I fly low over Peter Potts, who’s in the front row. He turned up this afternoon, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and wandered around until he found Mum. We’re doing two shows a day now to sold-out tents, and within a few months, we’ll pay back the money Peter lent us.

The best moment of the evening is at the end of the show, when we make a tree sprout. Sylvie secretly drops a twig into the middle of the ring, then Mum and I use seven spells to grow the twig into a tree that’s even mightier than the Tree of Many Chickens. It’s hard, hard work – and is only possible because we work together – but we make it look effortless. The tree is a little different every time, and tonight she is a great, grey fig tree with long arching limbs. We make leaves sprout and birds appear in her topmost branches. Kit runs in, and he and I climb the tree to prove that it’s solid and real. Then, while the audience is on its feet, clapping wildly, the lights go out, and we cast a spell to make the tree dissolve into millions of tiny particles and come back together in an empty patch of ground in a nearby forest. The lights come back on and the tree has gone. This is the trick people have been driving miles to see.

Mum and Sylvie and I hold hands and bow, and I know that together, we have created the most extraordinary magic show the land has ever seen. It feels so right when the three of us perform together: three generations of magicians.

All the circus performers join us for a final bow. Beside me, Jerry gives me a wink and signs, ‘You’re the best.’

After the show, backstage, I look around. All my family and favourite people are here, all of them bursting with the joy of saving our circus. And here I am, a magician at last, and maybe even the most powerful magician of my generation. How will I find out if I am The One? If I travel back to see Efa and Carys, they might be able to tell me. And would it be breaking any laws of magic to take Kit to see his dad?

Beside me, Li Lin helps Kit undo the zip on his fancy new feathery costume and Diego tosses a sugary doughnut to Vincent. Dad rushes by with a coil of rope over his shoulder and Zanni bends to pat the dogs, with baby Lian tucked in a carrier. At the props box, Mum and Sylvie are laughing at a joke, their eyes crinkling in just the same way.

Life is good. Life is very good.

THE END

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book was written on the land of the Arakwal people of the Bundjalung Nation.

Many thanks to these people: