Garrick returned to the Orient’s stage, pulling his velvet cape from its peg and wrapping it around his shoulders. Then, as a sentimental comfort, and because he felt somewhat alone, the magician placed the original Lombardi’s silk top hat on his head.

Assistants are troublesome creatures, he admitted, often developing their own personalities. Their own wants and preferences.

Sabine had also caused him considerable pain. Had her treachery not forced him to quit performing altogether?

But she had been so beautiful. So perfect.

Garrick felt a tiredness come over him that he could not ignore, so he settled into an armchair that was positioned on a low circular dais center stage and decided to allow himself a few hours’ sleep before he began the hunt for Riley and Chevron Savano.

And, as they often did, his dreams turned to Sabine. His first, beautiful, perfect assistant. Perfect until...

In the beginning it had seemed to young Albert Garrick that his life had entered a new phase, edging away from the horrors of his youth. He was gaining mastery over Lombardi’s works and growing into the Italian’s boots very nicely. Not a single engagement was canceled, and Sabine seemed more than satisfied to renew her contract.

Garrick was besotted, and he showered the girl with tokens of his esteem, which she accepted with squeals and hugs, calling him her Albert and kissing his cheek. Garrick was content for the first time, and even his nightmares of blood and cholera grew infrequent and seemed somehow less potent when they did occur.

Unfortunately for young Garrick, Sabine’s heart was colder than the baubles she loved so much, and her intention had always been to ditch her employer at the first sign of a better prospect.

In the summer of 1880, a young Albert Garrick—the Great Lombardi now—was second on the bill below the wellknown Anglo-Irish dramatist and actor Dion Boucicault at the Adelphi, when Garrick noticed Sabine’s flirtatious manner as she fraternized with young Sandy Morhamilton, one of the lighting boys. This vexed and puzzled Garrick, as generally Sabine had no patience for the crew. But a little investigation revealed that young Morhamilton was no hand-to-mouth pauper; he was, in fact, the heir to a large coffee-trading company and was spending a year at the Adelphi to exorcise the theater from his system.

And if I have uncovered Sandy’s true identity, so too has Sabine , Garrick reasoned. He began to keep watch on the pair, discovering a talent for lurking that would serve him well in later years. Day by day his heart was broken as the woman he had worshipped for years gave her attention to a dolt, a high-born halfwit.