

  Thalia demanded, “Father knew he was a Trader and never said?”

  “Oh, no. I’m sure he never knew. He had no family. He never, ever Traded.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I am. I knew him as he knew me. We broke every rule to be together. I can’t regret it, but I am sorry that our secret is something that hurts you now.”

  Thalia knew it was childish to feel resentment, yet she did. She did her best to conceal it. Nutall had never been in such a forthcoming mood before. She ought to take advantage of it. She knew she should ask for more details about his life with her father. Yet Thalia, most profoundly, did not want more details about that. She wanted not to know more about their life together behind her back. “Mrs. Viridian said Nutall is only an alias you use. What’s your real name?”

  “Muir.” Nutall looked sad. “I was named David Muir.”

  Thalia asked, “What happens next? The trial?”

  “This may be the last time I see you outside a courtroom. That is why I burden you with truth you may not be ready to hear. Thalia, you still have your whole life before you. It is a different life than the one you expected, that’s all. Embrace your heritage. Trade bravely, deal honestly, and plan a solo act.”

  “If I must. But I’m going to prove you innocent.”

  The light in the room dimmed, as if the sun had gone under a bank of clouds. The door opened. Mrs. Viridian stood waiting.

  “Goodbye, Thalia,” said Nutall gently.

  Thalia sprang to her feet. “No! Now that we don’t have the noncompete clause to worry about, I just want to get back onstage as soon as possible. I’ll work out a solo act, but I’ll still need you. You are my manager.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “You can stay behind the scenes. You can prompt me from the wings.”

  “Forget about me. You have problems of your own and you can’t solve mine. No one can.”

  “That’s enough.” Mrs. Viridian peered coldly at Thalia through her pince-nez. “You must leave now.” To Nutall, she said, “You’ve had your time.”

  Nutall rose to his feet slowly, as if it hurt him to move. Thalia embraced him carefully. How old was Nutall, anyway? He seemed much older than she remembered.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” Thalia told Nutall. “I’ll send a message if I find out anything useful before then.” She turned to Mrs. Viridian. “You let him read his letters from now on.”

  “Let it be,” Nutall murmured in her ear. “Leave it.”

  “Never.” Thalia refused to let her emotions go free with the likes of Mrs. Viridian watching. “Until tomorrow.”

  “If you think you must,” sighed Nutall.

  Thalia left him there, in the once-sunny room. Mrs. Viridian marched her out through the cleverly decorated corridors. Despite the beauty of the place, despite the fact that she was leaving her oldest, closest, and most trusted friend behind, Thalia found herself restless and eager to leave. This was not the place for her. Perhaps nowhere built by Sylvestri would ever feel natural or comfortable to a Trader.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The doorman, looking peeved for some reason, accepted Thalia from Mrs. Viridian’s custody, and so she found herself back on the doorstep, put out like a cat.

  Ryker and his motorcar were exactly where Thalia had left them. Had it been an hour before? Thalia was usually good at estimating time, but something about the Dakota had thrown her off. The doorman’s displeasure, it became clear, stemmed from Mr. Ryker’s refusal to move the car from beneath the sheltering canopy of the porte cochere.

  There was another motorcar waiting behind Ryker’s, a gleaming black Mercer with its distinctive cylindrical hood, reminiscent of a steam locomotive. Unlike Ryker’s Pierce-Arrow, the heavier Mercer looked solid and secretive. Even as Thalia watched, the driver opened the rear passenger door. The well-dressed white Solitaire who emerged, radiating impatience, was Cornelius Cadwallader, head of the Cadwallader theatrical syndicate, himself. He brushed past Thalia, and the doorman admitted him to the quiet elegance of the Dakota without a word of challenge.

  “Does Mr. Cadwallader come here often?” Thalia asked the doorman.

  “Go away,” said the doorman. “Take that car with you.”

  “Is he here to get his letters of transit to take the train to the West? Or is he here on some other business?”

  The doorman said nothing, and merely glared at Thalia. She felt his disapproving stare between her shoulder blades as she walked away from him toward Ryker’s Pierce-Arrow. When that doorman looked at a person, she reflected, a person stayed looked at. She felt as if she were being watched by a small crowd, not just one tall man in a uniform. She wondered
if he might secretly be Sylvestri too.

  To Thalia’s surprise, Aristides was missing from the front passenger seat. “Where is Aristides?” As Thalia put her hand on the door, the overwhelming sense of something wrong descended upon her. The hand that was touching the door had gone pins and needles. Thalia felt herself watched. This was no disapproving doorman. This was far stronger. She felt as if someone were gloating over her discomfort.

  “He said he smelled something.” Ryker opened the door and beckoned her inside. “Shall we leave without him?”

  Something moved behind her. Thalia ducked her head, preparing to throw herself into the relative shelter of the car, just as Aristides’ voice called out sharply, “Get down.”

  A shotgun fired, both barrels. Thalia distinctly felt something brush at her skirts. She wasn’t sure if it was shotgun pellets or something even worse. Through the ringing in Thalia’s ears there came a sound like someone dropping an extremely large sack of potatoes.

  In the struggle to join Ryker in the car, Thalia’s hat had come askew, blocking her vision entirely. She clawed it aside and looked.

  On the pavement beside the car lay the manticore. This one had been in a different stage of transformation. Its body was shaped like a lion, if lions had claws like razors front and back. It had the head and shoulders of a man, so hairy it was almost furred. It smelled bad in exactly the same way her first dead manticore had.

  Tycho Aristides, the Skinner of Manhattan and its surrounding boroughs, stood over the dead manticore and put fresh cartridges in his shotgun with finicking care.

  Thalia felt dizzy with relief. This time there had been no accompanying compulsion to Trade. Maybe she was actually making progress in controlling her Trades. “Where were you?”

  “Right where I was meant to be, watching for you to come out.” Aristides slung the shotgun over his shoulder and rolled the carcass on its side to go after the gallbladder.

  “Thank you.” Thalia took her place in the backseat, glad to sit quietly while her knees felt so watery. Belatedly, she remembered the pistol in her reticule. On the whole, she was glad she’d left it there. They’d caused enough stir without her shooting holes in something. Or someone. As things stood, Aristides had all the fuss well in hand. “Thanks for the help.”