“This story begins,” said Tempest, “when Nicodemus the Necromancer, the Scottish stage magician who was gravely wounded by the theater booby trap that killed Julian Rhodes, was getting his start on the stage in Edinburgh, Scotland. Nicodemus and his assistant, the Cat of Nine Lives, developed a series of intriguing illusions involving a cat character dying strange deaths and being resurrected by a necromancer who controlled the dead like a puppeteer.
“Nicodemus was the headliner, but Cat was far more than just an assistant. She was an equal partner in creating those illusions. At least an equal partner, maybe more. But she never got any credit.”
Tempest was standing still at this point, but her heart was racing faster than it had all night. She was nearly there. Nearly to the point of revealing the truth she’d been searching for all these years. A truth that only Julian Rhodes’s seemingly unrelated death had allowed her to discover.
“My mom and her older sister grew up in Edinburgh, and they created an act that had potential but wasn’t yet developed. Nicodemus discovered and mentored the sisters. He renamed their act the Selkie Sisters, playing up the Scottish lore of half-seal, half-human creatures, which was already in their story of being from the sea.
“Nicodemus and his stage partner Cat split up around this time, so he hired Brodie Frost as his stagehand and on-stage assistant. With Cat out of the picture, and never again appearing on the magic scene, Nicodemus was free to do what he wanted with their illusions. Which is exactly what he did. He grew his own career spectacularly, and he continued to mentor my aunt Elspeth after her falling out with my mom—including giving her one of his illusions. This is the key to all these deaths. Nicodemus, with his big ego, believed he’d created the illusions he was sharing. But they weren’t his to give away.”
Tempest brought her seemingly empty hand in front of her face and blew. Small specks of light, like fireflies, filled the air.
“You need to understand something about stage magicians. We have a code. One we take seriously. We don’t reveal secrets. And we don’t steal each other’s tricks. Magicians can sell their tricks to other magicians, and we can adapt basic concepts to make them our own, but we do not steal.”
The last of the pinpricks of light disappeared.
“But the Cat of Nine Lives, who’d been used up and thrown away, discovered that rising star Elspeth Raj was going to debut with one of Cat’s tricks. So she made sure Elspeth was caught in another illusion—one that killed Elspeth but looked like an accident. So yes, that means the killer is—” Tempest broke off as Sanjay jumped up from his seat in the A/V booth, holding his cell phone to his ear.
Ivy spun around to record Sanjay, whose face lit up with a grin. “They’ve got her!” he shouted from the booth, then tipped his bowler hat toward the camera.
“My team have done their job,” said Tempest, “and you’re about to meet the killer. She raided the Shadow Stage, where she thought I was filming. I’m sorry to have deceived you yet again. I’m not actually on that stage. The Shadow Stage is the one with too much history of curses and shadows. Whereas I believe in truth and justice. I’m standing on the Whispering Creek Theater’s main stage. And if I’m not mistaken, I hear my dad and a trusted friend bringing the killer to us in handcuffs.”
Ivy pivoted once more as Darius and Blackburn burst through the side door, the killer between them. Her hands were cuffed behind her back. The two men brought her to the stage.
“I’d like to introduce you to the Cat of Nine Lives,” Tempest said to the camera, her heart thudding furiously behind her well-practiced cool exterior. “This is the person who killed Elspeth Raj ten years ago, Emma Raj five years ago, and Julian Rhodes and Brodie Frost this week.”
This was real.
The moment she’d been trying to achieve for more than five years.
Breathe, Tempest. Breathe.
She turned from the camera to face the Cat of Nine Lives. The killer. “Hello, Catriona. Or would you prefer I call you the name my grandmother knows you as, Trina?”
“You’ve got this,” Gideon whispered, just loudly enough for her to hear. Had he heard the ever-so-slight falter in her voice?
“The best illusions,” said Tempest to the camera, her voice and pose confident, “are like the best lies. Only altering the fewest necessary elements. A Scottish woman who couldn’t do a perfect American accent simply ingratiated herself with a circle of artist friends, many of whom were Scottish. A woman who’d killed multiple times before wouldn’t want to be too far away when I began looking into her murders.”
And a woman who went by variations of her given name, Catriona, pronounced Katrina, wouldn’t want to go by a name that she wouldn’t respond to. Cat, Catriona, Trina. They’re the same person.
FIDDLER’S FOLLY
Five and a half years ago
A storyteller is the ultimate escape artist, Emma Raj has always told her daughter. If you use your imagination properly, you can find a path out of any situation.
Harry Houdini, Emma’s favorite magician, was a key who could open any lock. Born Erik Weisz in Hungary, he was a self-made man—and a natural showman. Tempest, as a woman of color in a man’s profession, doesn’t share some of the benefits Houdini had, but she shares some of his characteristics. She’s physically powerful and has a family who loves her more than anything. She has also grown up the child and grandchild of people who think creatively.
When Tempest comes home to Fiddler’s Folly for a visit a few weeks before her twenty-first birthday, Emma hands her a box covered in silver wrapping paper decorated with a pattern of gold keys. Thick red ribbon loops across the mug-size box, and tied to the bow on top is a Houdini bobblehead toy. Emma had looped the red ribbon through the spot where the plastic toy’s wrists were handcuffed. A folded piece of notepaper on top of the bracelet inside reads, Happy 21st! A magical inheritance for my magical daughter. Love love love xxx Mom.
Emma Raj writes those words to her beloved daughter the night before she vanishes. Inside the box are the keys to her daughter’s past and future. The charm bracelet representing their shared love of magic. The top hat, selkie, lightning bolt, book, a fiddle, jester, handcuffs, and a key.
“You don’t need a special key to unlock handcuffs, or the world,” says Emma. “You are the key.”