She left out things that were there, he noted. The people. Her beach was deserted but for birds winging over the sea.

She flipped to another page, began another. He supposed she’d term them rough sketches, but he found them both wonderfully lean and fluid. It was a kind of magic, he thought, that she could with quick, sure strokes of a pencil create her vision.

She started a third—a different perspective, he saw. Not quite the beach spread in front of them, and hers with a moon, not quite full, floating through a drift of clouds over a sea where waves tossed.

A woman stood at the edge of the sea, facing it, her dark hair a tumble to her waist. Her skirts billowed around her knees. To her right, high, sheer cliffs rose, and on them stood the shadow of a house where a light glowed in a single window.

When Sasha stopped, turned back to finally pick up her drink, he set his phone down.

“Will she go into the sea or back to the house on the cliff?”

“I don’t know.” Sasha blew out a breath, sipped again. “I don’t think she knows either. It’s not here. I don’t know why I looked out there and saw this so clearly.”

“Maybe we’re close. She’s the only person you drew. In the other sketches of this beach, you left out the people.”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “It’s more peaceful without them. I don’t usually draw people. Or I didn’t. When I was studying and we used models, I’d end up reading them. It’s the focus, and it always felt so intrusive. I learned how to block it out, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. I like the mystery of a scene empty of people.”

She propped her chin on her fist, smiled at him. “You like scenes full of people.”

Conversations—something she’d avoided tucked away in the mountains—took a different tone, had a new appeal, when she had them with someone who knew what she was, and accepted.

“And how would you know?”

“Clubs,” she explained. “You own clubs, and perform, so you must like people. And audiences who marvel at your magic tricks.”

“I can appreciate an empty beach as well. But . . .” He held up a hand, empty palm toward her, closed it into a fist, flashed out his other hand. Then offered her a curved white shell from his once-empty palm. “I like the marvel.”

She laughed, shook her head. “How do you do that?”

“Nothing up my sleeve.”

“And no smoke and mirrors around either.” She traced the edges of the shell. “How did you learn to do magic?”

“You could say it’s a family tradition. My mother actually taught me my first . . . bit.”

“Your mother. Does she perform, too?”

“In her way.” Because he liked her laugh, he took a deck of cards from his pack, fanned them out. “Pick a card, any card.”

She drew one out, glanced at it. “Now what?”