“Performing magic on accident is even more impressive. You can do this. Dig deep. Believe you can move those coins with nothing but your mind, and then do it. Keep it simple. Float one.” He lets go of me and jumps back down from the table, eyes shifting from me to the men approaching.

I hold my hand out with my coins. The same ones Mom gave me. They may not be magic, but they do hold power. I focus in on them and only them.

“Enough of this,” Lucius says, and my stare jerks away just long enough to see the same men who dragged Edgar away reach Aristelle’s chair. Her eyes go wide. I force my focus back on the coins, trying to feel that buzzing in my blood that Mom talked about. This is for my new troupe, but it’s for her, too. I am her daughter.

Believing in myself is like believing in her.

The coins explode from my hand, multiplying in a swirl of silver that rises from my palm, growing bigger and bigger until there’s a five-foot tornado of clinking coins spinning around my head.

“Amateur,” Ethan mutters beside me, but worry leaks into his voice.

I turn toward him, and my coins do too. They dart away from me and swirl around his legs, rising higher and higher until he’s completely surrounded.

I gasp. I didn’t tell them to do that. I didn’t tell them to do anything, but something inside of me pushes them on. My blood’s singing an angry revenge song with my heartbeat as the base.

“Enough,” Lucius says.

I turn to look at him. His expression is confusing, like he’s angry and impressed.

“I said enough,” he snaps.

Stop. I don’t say it out loud. Just to myself. I created this, and I believe I can control it.

The coins crash down in an instant, clattering against Ethan’s pillar until he stands with a pile at his feet. His cheeks are flushed, and there are tiny red lines across his whole face where my coins got too close. He looks like he wants to murder me.

I open my mouth to tell him I didn’t really mean to do that, and then I snap it closed again. I can’t admit that.

I’ve just turned a rival into an enemy.

I glance back to my troupe. Their faces are white. Lucius has already moved on to the next girl.

I check the pocket of my pants and find my four coins safe and sound.