One: The Vanishing Act

Trick #1: The Linking Mint Trick

Two Polo mints are produced to the spectators, the magician then draws them together and suddenly they are linked!

Bow to your applauding audience.

How is it done?

Easy really. There is a Polo mint filed with a nail file so there is a gap in it. The magician conceals this gimmick and shows the spectators the whole mints.

Then, with a sleight of the hand, the magician slips the filed mint onto the whole mint and conceals the other mint in their palm. They use their finger and thumb to cover the gap.

xxxxx

Saya Lake looked like any ordinary girl on the train soaring through London.

She was wearing a worn grey fleece that had seen better days.

A lot of better days.

And scruffy trainers stuck out of the bottom of ripped jeans.

They were not the kind that were meant to be ripped, but Saya pretended they were.

It was easier that way.

She sat next to a huge backpack stuffed full of everything she had been able to get before her mum and step-dad had come home with the twins.

Soaps, underwear, a coat, some food and money.

Saya smiled.

Ah, yes, the money. How she had proudly entered in her step-dad's PIN number on the platform of the station and drained his account down.

He had already scrounged out her University fund, her birthday money, Christmas money...

Saya was merely returning the favour.

But she knew it wouldn't last forever, only Saya Lake always had a trick up her sleeve.

She stood up, flicking her long chestnut hair over her shoulder.

Startlingly, she was a pretty girl. Although you wouldn't know it from the filth that was forever on her face.

She wasn't a tomboy and she didn't want the filth to be there, but that's what happens when your desolately poor on the wrong side of London and your family wastes everything on a fat, lazy step-dad and two giggling, beautiful twin sisters.

But Saya was pretty.

Her eyes were hazel, green and brown like moss on wood, which is not a particularly bad trait to have.

It made her eyes look like forests.

It helped that her hair was an earthy chestnut-brown, it accented her high cheekbones, her thick eyelashes, her sweet red mouth.

But Saya knew she was not beautiful and she was half-right there.

After all, every girl is beautiful, but with Saya it just took you longer to see it.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" She announced to the train and lots of people looked up.

The train ride was boring and Saya was suddenly in Show-Time mode.

When in Show-Time mode Saya sparkled like a new moon, like diamonds, like crystal.

When in Show-Time mode, she was unstoppable and her smile was infectious.

For just a moment, she ruled the goddamn world.

"I am Saya of Syris, the mysterious land of magic! What is in Syris you might ask? Never you mind, Young Ones, for the path of my ancestors is a curving and breaking one. A high tide storm ensconced in wonder!"

With an invisible flick of the wrist, Saya produced her cards and pressed her thumb against the edge so they soared in an arc over her head and landed neatly in her palm.

Interested, everyone clapped, some even looked delighted at some entertainment and a few kids that had been whining a few minutes ago were still and wide-eyed. Their harassed mother gave Saya a thankful look.

With another invisible flick, the cards disappeared and two polo mints lay in Saya's palms.

"Ma'am," She went over to the mother and showed her the mints. "These are ordinary mints, wouldn't you say so?"

"Er...yes..." The mother said shyly, glancing around at the other passengers with a self-conscious smile.

"Are they broken at all?" Saya persisted.

"Well...no."

"Oh aren't they?" Saya turned towards the other passengers and then, clapped her hands softly.

She revealed a pair of linked mints.

Surprised applause echoed around their part of the train and now people from other coaches came to see what the fuss was about.

How many months, no, years did I spend perfecting this? Saya wondered.

Many magicians had to fumble around with the mints, distract the audience's attention...

But Saya had mastered it.

What else had a little girl with a magic trick book and lots of free time to do with her life?

Especially as her step-father and her own mother had been against her going to school.

"Naughty children don't learn!" Her mother had yelled at her as eight-year-old Saya sat in her closet room, struggling with two polo mints. "Your twin sisters deserve to learn! But you! You're just a mistake!"

Saya felt a touch of chagrin.

Thanks, mum. She thought as her crowd applauded. No really. Thanks.

"You see, in my country of Syris we have dragons that fly right up to the clouds," Saya inclined her fingers with her deck of cards.

They went soaring up in a fountain, brushing the ceiling.

"We have birds that do somersaults in the air,"

Saya pushed a card upright so it spun round and round through the air and she caught it with two fingers deftly.

"And our unicorn riders have a special trick. Even went a unicorn gallops away, they trained them to always, always return."

Saya positioned her card and flicked it away like one might flick a crumb off a desktop.

He card bounced against the wall of the train and returned neatly to her hand.

Phew, Thought Saya as her makeshift audience clapped feverishly. That was the trick I was dreading.

Saya had practiced her sleight of the hand and her accuracy with cards brutally since she read the magic book at the age of five.

Well, not read.

She copied the pictures.

She was useless at first. It took months and months before she could even catch a card with two fingers when she simply threw it up in the air.

But she had practiced and know look.

Yes. Saya thought as she bowed to her audience. Look at me now.

Then, Saya of Syris swept a final bow and brandished her top hat from her backpack.

"This is the trick," She smiled. "Where I make you all disappear."

And she extended her hat for money.

xxxxx

Seth Blacklight massaged his temples.

Speech proof-reads, edits of this manuscript and that, orders from the Elders about running this and running that...

Honestly, you'd think that he was the one supposed to be running the entire English Nightworld. Not the Elders.

Thierry Decourdes used to help out, but ever since that Hannah person came into his life all the work had been dumped on Seth.

Thierry was a hundred years older than him, so why should he have to-

"Your tea, Young Master Seth," Said the butler politely.

"Thank you," Seth began writing again. He refused to show weakness to anyone, even his butler, whose last name was ironically Butler.

People with the last name Butler often got their career path chosen for them.

Butler placed the cup on the desk. "You're working so hard of late, sir," He said respectfully.

"Thank you," Said Seth again.

"Which reminds me, Mr. Decourdes wants you to take new steps with the English Elders for further steps in Circle Daybreak."

"Him and his goddamn Circle Daybreak," Hissed Seth. "That freak circus is the reason why Thierry's share of work is now mine. Not that I didn't basically do his job before Lady Heather or what now showed up."

"Lady Hannah," Corrected Butler. "Sir."

"Yes. Her." Seth snarled.

Then he realised he was discussing his thoughts out loud with someone which was certainly something that Seth tried to avoid.

"Anyway," Seth muttered, writing again. "Thank you for the tea, Butler."

"My pleasure, sir." Butler looked out of the window. "Ah, look! It's snowing!"

"Yes," Said Seth absently, not looking up.

"And street performers! Look, sir, magicians!"

Seth snorted. "Sure. Magic. Don't remind me. I had to deal with the Harmans once. And let me tell you. It's not a nice view. That Thea's slightly weird if you ask me, and don't get me started on her annoying cousin, Blasé or Blaze or whatever she was called."

Butler looked amused.

Seth Blacklight's aversion to women was legendary.

He despised them. Hated their loud voices, their incessant giggling for no apparent reason whatsoever, how they were proud of being silly and weak, how they pranced and skipped about like angels that Seth just wanted to shoot.

Many people thought he was gay because of it.

But Seth found men repugnant and quite disgusting too, so that was going nowhere.

That's a good thing. Seth thought. Love isn't something that I have time for and love isn't something I need. Thierry was a better man without that Hannah-girl.

But Seth had to admit, Thierry did seem a lot happier with Hannah around.

As for Seth?

Love was a fairytale and it was a fairytale that was never going to materialize anyway because Seth disliked women with a passion.

Women like his sisters.

"Anyway," Seth said. "It's about time we were getting back to our own work, Butler."

"Quite right, sir."

Seth listened as the snow fell on the rooftops of his expensive, six-storey mansion, making it look even more beautiful against the gathering dusk of the night.

Seth suddenly set down his pen and fell a wave of fatigue.

To other people, he looked eighteen at the most. With hair so fair it was almost white but it paused at a kind of moondust-blonde. His elegant, almost feline bone structure shaped a beautiful face with a pair of icy, fathomless, starry storm-grey eyes. They looked black or dark cobalt in most lights but really they were the colour of devastation.

"The colour of nastiness,"

That's what Amelana, one of his sisters always said.

"The colour of cruelty. You're disgusting having eyes like that. Say it. Say you're disgusting!"

Seth cut his thoughts off.

That had been a long time ago. He had moved on from being a servant, a cruelly-kept pet, an abused toy for his five sisters.

Now he was his own person.

Seth sighed as he looked down at the stacks of papers he had yet to do.

As if in a dream he strolled over to the window and peered out at the raining snowflakes.

He used to love the snow.

Not the word: Used.

"Women," He spat, half to himself, half to the empty room. "Who needs them? Not me. That's for sure."

He sat back down at his desk and began his work.

If anything is sure in this world, it's that.