But I’m with her. I’m burning with my need for answers—not pleasant introductions. I decide to just blurt it out before Xander can decide to talk about the weather. “So, you have magic… like, real magic. No strings. No tricks. Magic.”

“Well, I’m actually quite good at sleight of hand,” Xander says. He snaps his finger, and the queen of spades appears in his hand. He winks at me. “That was all skill. No magic, but this…” He opens his palm and the queen of spades floats into the air and then explodes into all four suits of queens. He blows them in my direction, and they drift around my head like a crown. He waits, like he expects me to clap or something.

I give him nothing. I already know what he can do. I need answers about how he’s doing it.

Diantha clears her throat. “Maybe now’s not the time for that.”

“Sorry,” he says as the cards drop around me. “You’ve heard of the Society of American Magicians?”

I nod. They were formed in the early 1900s. Houdini was the well-known president for a while, until he died.

He takes a deep breath. “Well, we’re part of an older society, with secrets that go beyond how we pull off illusions. We call ourselves the Society of True Magicians, and yes, we have real power in our blood that lets us perform tricks way beyond what an ordinary magician could do.”

I open my mouth, but he holds up a hand with a tight smile. “Save the questions until the end, please.”

I scowl but stay silent.

“The Society formed in Rome around fifty AD with some sleight-of-hand magicians called the Acetabularii. They practiced the ball-and-three-cup trick we still see today. Anyone with real skill at sleight of hand could do it. I bet you can do it?” He raises an eyebrow in question.

I don’t bother answering. Of course I can.

He smirks. “Thought so. Anyway, the story goes, one of the magicians was gambling big on her own tricks, confident she could move the ball where she wanted with skill and misdirection. She was the best. The crowds loved her. But one day a very wealthy man wanted to play, and the magician bet her entire worth on that single game, but the wealthy man guessed correctly, and no amount of misdirection was going to save the magician from destitution. She knew the ball was under the guessed cup, but in desperation, she willed it to move to another one. And it did. It didn’t make sense. She went home with her newfound wealth and tried to make it move with only her mind again, and it worked at first, but only for a day or two. So she tried again with an audience, and it worked again.”