Puffin's Note: I tend to do most of my writings in the less-well-trodden fandoms. If there are fewer stories written in a given fandom, then the stories that I most want to read likely haven't been written yet. So, I end up taking a stab at trying to write them. As with this, which is based on the movie The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton. A missing scene, in which Eduard decides to finally try a dangerous illusion, and in which Sophie opens a box...

The Fine Print - situations and characters are the property of their respective authors and creators. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

The note accompanying the vial was simple and to the point.

Eisenheim - Against my better judgment, I am sending along a sample of the drug you wished to examine. - Holm Sigerson

The date at the top of the note was three years past. Thus far, Eisenheim had had no reason to think on this drug in many years, although once it had been of the greatest interest to him. The most perfect illusion of all - death and resurrection.

The last time Eisenheim had seen the drug in use had been in a Hindu temple in India, in the company of the man who had written the note. A Norwegian who had spent some considerable time on the European continent (as well as half of Asia, it seemed) Sigerson and Eisenheim had traveled together for several months across the Indian subcontinent, both intent on discovering what the mystics, magicians and religious men of that country had discovered about their craft. One of their more intriguing discoveries was the drug now sitting on his workbench, glistening in its bottle.

An Indian religious man, given a small drought of the drug, appeared to fall into a trance so deep as to be indistinguishable from death except by a very close inspection. Low blood pressure, barely detectable pulse and breathing, no movements of the retina... The perfect illusion.

That night Sigerson had stared at the body of the Hindu man, the bones of his face pressing against the cool, wax-like skin, for a long time. He had remarked that if such a substance had been known to him in his home country, he might not have left it in the circumstances that had forced him to flee. Eisenheim, who had suspected Sigerson of possessing a more criminally-inclined background than the ascetic explorer would admit to, had equally sobering thoughts that evening... He had hoped to witness a true miracle, a true resurrection, but what he found was merely a simple application of chemistry, biology and belief. Nothing more, nothing less. But the possibilities for illusion... To be able to die onstage, to be examined by witnesses, to be interred in a casket (equipped with a surreptitious breathing apparatus to admit air to the coffin) and then to be restored to life in front of witnesses... Resurrection from the dead...

But after Eisenheim's return to Austria, and his discovery of the vial that awaited him upon his return, he had put off attempting its use. At first, because such a spectacular trick was not worthy to be wasted on the merchants that daily flocked to his impromptu stage in the markets of the towns he visited. Later, the fear of doing himself harm stayed his hand from undoing the waxed stopper in the neck of the bottle. There was no antidote to this particular drug, at least not as the men of India had used it, instead waiting the few days it would take for the effects to wear off. There were overdoses, he had been told, many with gruesome results. In those cases, he was told that an extract of jimson weed could be used to counteract the effects of the drug, though they were not very specific as to how the jimson was to be prepared, or even what constituted an effective dosage. And of course, there was always the nagging reminder of what the mystics said of the experience of taking the drug.

It was said to be a way to experience the resting place of damned souls.

And yet... and yet this drug as yet presented the only means escape the city with Sophie. To make her disappear. To offer incontrovertible proof of her death, throw evidence implicating Prince Leopold into the mix, convincingly play the part of the grieving, suicidally reckless lover, and then vanish himself, into the nameless background of the Czech countryside, to a farmhouse rarely visited, owned by a relative, and in no way connected to a stage magician currently making a name for himself in Vienna...

He would find a way to escape with Sophie. She had been waiting for over ten years for him to return to her; he would use whatever cunning, whatever resources he could summon, to make her disappear.

Eisenheim would have to test the drug himself, as he had known he must. He could not give it to Sophie without some proof that the drug worked, that it might be safe to administer. Eisenheim went to the iron stove sitting in the far corner of the room and put a kettle of water on to boil. He had no idea of the best way to prepare the jimson which was said to counteract the drug, but steeping a decoction seemed the most likely way to attempt an antidote. Of course, if there were... complications... he would hardly be in a position to take the antidote anyway. Best to have some of it nearby, regardless.

It was a Monday - a dark night at the theater where he performed, so he would not be missed until Tuesday evening, the next scheduled show. If he used a small dose of the drug - say, a quarter spoonful, diluted in water - that would allow him over a full day to allow... whatever would happen... to happen...

The kettle began to whistle, and Eisenheim took it off the stove. A bowl containing the jimson (dried, not ideal, but where was one to find a fresh weed at this time of the year?) sat on the bench opposite the brown bottle. Eisenheim poured the water over the small bundle of the herb, being careful not to inhale too much of the steam. He watched as the liquid in the basin took on a pinkish tinge as it steeped. Scooping the herbs out of the bowl with a tea strainer, Eisenheim laid them aside and poured the tisane into a mug, which he covered and set on the table next to the bottle. His fingers took up a small knife from the pegboard covering the near wall and slit open the bottle's seal. Eisenheim peered at the contents - light brown, smelling somewhat salty, and thick with must. Eisenheim tilted the bottle and counted out five drops into the bottom of a fresh mug. Water, still hot from the kettle, filled up the mug halfway. The heat only served to intensify the odor of the drug. Eisenheim regarded the cup in his hand for a long moment before bolting up from the table and pacing across the wooden floorboards of the room to the window.

Only fifteen miles from the Prince's estate to this, his drafty old house, furnished with threadbare linens, not silks, with a barely operable kitchen, with a floor continually covered in wood shavings from the carvings and mechanisms he incessantly whittled. The differences between the two dwellings could not be more clear.

Would Sophie, in fact, wish to leave her life as the Countess von Teschen to join him as the wife of a common-born stage performer? A stage performer who would not, incidentally, be able to perform in Austria without being recognized? As a wife who would not be able to reenter the society of the nobility without the threat of being discovered? He turned back and began to pace, through the great workroom and up the stairs to the second floor. His footsteps brought him across to the bed, the sheets still showing an imprint of two heads across the pillow...

Eisenheim turned away from the bed, and the images it brought to life in his mind, as if in pain. Is it not likely, some cynical voice in his head whispered, that the attentions of a lover are all that she wishes from you? Eisenheim had seen it before, the reaction from certain women (and on a few notable occasions, certain men) in the audience, responding to the appeal of his stage persona. Responding to the invitation to look at him, as social convention rarely allowed one to look at a stranger, to puzzle him over, to find out the power, the motivation, the secret behind how he did what he did. Perhaps this is all that she wants... I do not know... Eisenheim sat again in the chair by the worktable, his hand absently stroking the cloudy brown glass of the bottle. Whatever she wishes from me... I cannot do anything else but provide it. But if she would leave with me... I must have the power to make that happen.

I'm stalling, thought Eisenheim. He took one long look over the room - the drug in its diluted mixture sitting expectantly on the table before him, the jimson tisane covered and within easy reach, a pillow near him for the expected.... (death?.. rest?..) The door to the house - locked. Giving in to a feeling of fear that was growing in him, Eisenheim pulled the spare key from its home above the doorjamb and threw it into an unfinished matisse puzzle box. Opening the door, he set the box down before it, then shut the door and locked it from the inside with his own key, placing that key back into his vest pocket. Should Ellman the manager come looking for him on Tuesday night (pray to God that I am awake by then) he might conceivably open the box rather than break a window.

Then back to the table. He sits, trembling a little now. The cup feels warm in his hand. To you, Sophie, he thinks as he raises the cup to his lips. Always and forever. His eyes slide close, he throws his head back and drinks.

For the first several minutes, Eisenheim remains bent over the table, breathing slowly and deliberately, using his own abilities at hypnotism to move himself into a trance. He tries to subdue the quick spikes of fear that come now that he has surrendered himself to the course of this potion. He feels a numbness in his lips first, spreading across his face. Keep breathing A growing stiffness along the back of his neck, as though the muscles were being replaced with laces pulled painfully tight. His eyes flutter open (keep breathing) and his vision takes a minute to resolve itself into the grain of the table before him. It is becoming difficult to remain sitting - his muscles hurt even trying to remain leaning against the table. He tries to move away to get to the floor, please, to lie down (keep breathing) but his muscles are beyond obeying him. He half-rolls off the bench and falls heavily onto his side. His eyes cannot keep up with the change in perspective, and he retches. His vision is coming in too-bright flashes and his neck feels as if someone were trying to pull the muscles out of his body. He is choking on vomit and he cannot get air.

Keep breathing...

...keep breathing...

He lies on the floor of the workshop for a long time. He is not unconscious, and that is probably the worst part. He exists, feeling the pain along his neck and back, feeling his awareness ebb and flow with his body's struggling attempt to draw breath with muscles that refuse to obey him.

He sees Sophie, sometimes. Sometimes she is in the cave, and he is being pulled away from her, but the men don't stop pulling, even when he cannot see her anymore, pulling so hard that he feels about to come apart in their hands...

A breath... slowly... then another...

Then Sophie is with him again, and she is wrapped up in the rich burgundy robe of his mirror illusion and his hands are around her waist and she is kissing him. He leads her to the mirror and she bows her head to the figure within it. As he knows will happen, a second robed figure appears in the glass and draws a sword, stabbing viciously at the mirror-Sophie. The Sophie in his arms staggers, and he hears her cry out. He looks into the mirror, and the mirror-swordsman throws back his hood. Eisenheim stares dully as his own face looks back at him. He feels blood running down his arms where he is holding Sophie's limp body and he begins to shake.

Eisenheim lies on the floor of the workshop as the late afternoon sunlight through the window begins to fade. The fires in his hearth, untended, went out hours ago. The last few rays of light to enter the room sparkle on his body, revealing a pale, pale face shimmering with tears.

It was extremely convenient for Sophie that the Von Teschen family, the empire notwithstanding, had a not-so-subtly concealed dislike of the Josephs, stemming back to the time with both families had been on more equal footing as nobility of two allied, but politically independent, territories in what was now part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Prince Rudolph's men did not have as much freedom to follow her about when she was on her own family's estate, and a few of her family's servants were on occasion helpful in aiding Sophie in slipping away from her watchers when she felt the need for some time alone. So when she approached Jakob about taking her carriage (but not her person) into Vienna, ostensibly to have a defect in the rear axle examined, she received only a slow, rare grin and a courteous reply in the affirmative.

Ten minutes later, Sophie watched from the house as the carriage rattled through the gate and down the road, followed at a none-too-discreet distance by the horseman who had been lingering outside the house gates for most of the past morning. Ten minutes after than, Sophie was saddled and mounted on a brown mare, not her favorite white horse, but a less conspicuous, sturdy mount who would make quick work of the few miles between the Teschen estate and the Abramovich woodworking shop. Eduard had only told her to stay in contact - he had not specified how often or by what means. Sophie knew that she was likely to irritate the performer's suspicious nature by coming in person to his house two times in three days, but she had seen no change in the number or attitude of her investigative 'visitors', leading her to surmise that her recent midnight visit to the Abramovich shop had gone unnoticed. Away from the crowds of Vienna proper and within her family's own house and lands, there was much that she could get away with. Inspector Uhl's men also likely had no idea of the location of the Abramovich house, or the fact that it was located close to the Von Teschen manor. This fact of geography had already made possible one surreptitious visit to Eduard two nights ago, after his performance at the Hoffberg. Although if Sophie continued eluding the Crown Prince's spies around the estate too frequently, they would likely make an effort to discover where she was going. That, she knew, could go very badly for Eduard.

It was not yet noon when Sophie's horse cantered up the track to the Abramovich house. Sophie dismounted and called quietly to the house. When no reply came, she took her horse into the adjacent stable and turned the mare out into the nearest box stall without bothering to remove the saddle.

"I promise I will look after you properly once I know if he's home or not," Sophie told the horse as she left the stable.

If Eduard had not heard her horse's steps already, he was likely already gone into the city for the day, for all that it was still early. It looked as though all Sophie was going to get for her unescorted ride was a bit of fresh air and possibly a few needless repairs to her carriage.

Sitting in plain view in front of the door was a small wooden box. Looking at it curiously, Sophie stepped past it and knocked at the door. No reply. Hesitantly, she tried the door handle. Locked. Not home, then.

Unaccountably disappointed, she stepped away from the door and only just caught herself from kicking the wooden box right off the front step. Sophie knelt down to put it back onto the step, but paused with her hand inches from it. This looked like one of Eduard's puzzle boxes. It didn't look finished - there was no varnish on the plain wooden surfaces, and none of the inlay decoration that Sophie knew from the furniture Eduard's father had made for her family. But Sophie's eye picked out a few details - here a join in the wood disguised as a line in the grain of the wood, there a slightly wider dark line that could easily hide a recessed hinge.

Eduard might have guessed that she would come here, and the box seemed as secure a way as any to deliver a message to her. Rather appropriate, actually. And if it had been left for her, he assumed that she could discover the means to open it. Sophie sat down on the steps and lifted the box, looking carefully at all sides. She felt some small object rattling in the box as she turned it about. She slid her fingers across the wooden surfaces, searching for one that might give to her exploring touch. After a moment, her fingers felt one of the short sides of the rectangular box slide a few inches to one side. In the exposed cavity formed within the corner of the box, Sophie felt a wooden stay and a small lever. A quick turn of the lever and the stay dropped further into the cavity, and Sophie felt a small shudder across the top of the box. Reaching to the edge of the wood opposite the hinge that Sophie had spotted earlier, she pulled open the lid. A small iron key sat inside, framed against the pale, unsanded wood that formed the inside of the box's unfinished secret compartment.

I've found the key, Eduard, Sophie thought. But you have neglected to tell me what door this is meant to unlock. Sophie took the key from the box and considered it, absently running one hand over the pale wood of the box. I've seen this before, I know I have. But where? It would come to her eventually, Sophie knew. Probably pop into her head when her mind was on something entirely different. Leaning back against the door of the house, she stroked the box in her lap, looking at the minute lines of Eduard's chisels and tools in the wood. His hands... she thought. He always did have such beautiful hands... Sophie's lips curved into a smile as she remembered those very hands undoing the buttons on her blouse not so very long ago. And (something tickling the back of her mind) her own hands removing his vest, and there was a (something she should remember) a small weight in one of the front pockets...

Sophie's head snapped up and she looked at the door handle that she had tried to turn minutes ago. It's his door key, Sophie thought, as clearly as if Eduard had whispered the knowledge right into her head. But why would he...

A feeling of dread that Sophie could neither explain nor deny spread through her body. Something is wrong, she thought. It rained last night, but the only tracks in the mud here are my own. Where is he?

Sophie dropped the puzzle box roughly to the dirt and scrambled to her feet, desperate to get into the house, and to prove to herself that nothing was wrong, that everything was fine, that her imaginings were foolish... The key slid easily into the lock, and Sophie turned it open roughly. The door swung inward, casting a beam of bright early-spring light into the dim interior. Squinting her eyes to see into the gloom, Sophie flinched first at the smell - sick, musty and acidic. Sophie's feet took her across the threshold and once out of the glare of the sunlight she saw him. Eduard was lying on the floor of his workshop, and he was quite obviously dead.

Sophie was kneeling in front of Eduard and looked on the ruin of everything the past few days had given her. His face was pale, porcelain-like against his dark hair. His eyes were half-lidded and still. Drops of bile and other, darker fluids drenched his chin and the front of his white shirt. He's... She couldn't finish the thought. Sophie reached towards him with one unsteady hand. His hair, matted with dried sweat, the skin of his face - cool to the touch. Yes, he is, he's...

She jerked her hand back, and leapt to her feet, close to bolting out the door, anything to be away from this room. Sophie made it only to the other end of the worktable before her legs gave out and she sank back to the floor. There were cups on the table, some part of her mind noted - bowls, liquids, herbs - he must have taken something to... don't think it, just don't, don't...

She turned back towards him, eyes lingering on the back his head, the line of his shoulders, with tears brimming in her eyes. "How could you?" Sophie barely noticed she was speaking aloud - had she any strength to her voice she woud have been shouting. "Was everything so hopeless for us? How could you leave me?" She trailed off. There was nothing else she could think of to say to this man who was beyond listening anyway. And now... she should do... she should...

She might hide the drugs, Sophie thought. I might hide the evidence that he... that I... think I... I drove him to this... With that thought giving direction to her limbs, she pulled herself onto the bench and looked dully at the contents of the table. Dried herbs thrown across the wood, a loosely stoppered brown glass bottle, a covered mug of some pale reddish liquid, a padded wooden case just the right size for that bottle, with a note...

Sophie took the brown bottle in her hand, feeling the cool of the glass against her skin. She would take it from the house, and the cup and herbs as well, and break them into a thousand pieces.

Sophie lowered herself from the bench and crawled one-handed across to the body, not trying to get to her feet, not yet. One hand found the fabric of his boot and she touched the polished leather tenderly. She stared into the dead ashes of the fireplace and in her mind, she tried to remember what he had looked like when he was alive, and with her, and happy.

Sleek, impeccably dressed, a magnetic presence lit by the bright glow of the footlights. I would like to end the evening wth an exploration of the soul...

In her carraige, his face half in shadow. Hello, Sophie...

His face, close to hers and bright with firelight. As long as we are alive, he will hunt us...

Other words came to her in her thoughts, words she thought she had forgotten long ago, and fell from her tongue in whispers.

"...I still will stay with thee; and never from this place of dim night depart again: here, here will I remain..."

She lifted the brown bottle in her hand, twirling it slowly in her fingers.

"I see that poison hath been his timeless end..."

She should go, thought Sophie. She should go, she should leave him, before she cried any more she should get to her feet and sweep every last bottle and potion into her arms and throw them down the nearest cliff and she should leave him and figure out what she might possibly say to Leopold and she got by very well without him for ten years, for God's sake and she would be fine, she would be fine if she could just get to her feet and walk out that door and leave him...

"Goodbye, Eduard", she whispered, and turned to look on his face.

The eyes of the dead man were open and tears were streaming down his face.