them to fight?
“Now, I’ve held up my end,” Jack said, the teacher gone. The master returned. “What’s upsetting you?”
Glorian. The Conquering Circus. The competition.
The words threaded back into her thoughts, but the unease of his illusion sat in her like stone. “Don’t do that.” Her throat tightened. “You don’t get to play with my mind and just…”
Kallia looked down—safe, away from her reflection—but Jack tipped a finger beneath her chin. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, penitent. “Mirrors are those rare creatures that straddle the lines between mind, magic, and reality. There are tricks that require far more twisting, but they’re very tedious. And I would never test them on you.”
“Then what do you call this?”
The question hung around them, in the space between their lips.
Jack’s brows pinched. Most times he held himself as if he’d lived a thousand years, but only rarely did he look his age. Only a little older than Kallia, she knew, though he’d never given her the specific number. Only looks, lessons, and dances.
And most important of all, knowledge.
“Are you going to teach me how, then?” Kallia stared back at their forms in the mirrors, the smooth panels shining whole before reaching the veined surface that broke them in pieces.
At the sudden squeal of strings, Jack lowered her into a dip, guiding her back up. “Something tells me your mind is still elsewhere.”
Glorian.
The whole dance had been a charade to get there. He could’ve simply invaded her mind for answers, influenced her to spill her own guarded secrets. But not once, Jack always promised, had he ever used his magic on others in such a way. He dealt in memories, fleeting things often forgotten that were won and lost at his game tables, but not the actual puppeteering of one’s mind and actions. He wasn’t one for empty-eyed dolls; he preferred those who came to him to be very much alive and aware of their choices.
Even after the mirror illusion, she believed him.
“Kallia,” Jack prompted.
She blinked. Over the years, it hadn’t taken long to find ways of seizing back the game, using whatever wiles necessary. “You’re leaving soon. Like you do every year.”
Reluctant, he played along. “To settle vendor accounts, yes?”
Not too fast, let it build. When they were face-to-face, Kallia dropped her hands before Jack could seize them—letting her fingers travel slowly, palms grazing the taut planes of his abdomen through his shirt, his chest.
“What if you didn’t have to go alone?” she drawled, feeling his muscles stiffen on her way up. “You spend too much time by yourself, working. Even on your free days, you’re off in your workroom packing smoking leaves and memories into pipes.”
His eyes darkened. “What are you suggesting?”
Kallia hooked her leg around his waist, tilting her head with a sweet minx’s smile. “I’ll go with you.”
“It’s dry business, Kallia. You’d find it boring.”
“We’ll make it fun,” she said slyly. “There’s got to be more than just business beyond these woods. I hear there’s a show happening in town.”
The music spiked louder for a second.
Jack paused, and for a brilliant moment, Kallia thought she’d won. Heart racing and flushed, she waited, thumbing the edge of his shirt collar. His pulse jumped beneath it, before he pushed away her tight-clad thigh from his waist. “What town?”
“Glorian.”
The room fell silent. His steps slowed, and Kallia nearly jerked at the hardness of the wall that met her back. Jack didn’t press her into it, just lowered his head enough by hers that she shifted back on her own.
“Kallia.” He breathed out like a warning. “You know very well we can’t do that.”
Most people would never dare be so close to the master of Hellfire House. It was like encountering a starving wolf in the woods. He fixated on the curve of her shoulder, her neck, her mouth—roving with a freedom, a hunger, as if each glance were a taste.
Channeling the wolf herself, her lips curled. “Why not? There’s a circus in Glorian hosting a magician’s competition. Are we not magicians?”
The words before were a spark to the flint; now, a douse of cold water. Jack withdrew the hands he’d caged over her head, tension roiling over him. “Where did you hear about this?”
“Some of the servants were gabbing about it in the kitchens.” The lie flew easily from her. She’d grown adept at training lies into truths, fixing her expressions and the tone of her voice. But it was the skip in her heart she couldn’t fix, and the corner of Jack’s mouth turned