Frantically I scanned the ground. There was a stone nearby smooth enough to smear my blood on. But how could my magic help her?
“Sal, now!” she cried.
I bit hard into my thumb and smeared my blood across the stone, thinking of every offensive spell I knew. Fire, hurricane, wind projectile, please, please let this work, until my penny glowed. Then I took aim and threw the stone to Olivia. She caught it and held it to her chest. I felt a red flash through me and I knew somehow that it was Olivia copying my magic.
“?Fuego!” she cried, and a tongue of flame shot out at Samson. It caught on his axle grease designs and ignited them. He cried out and rolled. Olivia darted away, shouting, “Come on! Let’s go!”
All of us ran for the entrance to the ravine. My feet pounded on the hard ground, my chest hurt. I flew with panic and adrenaline. Then I heard a blood-freezing scream and turned.
“Olivia!” Cassandra screamed. “Olivia! Help!”
One of the Laredo Boys had seen through Cassandra’s illusions and grabbed the real Cassandra around the waist and held her to him with a knife on her jugular.
I froze, panting, looking to the others.
“Hold on, Cassandra!” Olivia shouted. She started back toward Cassandra, and we fell in behind her, facing the four Laredo Boys who were left. I caught my breath as, behind them, Samson rose. His black designs were bubbling, red burns now, still smoking from Olivia’s and my fire. Shaking with rage, he came to stand in front of Cassandra.
“Like I said, Olivia,” he spat, his silver teeth bloodstained. “The easy way or the bloody way. Give up now, before my reinforcements come.”
“Take the metal, Samson!” Olivia’s voice was carefully steady. “Take the rations, take all of it, just let her go!”
“I want it all,” he said. “All the metal. All of you. Or she dies.”
I clenched trembling hands. I could see Olivia sizing them up, trying to figure out what to do. But there was no spell I’d learned that she could cast without hurting Cassandra too. I was utterly powerless. Behind me, even Mowse was frozen, too terrified to utter a word.
Olivia swallowed, started to say something; then a familiar voice rang out over the ravine.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls of all ages! Welcome to the show!”
The Laredo Boys turned, bewildered. Then one of them pointed.
Asa was standing, fully suited and hatted, on an outcrop high up on the side of the ravine.
“I am but a humble traveler from another land, another realm, another place in time!” He tipped his hat, and a white bird flew out of it and shattered into a million pieces of glittering confetti.
“Who’s this clown?” one of the Boys sneered.
“I am Asa Skander, magician at large, and I have come to open your eyes to otherworldly feats, death-defying stunts, and fantastical delights the likes of which have never been seen before. So I ask you: You wanna see a magic trick?”
He pulled the chain of colored scarves from his sleeves and stood, arms outstretched, waiting for applause. The Laredo Boys looked from one to the other, confused. None of us moved.
“No?” Asa said, pulling a comical frown. “What about—” Asa reached up and peeled his face up and off, revealing a hole of black smoke. “This one?”
The Laredo Boys screamed as the smoke leaked from the hole where Asa’s face had been and filled the sky over the ravine, but Samson stood his ground, grabbing Cassandra himself.
“He’s just a witch,” he said to his men. “Like… like these girls here. All tr-trickery.”
“Oh, I assure you,” said Asa’s voice, a daemonic face appearing in the smoke, all fire-red eyes and arm-length teeth. “I am something else entirely.”
Blue-white flames shot up all around. The ravine went dark as pitch. The cliffs echoed with the sound of inhuman shrieks and howls and wails. Then Asa himself leapt down into the ravine and moved toward the Boys, toward Samson. Samson held his ground for a moment longer, then shoved a white-faced Cassandra toward Asa and turned to run. Asa stepped past Cassandra and opened his arms. Suddenly they too were black smoke, wide enough to cover the whole ravine. And even though I knew I had nothing to fear from Asa, my knees shook.
“He’s pushing them,” said Olivia. “He’s driving them—look.”
He was. The Laredo Boys were gibbering with fear—fear of the gaping daemon teeth, the infernal flames, the great,