Maggie entered the small apartment. Roman saw that, the way she moved, she was as powerful as the visions that nearly split his skull a moment ago. Pretty, yes, but that seemed unimportant. The naked woman was a draw.

I think we should get some sleep, Maggie said. We’ve gotta get to work right away.

All right, Roman said, already feeling the balm of realized dreams approaching. Yes.

He got into his bed first and Maggie followed. She lay still on her side, her back to him. Roman was careful not to touch her again.

Try it, she suddenly said. Her voice was tender, pleasing.

Roman understood. He sat up as though in a dream and looked about his apartment.

The stovetop, Maggie said, her back to him. Had she seen the pot on the stove? Was she able to see it, somehow, now? Without looking?

Roman stared at the pan until it rose from the stove. It came to him, gracefully, wobbling, slow.

When it was above the bed, he crushed it with his mind. The metal cried out and for a moment it sounded to Roman like it was telling him to turn back, that he was in danger of losing something more important than his dreams.

Then the pan fell to the bed between his legs.

He turned to Maggie smiling.

But she remained with her back to him. It didn’t matter.

The peace he felt was extraordinary.

He finally had his separation from the other magicians. His spark of originality.

His act.

Thank you, he said, and his breath turned to frost above his new assistant, lying still and forever awake beside him.

Two words followed him into the hole of sleep. Two words that he didn’t mind just then, that felt like a means to an end, bread and cheese for the starving.

Dirty magic.

And the dirt from the magic reminded him of a man in rags and so he dreamed of him; the man slipping a card into a stack so high Roman had to look up, where he saw corpses rising like robins to the sky.

13

Dirty magic.

Roman could do one of two things. He could spend his years feeling guilty for making the decision he had, or he could twist the memory of that night just enough to make it fit into the arc he always imagined himself making. Almost immediately, he opted for the latter. And anytime he questioned the moral fiber of what he was doing, he let his mind drift back to the days before his ship came in. Often he imagined the wrinkled promoter steering it. He’d remember those long dark nights when he thought all might be for naught. And then, lifting a book from across the room in his better apartment or making a flower on the street vanish for good, he could smile and remind himself that hard work paid off.