The package arrived at Fiddler’s Folly the next morning, when Tempest was sitting on the tree house deck, still feeling numb after hearing that Nicodemus didn’t pull through. He died as he lived, in the spotlight.
Abra hopped from Tempest’s lap to the floor as her dad handed her the heavy package. Before she could open it, her phone rang. No image appeared on the screen, but since Ivy’s phone had been broken beyond repair, Tempest expected it was Ivy calling from a different phone.
“I’m so sorry,” a sad, deep voice said.
Moriarty.
Tempest left the package on the floor of the deck, scooped Abra into her arm, and slipped down the stairs. “I’m putting Abra back in his hutch,” she called over her shoulder. “Back in a minute.”
Moriarty, whose real name she still didn’t know, had slipped away last night while all the attention was focused on attempting to save Nicodemus and arresting Catriona. His mother.
“I didn’t think she’d hurt anyone else,” he continued. “I was only trying to free her so we could get away.”
“I wish I could believe you.” Tempest trudged up the sloping hillside to the unfinished Secret Fort, which housed Abra’s hutch and would one day be the start of Tempest’s own small home.
“I swear it, Tempest. I know this will be hard for you to understand because you have such a loving, functional family, who you can count on in spite of their quirks. But even after I found out what my mother had done, I couldn’t turn her in.”
“You might not believe this,” said Tempest, “but I understand more than you could possibly know.”
Tempest still hadn’t told anyone that Nicodemus had been the one to booby-trap the theater door to injure himself just enough to get his tour canceled. She couldn’t articulate why, even to herself, but perhaps she was speaking to the one person who would understand her complicated feelings about her former mentor.
“I tried to help him in those last moments,” said Moriarty. “I really did. She never told me he was my … She never even hinted at it. And I never knew what she’d done to your mom and aunt until afterward when she needed my help. She confessed, then, that she’d been forced to kill two people who’d stolen her illusions.”
“You knew she was a magician?”
“She was still working as a magic builder when I grew up. Never on the stage, only behind the scenes. She made it sound like your mom and aunt had wanted to destroy her, that they were both responsible for ruining her stage career and that they were about to claim my mother’s latest inventions as their own. I didn’t condone what she’d done, but she’d already done it. She made it sound like if I didn’t help her keep an eye on you, she’d have no choice but to kill again.”
“You could have turned her in. But no, that’s not your style. You’re your mother’s son. You’re not above killing either.”
He paused for so long that she wondered if he’d hung up.
“That,” he said, “was self-defense. Or a defense of you, however you’d like to think of it. But you know it’s true that I acted in your best interest. And I couldn’t have turned in my mother when she told me only the basic facts. I didn’t really know anything. Not until I started looking into it more this year.”
He’d even told her what he was doing at the time. Before she knew his connection to any of this.
“I can work remotely from anywhere,” he said, “so when my mother asked me to keep an eye on you, it was easy.”
“You don’t sound too broken up over her arrest. She’s never getting out of jail. Though she’s probably attempting to get a plea deal by giving you up.”
“I doubt that. But even if she does, she doesn’t know where I live. She considered it a betrayal that I protected you instead of killing you when I had the chance. At that point, I thought it better to make sure she didn’t know how to find me if I didn’t want her to. Still, I thought it was better for me if she wasn’t caught and didn’t have an incentive to turn me in. Last night, I only wanted to help her get away.”
“But your heart wasn’t in it. You knew neither of us would be safe if she was free. That’s why your main objective was to stop the filming. You didn’t want to be on camera.”
Moriarty chuckled. “I never guessed that Gideon would have gotten himself a cell phone. You got your recording after all.”
“There are no images of you. You stayed in the shadows.”
“Until I went to help Nicodemus.” His voice broke. Was it an act, or was he truly choked up?
“The new phone had fallen to the floor at that point.”
“I wasn’t even thinking of that. I was only thinking of saving him. But I failed.”
“I’m not so sure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so peaceful as when the two of us were there at his side at the end. His health was already failing. He knew it. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to go through with his farewell tour even before his injury.”
“Why, Tempest, I do believe you’re trying to cheer me up.”
By the time Tempest returned to the tree house deck, Ash had laid out a full brunch spread, and the first of her friends had arrived.
Sanjay pulled her into a bear hug. “What’s with the big box?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s find out.”
She opened it up and found Nicodemus’s journals. “His memoirs. I never knew if he was really working on them or if it was just talk.”
“He wanted you to have them.” Morag squeezed Tempest’s waist and rested her head on Tempest’s shoulder. “He died saving you.”
“To Nicodemus,” said Ash, raising a mug.
Tempest found her mug on the table and raised it high. “To Nicodemus.”