Page 17 of No Charm Done

Luna turned and slowly returned to the glass. “Is it enough?”

“Barely.” Myrna’s tone suggested Luna had just attempted to buy a mansion with pocket change. “I’m afraid with such a . . . modest sacrifice, I can only provide the most basic service. One round trip: one way in, one way out. Best make it count; there won’t be any second chances.”

Luna frowned. She’d been hoping for something more permanent. But one trip would have to do.

“Now then, place your offering in the donation box beside my display, and I’ll get you sorted out.”

Looking around, Luna spotted a wooden crate labeled “Offerings for the Cow.” She carefully placed Buster inside, feeling a strange sense of finality as she did so.

The temperature around the display case began to rise. Not uncomfortably, but noticeably. Other fairgoers started to move away, fanning themselves and muttering about the air conditioning.

“There we are,” Myrna said with satisfaction. “All done. You’ll find the portal magic you need has been . . . installed, shall we say. Installed within you. Just focus on the Void and let your magic guide you. But remember, dearie—one trip only. Make it count.”

“Thank you,” Luna whispered.

“Oh, don’t thank me yet, sugar. You haven’t seen what you’re walking into. The Void isn’t a place for the faint of heart. But then again . . .” The chuckle returned. “You Melrose girls never did shy away from the impossible, did you?”

The magic, primordial and terrifying, settled into her bones. She could sense the pathway to the Void now, like a forgotten door suddenly standing open.

“Off you go. And do give my regards to that young man you’re rescuing. It’s been far too long since I’ve had a magician to chat with.”

Luna found a private corner of the Agriculture Building and reached for the new magic thrumming in her veins. She thought about the Void, that terrible space between realities where Elias Shaw waited alone. The world twisted and reality folded in on itself, like an origami crane made of nightmares. A moment later, Luna disappeared from the Iowa State Fair entirely.

Chapter 6

Tunnel Vision

Elias Shaw had been working on the tunnel behind that brain poster since . . . well, who knows when. Far longer than he liked to think about. Multiple decades, anyway. Had to be. Decades of careful, methodical spellwork—tiny finger movements that liberated microscopic pieces of the wall, one grain at a time. Decades of patience that had yielded a tunnel roughly the size of a rabbit hole, plus a fourteenth chair that he’d been constructing grain by grain from the excavated material.

Not exactly the Panama Canal, he thought. But it’s not as if he was brimming with options.

“This escape of yours is taking for-evvvv-errrr.” Max was splayed across the waiting room chairs like he was auditioning for a Tennessee Williams play. “At this rate, we’ll still be sitting around when the sun burns out.”

Elias resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Try living here a century, sport. Then we’ll talk.

“Well, Max, considering there ain’t any time in the Void, I’d say we got plenty of it.” He continued his delicate finger spells, coaxing another nearly invisible speck from the wall. Magic felt sluggish here—everything did—but it was still reliable enough for the small stuff. “Besides, you want to alert every guard from here to eternity? Because that’s what happens when you get impatient. We get sloppy, we get pinched.”

“But surely there’s got to be a faster way. Once I made an entire birthday party disappear⁠—”

“Into a heavy rainstorm, yeah, you mentioned.” Elias coaxed another speck from the wall. “Tell me, Max, in your whole magnificent career, you ever actually make anything disappear on purpose? Not just happy accidents involving weather patterns?”

Max sat upright, sending his cape swirling. “I’ll have you know, I once made the Statue of Liberty disappear.”

“Uh-huh. And did anyone notice?”

His confident expression faltered. “Well . . . no. Turns out there was a really thick fog that day, so . . .”

“Right, more weather.” Elias fixed him with a hard stare. “You’re a party magician. Not only that, you’re an overly confident party magician, which has got to be the worst type. You think maybe—just maybe—there’s a reason you got yourself caught and ended up here with me?”

Before Max could mount a defense, a sound drifted through the endless gray nothing surrounding their little waiting room.

Singing. Very, very bad singing. “Once I lived the life of a millionaire . . . Spendin’ my money I didn’t have a care . . .”

Elias stared at the closed door in bewilderment. What fresh hell is this? In all his years of imprisonment, he’d seen plenty of new arrivals. Some arrived screaming, some arrived weeping, many arrived doing both at once. None had ever arrived singing like she was headlining the Cotton Club.

“Is that . . .” Max whispered.

“Singing,” Elias confirmed. “By someone who definitely ain’t a singer.” But I gotta admire the brass, he thought. Ain’t just any dame who can sing her way into hell.