What mattered most was my relationship with BJ. Something new-formed where our friendship should have been. If we couldn"t be allies, we had to be enemies. That"s not how I wanted things to be, but she seemed to treat it that way. She didn"t want to communicate, so I couldn"t convince her of anything. Her jealousy and disappointment likely guided her view more than the knowledge of my intentions could have.

It was the night of the Magicians showcase. Each of the mentors and their a.s.sistants would have a 15-minute set to perform new spells and hopefully make sales. It wasn"t a compet.i.tion, but it felt like one.

For three weeks, each team practiced and rehea.r.s.ed. Beth and I incorporated music and lights into our presentation, but others had dance routines, crowd incorporation, and even a little acting. In hindsight, I might have gotten the most relaxed mentor to work with. Sure she carried herself like a debutante, and sure she was holding the cure to my life"s predicament ransom, but from the very beginning, she tried to help me grow. She wanted me to see my potential and utilize it. Regardless of everything else, she did her job as a mentor.

I had no idea how bad the other interns had it, though. Del Toro, Gwen Hastings, and Young Prince were all nightmares compared to Lady Beth. Everyone learned the basics of spell crafting, but the mentors administered the knowledge in their own individual ways. Del Toro made his intern work as a farmhand. Gwen made her intern act as a housekeeper. Young Prince used BJ like a sort of lab rat, making her perform most of his new spells before he did. Had I been stuck with anyone else, I may not have stayed nearly as long as I did.

Backstage we all prepared ourselves while seats were being filled by town folk and business people. I could hear people walking into the theater and taking seats unaware of our standing behind the black curtains of the stage. It was almost time to start.

Each pairing took to a different section of the stage. In the rafters, Gwen was with her intern. On stage left, Del Toro and the elf were preparing live animals they meant to use in their act. On stage right, BJ and Prince were going over their act. Beth and I went over our routine in her private office.

Seated at her desk, we ran over the act while we waited.

"You need to enunciate," Beth said.

"I am," I argued.

"Do it more," she replied.

"Why can"t we use cue cards?" I asked.

"Because we are better than cue cards, you can do it," she said, enunciating every vowel to prove a point.

"I know I can, I"m just worried about you," I said.

I was deflecting more than usual, and it"s likely that she could tell.

"That"s very sweet," she said.

"I"d hate for something to f.u.c.k up, and then we both look like idiots," I added.

"That"s less sweet, but I am a professional," she rea.s.sured.

"Sure."

"Why don"t you take a break. Get some air. We"ll be the last out tonight, so we have time."

She all but forced me to leave her office. Admittedly, I wasn"t one for the limelight. I generally disliked attention, so being on stage was far from my comfort zone. Still, I tried to keep it together. We were saying a couple of lines, that"s it, that"s all, but it was getting to me.

I could hear as every empty seat became occupied by people I likely knew. So I learned how to make my own magic, that wasn"t going to stop anyone from running if they saw me step foot on stage. It wasn"t going to prevent anyone from running me off the stage. Who did I think I was? It didn"t matter if I wore a tuxedo; it didn"t matter if I wrote a spell to turn paper into gold. Could what I learned be enough? Could people forget my bad streak of luck? Or were my new skills too little to change even a single person"s view of me?

Did I want to change people"s view of me, did I care? I honestly couldn"t say for sure. At that moment I couldn"t stop thinking about it. The funny thing is, none of it mattered if the performance didn"t go well. If we f.u.c.ked up, if I f.u.c.ked up, it would only send me back further.

As I left Beth"s office, I took a deep breath, and once I was outside, I noticed someone had been holding there"s. BJ was standing outside the door with her ear pressed to the wall listening to us.

She couldn"t have been more evident unless she"d been using a gla.s.s cup.

As I shut the door behind me, she tried to stand up straight as though she hadn"t been caught. I raised an eyebrow of confused astonishment.

"Were you listening through the door?" I asked.

"No," she said definitively, but lying.

"You were listening through the door," I said with a slight laugh building up in my throat as I watched her embarra.s.sed expression.

She tried to walk away, but I followed behind her.

"We"re going to win tonight," she said.

"Win what?"

"The showcase," she added.

"It"s not a compet.i.tion, none of this is," I said.

"Of course, it"s a compet.i.tion."

"BJ, you know I want things to work out for you, but," I started to say.

She cut me off before I could say much else.

"There"s no time for apologies," she argued.

"I"m not apologizing, you"re the one being ridiculous over nothing," I said.

"Like I was saying, Prince and I will be taking home the gold tonight."

"There is no gold, it"s not a compet.i.tion," I debated.

The lights went dim both backstage and front. It was time to get the show rolling.

"BJ," I said softly.

She finally stopped walking but stood with her back to me.

"I know why you"re doing all of this, so how could I be against you, why wouldn"t I want you to do well?"

"I don"t know, Pitch, why are you against me?" She said.

"It"s not a compet.i.tion, just because I"m doing better," I said before once again being cut off

"The internships won"t last forever, and when they"re done, our mentors won"t have reason to continue working with second best. Everything is a compet.i.tion," she reiterated sternly.

"And if I"m winning, you"re losing?" I pressed.

"That"s the way it is," she said.

"If you want to beat me, then beat me. Don"t expect me to sabotage myself when you dragged me into all of this," I said.

Everything went silent as the lights continued to go dark. In that void, we could no longer see one another, but I heard her footsteps as she left me.

Matt stepped from behind the curtains to start the show while everyone else cleared the backstage. He gave a brief introduction that went on for more than a brief moment. The entire showcase could have been over in an hour, but Matt playing host made it take two and a half. By the time he finished his opening speech, I"m sure most of the crowd was drifting into sleep in their seats.

Del Toro and the Elf were first to be brought on stage. While they did their act, I returned to Beth"s office. Once inside, I quickly noticed something was wrong. She was out cold. None of our spells were sleep magic, and she didn"t seem tired when I left her. She was snoring hard enough to vibrate the desk her head rested on. It didn"t make sense. What made things odder was the snow I found laying everywhere. I shook her and poked her face with a pin, but nothing got a reaction. She was so cold but sleeping soundly.

"f.u.c.k," I said in exhausted rage.

I didn"t have time to write a spell to wake her, and I didn"t know one. I rushed outside her office to look for help, and wouldn"t you know it, the first person I found was Young Prince. The second person I found was BJ.

"You need to stand behind me," Prince the blond-haired a.s.s hole said to BJ forcefully.

"But if I," BJ muttered.

"It"ll look better in the pictures," he continued to say.

I cut into their conversation without warning.

"Did you do something to Beth," I asked BJ as I pushed Prince out of the way.

"Kid we"re in the middle of something," Prince nagged, but didn"t seem to be an issue.

"Yea finish it later," I said, pushing him further away.

BJ looked me over like I was crazy, but she had the motive. It was only a few moments ago I taunted her with the idea of sabotage, so it wasn"t far fetched.

"Of course I didn"t do anything to Lady Beth, but you wouldn"t care either way since it"s not a compet.i.tion, would you?" she said with heavy snark as she tried to use my own words against me.

I was finally starting to see the issue Wes had with her.

"It"s one thing to be mad at me, but this is her life, her career, and what if she doesn"t wake up," I argued and almost raised my voice too loudly.

"I didn"t do anything," she said.

"Then you"ll help me wake her?"

"No," she said

Prince tried to get back into the conversation, but with a stiff arm, I kept him at bay while I spoke. There weren"t many people I could physically overpower on my own, but I was able to keep him out of the way relatively easy. His being so close to my age also made it easier not to take him seriously.

"I thought you cared about honor and doing things the right way," I said.

"Until you get in my way," BJ said.

She made me put my arm down so Prince could stop struggling against me. There was a loud uproar of applause signaling the end of the first act, and they were up next.

"Looks like we"re up," she said.

"You have to help me," I pleaded.

"Fix it yourself," Prince said on her behalf, and she let him.

I stepped away. Prince was like a little puppy pretending to be a big dog, and BJ let him play the part. I could see I wasn"t going to get anywhere with either of them. They left me to head out to do their act.

I couldn"t begin to wake Beth without knowing what knocked her out.

There was a hard call I had to make. I could either give up and call it a night or do the hard thing by performing on my own. Beth needed the showcase to get new clients. She helped me find motivation and pa.s.sion for something I thought was dangerous and a waste of time. She also had the cure to my particular brand of ailment, so that was motivation on its own. I had to try at least.

There were three spells in our performance. The issue was in reciting the words without error. Beth"s spells were in so many different languages. There was a high risk of calamity. That wasn"t even mentioning the music and lights I"d have to move in time with. Even with Matt prolonging the night, I struggled to get things down.

By the time I had to walk on stage, I lacked the necessary confidence I felt I needed, but I did it anyway. Something made me do it. I thought it was the right thing to do.

Matt introduced Beth and me both before I stepped from behind the curtains alone. The spotlights couldn"t have been more blinding. I couldn"t see a single face in the crowd beyond the front row where my dad was supposed to be sitting, but I suppose he was caught up with work at the time. All I had to do was say a few lines, let the crowd marvel, then get the f.u.c.k out. It should have been simple. It should have been easy.

I walked further out and took center stage. With pages in hand, I started reading.

The music played too abruptly and out of sync with my timing. Whoever was controlling the soundboard was kind enough to restart the track, but it did little to no good. I was sweating through my fur and the fabric of the tuxedo I let Beth talk me into wearing. I could hear every voice in the crowd regardless of whether or not I could see their faces.

"Since when does danger rabbit do magic?"

"I bet he falls through the stage."

"I bet he sets himself on fire."

"Is it safe to let him up there?"

They wouldn"t shut up, and the sound of their collective voices froze my body in place. I stood in the middle of a spotlight unable to utter a single word because their talking drowned out my thoughts. The longer it took to do anything, the more they had to say.

It was too much on me.

The words were right there written on the papers I held in my hands, but I couldn"t move. I thought of making a retreat until something else took the attention of the room.

A gust of wind blew through the theater like arctic air. Hats went flying, and people tried to stand up from their seats only to be forced back by the flurry of ice. I was knocked back until my body was pent to the curtain behind me. If nothing else, I was released from my stage fright. All I had then was "fright."

The blistering air came to a halt, and I was able to take a breath before catching a glimpse of who was to blame. Descending from the highest light came the silhouette of something so out of place it took everyone by surprise.

"Santa?!" I and everyone else in the theater exclaimed.

His leather boots met the wood of the stage floor before he approached me with spellbook in hand.

"Where are my keys boy," he said with gristle in his southern voice.

"What?" I said in complete disarray.

He started to cast a spell in my direction, and I stood confused as to how he even knew me. Snow fell and turned to hail, which forced me to move quickly to avoid a cold stoning.

"What the f.u.c.k," I exclaimed as I was almost impaled by ice that froze the stage.

The audience sat still but on the edge of their seats. They thought it was part of the show. Why else wouldn"t they help me? Some of them even cheered at my near-death like a Coliseum.

"Where are my keys, you egg-laying rat?" Santa roared.

He hurled s...o...b..a.l.l.s the size of milk crates faster than bullets. I couldn"t dodge forever, so I searched my pockets for something to defend myself. I still had the spells I used to pa.s.s the magician"s hazing ritual. Beth"s magic could have worked, but it was easier to fall back on my own handy work. I used my heat spell to warm the air till all of the snow and ice stopped.

"Santa, whatever this is about, can you stop trying to kill me for five minutes?" I said before turning to the audience and continuing, "this is not a part of the show, someone help me."

While my attention was off the fat man, I missed the part when he charged at me. He was like a mountain of jelly shooting across the stage. I used my zero gravity spell to float him and everything else before he got too close. The audience was able to hold on to their seats to keep from floating up to the ceiling, but Santa and I went up high enough to walk on the underside of the rafters.

"I"m gonna make you and your fur-covered compatriots deep dive in Rudolph"s backdraft," he said, and I lacked the knowledge to understand fully.

There was no talking him out of his rage, and I couldn"t comprehend the source of it. With the last spell I had stashed in my pocket, I finished the fight.

It was my quicksand spell.

I made the ground under us crumble into nothing, so when the zero-gravity finally came to an end, we both fell back to the stage and through it. My body was familiar with hard falls, but Santa was out like a light. I had to crawl out from under his fat rolls and out of the hole we made in the floor. Everyone was still seated and tuned into the scene. They weren"t joking or teasing me anymore, but I almost got killed by father Christmas, so I was unsure of what to do next. I awkwardly took a bow then left the stage in a hurry. My footsteps slowed only after I was behind the curtains and heard the sound of applause. It lasted for a long while and almost hurt my ears, but it warmed me in a way that brought a smile to my face.

The other interns were standing around and parted to make room for me to walk by them as I came through.

The mentors seemed just as speechless. I wasn"t sure where I was walking, but I wanted to find a seat so I could pull the wood chips out of my clothes. I wasn"t that lucky.

Beth was up. When she saw me she was quick to play the role of a mother hen to my dismay. In front of everyone backstage, Beth inspected my injuries. She didn"t understand how durable I was. At least Beth cared enough to worry, though. BJ, on the other hand, stood off to the side giving me the stink eye like my almost being killed somehow inconvenienced her.

"What happened to you, and your clothes, and your fur?" Beth asked question after question without giving me a chance to answer before the next.

She wouldn"t stop touching me. I understood her intentions were to make sure I was alright, but I brushed her hands away.

"I want the cure," I said.

Her demeanor shifted. I"m sure she knew I was alright at that moment.

"What?"

"The cure, our deal was if I stayed you"d give me the cure, I want it," I said.

Matt was on the front stage giving a closing speech while security tried to fish Santa out of the hole. I had the attention of the other interns and mentors, despite their trying to play it off. I could sense their eyes constantly checking me over. It didn"t matter. I didn"t mean to put Beth on the spot, but I was exhausted, annoyed, and I needed a win.

"I stayed, I"ve been here every day, and I just fought Santa in front of my high school princ.i.p.al, if you have any respect for me or care at all, you"ll stop making me wait and give me what I need," I said.

"You want it now?" she said, pausing as if caught off guard.

"There"s not a moment when I don"t want it," I added.

I wasn"t raising my voice. I couldn"t even say I was angry. I was simply tired, and after the events of that night, it didn"t feel like too much to ask for something in return.

"There is no cure," she said softly.

"So you lied," I said with a sigh as I looked away.

I was always skeptical about there being a cure for my curse. Even when Beth told me she found one, I didn"t get my hopes up. Maybe that"s why it didn"t hurt so bad to hear her say it. That"s not to say it didn"t hurt, though.

"There is no cure, but there is a way around the problem," she added

"Then spit it out, stop jerking me around," I blurted out.

"You want to be here, no one told you to go on that stage alone, but it called to you, and you couldn"t stop yourself."

She wasn"t wrong. I decided to stand in the limelight, but I didn"t forget my primary objective. Sticking it out as an intern was supposed to be something I dealt with to reach an end goal.

"I want an answer, Beth. I"m tired of being Danger Rabbit; I"m tired of living like this."

Matt called for everyone, interns and mentors, to come back to the stage for a final bow. Everyone waited for Beth and me to join them, but after a long wait, they finally left us.

"Before you, I had another a.s.sistant. Her name was Yorkshire. I saw much of myself in her, and we shared many things," Beth explained like storytime.

"What does "Yorkshire" have to do with anything?" I questioned.

"When I failed to cure myself, I turned to Yorkshire, and she proved to be my most loyal a.s.sistant."

She paused as if her words were caught in her throat.

"We performed a mind transfer and made a switch."

"Are you telling me you"re in another person"s body?" I inquired almost out of disbelief.

"It"s my body now," she said.

"And Yorkshire?"

"What of her?"

I turned away but didn"t walk away. I had to process the absurdity of the new revelation.

"So the cure, the remedy, the only way out or around being what I am is to steal another person"s body and stick them with the curse instead," I asked, but of course, I already knew the answer.

"I stole nothing. She was willing from start to finish, and I compensated her fairly," Beth corrected me.

I started walking. I had enough for one night, and I wasn"t in the mood to hang out with the rest of the interns after the showcase was over.

"I"m going home," I said with a sigh as I pinched my brow ridge.

"Will you be back?" She asked before I got too far.

I didn"t respond for a while, but I gave an honest answer. It was an answer that didn"t surprise me, but there was valuable weight in my ability to admit it out loud.

"Yea. I"ll be back," I said.