“Is it all right if I go first? I get stage fright, and I’ll be even more nervous if I have to wait.”

Xander looks at me, and I shrug.

“Be my guest,” he says with a dramatic little bow. He turns to Roman, who’s slipped in the door behind us. “She doesn’t seem like your type.”

Roman gives him a dark glare. “I don’t play like that.”

They look one second away from ending up in a brawl, and Xander certainly has more muscles, but there’s a hardness in Roman’s face that tells me not to underestimate him.

I clear my throat. “Follow me, then.”

I show them to the living room, where Deb has the partygoers all sitting in a semicircle. Willow doesn’t even give me a chance to introduce her. She puts the flute to her lips and lets out a few low, haunting notes before she gives us all a wink and the tune picks up into the lilting dance of Irish maidens. Some of the kids clap along, even though they look a little confused.

I’m starting to wonder if she’s just a performer and not a magician at all when she holds one note a little longer and a large bubble forms on the end of the flute and then releases into the air. The pace picks up, and now an array of bubbles spurts out with each note, floating around the room in a lazy way that contrasts with her tune. Some of the kids get on their feet and reach for them, popping one and laughing as soap rains down on them.

It’s really kind of brilliant.

“I told you she was good,” Roman says to Xander over my head. They’re standing on either side of me.

Xander says nothing.

Willow ends on a high note and a burst of tiny bubbles that leaves the kids laughing. She gives a little bow as she heads back to us.

She pushes her way between Xander and me. “What’d you think?”

“Brilliant,” I say. I mean it too, but I can’t wait to see what Xander does.

He’s already heading to center stage, his cards flowing with unnatural ease through his hands as he asks the crowd who the birthday boy is.

Parker’s grin is so big it pulls my own lips into a smile. A real one.

Xander performs a few sleight-of-hand tricks that put Shin Lim to shame before fanning his cards out for Parker to pick one. He tells Parker to put it in his back pocket and then asks him immediately to pull it back out. Parker reaches for it but comes up empty.

Some of the other kids holler at him to check again, and he does. He turns out his front pockets too just for show. I guess we both enjoy being onstage. Maybe his blood is singing the same way mine does.