“The movement of the ship knocked my puck sideways,” Maxine insists.

“It absolutely did not.” Lena tries to wrestle the golf pencil out of Maxine’s hand to correct her score.

While they argue, I feign seasickness and return to our cabin. The silence is comforting after the overstimulation of the ship.

I sit at the polished dining room table and focus on the shelf of bone-white teacups. One by one I levitate them off their saucers. It feels normal, blessedly easy, but then—

That awful shock comes again, starting in my fingertips and traveling up to the hollow of my throat. The last teacup on the row shatters.

I curse. And then I cry.

The only comfort is the address in the pocket of the overcoat in the closet and the promise of the answers I might find there.

Dinner is much of the same as the night before. Again, we steal Maxine’s gowns and walk arm in arm to the dining room.

They’re serving shrimp tonight.

The countess makes a face at her plate.

“More for us!” the widows laugh. I wonder where they’ve spent their day. It wasn’t in the oppressive quiet of the women’s lounge on the starboard deck.

Tonight, the game starts after the soup course, with Maxine levitating Lena’s roll.

I go next, refusing to be left out. The incident with the teacup only makes me more eager, like picking at a scab to see if it still hurts. I stir Maxine’s soup spoon with a flash of small magic. It works for a moment. Then stutters like a heartbeat and falls to the edge of the porcelain bowl with a ting.

Maxine shoots me a look of concern. Lena looks more pitying than anything, her diamond necklace reflecting rainbows in her dark eyes.

The dining room is a cacophony. No one notices a spoon falling against a soup bowl among the clanging of china and raucous voices. But we still feel the echo in our tiny universe of three.

We return to our room that night. Lena and Maxine laugh beside me, recalling something the count did at dinner, but my stomach is in knots. I don’t want them asking what happened with the stupid magic game.

In the end it’s Lena who asks; of course it is. “It’s still happening, then? It’s not getting better?”

Dread pools in my stomach. “I’m sorry.”

Maxine looks confused, ripping pins from her hair. Behind her, Lena undoes her silk-covered buttons, then tugs at the laces of Maxine’s corset.

“I wasn’t looking for an apology. You certainly don’t owe us one,” Lena says kindly.