sword down to demonstrate how sharp it was. He sliced an apple with it, then hauled it back to its menacing position. He produced a candle, which he set in a wrought-iron stand. It was placed so that, once lit, the flame would touch the rope.
Thalia, with due ceremony, took her place upon the throne. Nutall took up the manacles that dangled from chains welded to the arms of the throne. He called for a volunteer from the audience to witness that the cuffs were made of genuine steel and that the chains were just as solidly made. When the volunteer went back to the audience, Nutall closed the manacles on Thalia’s wrists, trapping her in the chair. He placed the key—the only key—in his waistcoat pocket and walked away.
Thalia sat tall and did her best to look queenly and brave—but not too stupid to realize her danger—while she let the audience take in her plight.
Nutall stepped to the candle stand and produced a box of lucifer matches. “Ladies and gentlemen, please give the Lady of the Lake your undivided attention.”
The orchestra fell silent, save for a snare drumroll. Overhead, the sword gleamed in the stage lights. Thalia could sense the audience’s anticipation. She could smell the apple Nutall had sliced in half. When Nutall struck a match to light the candle, Thalia could smell the sulfur of its flame and then the scent of burning hemp as the candle flame licked the rope.
Nutall raised his hands and the inner curtain closed, concealing Thalia from the audience. The drumroll continued.
The moment the curtain hid Thalia from the audience, she set to work. The handcuff key hidden in her left sleeve dropped into her hand, and with a twist and a tug, she freed herself from the manacle on her right wrist.
Thalia could have picked the locks, but it was far more efficient simply to lie about the number of keys. She used her free right hand to release the catch that held the seat of the throne in place. With the faintest of clicks, the seat dropped from beneath her like a trapdoor, clearing the way to the open trapdoor in the stage below. All that remained was to unlock the manacle on her left wrist, bundle up her skirts, and drop through both openings at once to hide beneath the stage.
With the key in her right hand, Thalia worked to unlock the remaining manacle, keenly aware of the dwindling seconds she had before the rope, treated to burn slowly, would part at last.
Something inside the lock jammed. Thalia worked in vain. She was stuck.
Thalia took a wild look around. The sword was directly overhead, but not for much longer. On the other side of the curtain, the audience waited, attention rapt on the candle burning through the rope. The drumroll still sounded.
Thalia could smell greasepaint and her own sweat. Her entire focus was on the last chance she had: to slip her hand through the locked cuff.
It never occurred to Thalia to call for help. This was her profession, her birthright. The show simply must go on.
Thalia dropped through the trapdoor in the throne as far as the length of chain allowed. The links of the chain kept the seat from snapping back into place as it was meant to. That alone would certainly ruin the trick. When the sword dropped, it would strike her, but perhaps not fatally.
The numbness in Thalia’s left wrist had turned to fire. Stubborn to the end, angry with herself for failure, Thalia was still twisting the key in the jammed lock, while straining to pull her hand through the cuff despite the impossibly tight fit.
Thalia’s arms, her whole body, went from numbness to pins and needles everywhere. She looked up, ready for the sword, angrily resigned to pay the price for her clumsiness with the jammed cuff. But Thalia could not see her left hand. She saw something white, something she didn’t understand. It could not be what it seemed, white feathers forming a shape like the tip of a bird’s wing. Before she could make sense of what she saw, Thalia fell at last, free of the cuff.
The chain, free of Thalia’s weight, was rigged to slide to the outside of the throne. It slithered upward out of sight. The trapdoor in the throne clicked shut as Thalia fell into blind darkness beneath the stage. The numbness held her. She couldn’t see, but she could hear.