He poked at me with both of those knives, and seeing as how I didn’t have much choice in the matter, I did as he said. The skiff was sturdy and good and what’s more, it was new, you could tell. This was a good skiff, laid out like a birthday present for me, even though it wasn’t my birthday. It was a heck of a lot better than anything my mom had given me, Lord bless her, much less Pop. And now I had to go and get kidnapped with it.

“This is my lucky day,” the magician said. He whistled. “You know what I’m gonna get with all that money Boss Authority’s gonna give me?”

“What’s that?” I said.

My head swirling and loopy, I wanted to know. I wanted to know what was worth turning me over to the fiercest man in the Swamplands.

“A dirigible.”

“A dirigible?”

“Yes sirree,” he said. “A bona fide hot-air balloon. I want to sail over all y’all’s heads. I want to be flying over everybody’s heads and look down over them like they’re nothing, every person who ever picked on me no bigger than an ant. I been broke all my life. Short too. I want to fly. I want to be higher than the birds.”

“I can kind of understand that,” I said. “I’ve wanted to ride in a dirigible my whole life, and that’s a fact.”

“Oh I’ll give you a ride then!” he said, all excited. “I mean, if Boss Authority doesn’t”—and he drew his finger across his neck like a knife.

“Gee,” I said. “Thanks. You know, if my daddy was here, rest assured he would whoop the ever-living fire out of you right now.”

“That may well be,” said the magician. “But the fact of the matter remains, your daddy ain’t here. And I am. So what’s that say about your daddy?”

I looked up at the magician, hating his guts, while he made ready to hop off the pier and onto the skiff. About midstep he stopped, his foot dangling off into the night air. His left hand was suddenly empty, that knife long gone from it. Another hand held it now, tight against his throat. He flailed with the right-hand knife and I saw the one against his throat pull tighter and a tiny trickle of blood run down onto his collar, staining his suit.

A girl’s voice sounded from behind the magician.

“Drop it,” she said. “Though it would be my pleasure to spill you wide open all over this pier and leave you for gator bait.”

It was Tally. She’d snuck up on him and pickpocketed that knife straight out of the magician’s fingers.

He dropped the other knife. It went plop in the water.

“Now spit out them false teeth of yours,” she said.

He did. Tally kicked them off the pier.

“Take off your hat,” she said. “I don’t want to be surprised by nothing hiding underneath that.”

He did. Two birds flew out from under it.