and brought out a silver dollar instead. “Palming.” Thalia made the coin disappear and then turned her hand to show Nell where she’d hidden it with her fingers. “Stealing.” With a smooth gesture, she produced her original silver dollar from a fold in the cuff of her left sleeve. “Ditching.” She tucked it into her right cuff. “Loading.” A silver dollar returned, doubled itself, and disappeared again.
Nell’s eyes had gone wide and bright. “Show me again.”
Thalia held out her purse. “Take two pennies and run through it with me. Ready?”
They worked on hand positions. “No, lift your hand more. Show the marks what they’re supposed to be looking for. If you can get the coin to catch the light that’s great, but don’t wave it around. You have to look completely natural on the outside while you’re completely artificial on the inside.”
“This is natural,” Nell protested.
The lesson was suspended when the tea tray arrived, a glorious array of cake and sandwiches on a tiered stand, a silver teapot, two china cups, and two saucers. Nell poured out tea and offered Thalia a plate of finger sandwiches and slices of two kinds of chocolate cake.
Watching Nell, Thalia concluded that the Trader girl’s every gesture was indeed naturally theatrical, as if she’d been raised by an actress. Thalia wondered if had something to do with being a Trader. “If you scale it back a little, you’ll have better luck. Right now, the marks will be watching you instead of what you’re doing.”
* * *
By the time the last of the tea had gone cold, all the cake and most of the sandwiches were gone, and Nell was losing her ability to concentrate.
Thalia wondered how the Great Cutler had ever had the patience to teach her. She couldn’t remember a time when these elementary moves hadn’t been second nature. It frayed her patience, trying to find simpler ways to explain technique to Nell. Better to stop now and resume fresh the next day. That would give Nell time to practice and Thalia time to think up new explanations. “That’s enough for today.”
With visible relief, Nell put her coins away. “Let’s go find Nat. I need to tell him about our agreement.”
“Good idea.”
“I’ll also need to tell Rogers to let you in from now on, no matter what silly orders Nat issues.”
“Right. Good. Remember ditching and loading. Practice it more tonight.”
* * *
“Magic lessons?” Ryker brought both hands crashing down discordantly on the piano keyboard. “Out of the question!”
“Oh, Nat!” Nell clapped her hands in delight. “You sounded just like Mama then. Do it again!”
Ryker looked as if he’d bitten a lemon. “I said no.”
Nell shook her head. “Close, but not quite as good.”
Ryker ignored his sister in favor of giving Thalia an absolutely baleful stare. “Miss Cutler. I don’t care what kind of arrangement you think you’ve made with my sister. It’s off. Do you understand me?”
Silent, Thalia stared right back. This was between brother and sister.
“Nell, you are making yourself ridiculous. You haven’t passed your ordeal, therefore you are not a full member of society. You cannot enter into a legally binding contract until you are.”
Nell laughed merrily. “Just listen to yourself!”
Thalia found the most comfortable chair in the music room and seated herself. Ryker’s true opinion of women in show business had been a blow. Watching his sister win an argument with him seemed like fine entertainment to her.
“Don’t let this woman’s refined looks fool you. She had her piano lessons from a circus strongman,” said Ryker. “She’s spent her entire life at the circus. You don’t want to end up like her.”
Nell gave him both dimples. “Yes, I do.”
Thalia was happy she hadn’t told Ryker more about her music lessons. When the pit orchestra had been busy rehearsing, Milo had given her lessons at the piano in the nearest whorehouse instead. It had never occurred to Thalia to wonder, although now she could make a shrewd guess, exactly how Milo had accessed the piano for a lesson. None of that was any business of Ryker’s. “Vaudeville, not circus,” she called, but Ryker paid her no attention.
Nell retorted, “I don’t care what you think of her. I’ve paid her in advance and had my first lesson. So there. She’s coming back tomorrow for the next one.”
“No, she is not.”
“She is.”
It went on that way. Ryker lasted ten minutes, then left the room growling under his breath.
When he was gone, Nell took his place at the piano and began to pick out