She shudders. She knows the very ax he means; she’d held it in her own two hands. “Tell me what happened.”
“I watched the show in Waterloo—you were magnificent, Arden, you amazed me all over again—and I watched to see who was there afterward.” Clyde tucks his shirt into his waistband in a swift, smooth motion, in no obvious discomfort, so the wound must not be as bad as she first feared. “Everyone left, and I was afraid I’d missed my chance, but he came back in and hung that ax on the wall. So I confronted him. I asked how long he’d been your lover, and he laughed. He knew exactly who I was, and he wanted to taunt me. He boasted. He told me what he thought he was, what he thought he could do.”
“Oh, God,” she says, feeling faint.
He reaches out for her left wrist, raising the cuffed hand to his mouth, and kisses it, once, twice, three times.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks.
“I was sure he’d kill you.”
“Not just that,” he says. “Before. It must have been awful for you to keep that secret.”
“Talking about it wouldn’t have made it less awful.”
He inserts the metal pin into both cuffs in turn and slips them from her wrist. She should feel lighter, now that she’s free. She doesn’t.
Clyde says, “It was him or me.”
“I know,” she says.
“We fought. I got in a few good blows; he was bigger, I was faster. Then he grabbed the ax, chasing me across the stage, swinging the whole time. I took a risk and let him swipe me with it, so he’d think I couldn’t move faster. It’s shallower than it looks.” He gestures down at his wound. “Because what I noticed and he didn’t was the open trap door. I stepped around, and he stepped through.”
She pictures Ray falling, falling, landing hard.
“I couldn’t tell if he was moving or not, so I took the long way down instead of jumping through the trap door. By the time I got there—he was gone.”
She thinks she knows what he means, but she still asks, “Gone?”
“He landed on the ax. Curled around it like he was holding it close. All the sets and props were under the stage, right there, and I thought maybe if I hid the…evidence, that I could find you before anyone found him, that everything might still be all right. But I heard footsteps. I had to run. I just got out of there, went north as far and fast as I could until I had my wits about me again and stopped at a restaurant on the road. Then I realized they were going to suspect you. I was about to double back. To turn myself in. So you’d be safe.”
“Oh, Clyde.”
“Then I saw him”—he gestures back in the direction of the fallen officer—“riding off with you. I couldn’t keep up, but I kept on following, and finally I saw the horse in front of the station, and I knew that’s where you were. So I waited.”
She looks up at him, his face so familiar and loved, and knows they’ve both done things neither will ever want to talk about. She doesn’t want to think about his any more than she wants him to think about hers. That’s not the person she is. That’s not the person she wants to be.
She says, “I want to start over.”
“Yes, yes,” he says, stroking her cheek. “We can fleet the time carelessly.”
“As they do in the golden world?”
“But you won’t be Arden anymore.”
She shakes her head. “Right now, I don’t want to be.”
“Do you think you’ll be happy? Without an audience?”
“Maybe I’ll start again. Maybe I’ll get a new name, a new act.”
“In Canada,” he says, catching on. “Or California. London, even. Somewhere far away.”
“Yes. In the meantime, you’re my audience,” she says.
He whispers softly as he lifts her hand to kiss it, his lips brushing her skin with each word, “And I will applaud, and applaud, and applaud.”
She closes her eyes and savors the tickling warmth of his mouth. Then he lifts the injured hand, squeezing it lightly as he does so, and she can’t help but wince.
“Arden!”
“Shh,” she says. “It’s okay. We need to go.”
“Go?”
“It’s morning.”
He squints through the leaves, now dappled with half sun. “Almost.” But first he takes the injured hand in his own gently, turning it over, looking at it closely.
“This is how you got out?”
“Yes.”
“It must hurt.”
“Just for now. It’ll be as good as new tomorrow.”
“So soon?”
“Like magic,” she says.
She puts her good hand in his, and they walk away from the town, together, toward the brightening horizon.
Thank you for reading!
We hope you enjoyed The Magician’s Lie by Greer Macallister.
Help other readers find books they’ll love by writing a review or lending this book to a friend. If you’d like to find out more about this book and others like it, check out our mailing list for updates on new releases and access to exclusive content.
Sign up now to be one of the first to get the scoop on Greer Macallister, her latest books, and other great titles from Sourcebooks!
SIGN UP NOW!