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Even as they collected themselves off the floor, the Horsemen knew there wasn’t much time—no longer the immutable countdown to certain death, but the thrilling minutes before a performance. Of course, in their line of work, image was everything. They couldn’t well arrive to the finale dripping wet, and with sand wedged in uncomfortable places.
It wasn’t much to swipe a keycard, distract a few guards, and slip back to the penthouse suite where they’d left their things. After all, security can get lax when the people they’re guarding are presumed dead.
Daniel Atlas showered quickly and ran a dab of gel through his hair in his massive private bathroom. Double sinks set in marble counters. Heated floor. Luxury had never been especially important to him, but he knew some of the others treasured their stays in places like this. For them, it was a welcome change from scraping by. For Daniel, it was all part of the illusion. The Horsemen needed to appear powerful and conspicuously carefree. And so the penthouse it was.
He changed into a fresh suit and was fastening cuff links to the end of his sleeves when he emerged into the living area. Two-story windows overlooked the glittering city. Arching staircase. Gilt railings. Couches that were all angles. Marble and gold.
As he suspected, he was the first one ready. “Let’s move people! Curtain in fifteen.” When no one replied, Daniel felt the need to check on them one by one. Merritt snapped at him from behind a mercifully thick cloud of steam in another of the palatial showers. “Lock the door why don’t you,” he muttered as he left in a hurry. Lula was in the kitchen helping Jack ice a large bruise on his shoulder as Jack threaded gel through his hair with his other hand. “Easy on the product.”
That left Henley.
Daniel knocked tentatively on her door. It swung open under his knuckles, enough for him to see that she was sitting in front of an ornate vanity. There was a draped towel over her shoulders and her hair was still wet. She didn’t seem to be applying makeup, or doing anything else. She was just sitting and staring off into space.
“Henley?” he asked. When she didn’t respond, Atlas stepped into the room, shutting the door enough to give her some privacy, though not closing it all the way. As he approached, he saw that she was sitting in front of a selection of makeup, but the brushes and sponges sat on the table untouched.
“We have to get going,” he said in his usual, curt manner. He trusted she’d hear the concern in his voice even if others wouldn’t. Still no reply. “Henley?”
“My hands are shaking,” she said. That familiar, smoky voice was so much smaller and more fragile than he was used to hearing it. She held up one hand to show him her trembling fingers, though she kept her gaze on something past the mirror. “What kind of magician lets their hands shake like this?”
Daniel hadn’t planned to get closer, but he crossed the room and dragged over a small ottoman with golden legs. When he sat, he took her hands in his. Maybe he shouldn’t have. Not with everything that had passed said and unsaid between them. But her fingers were raw and wrinkled and shaking and he couldn’t leave her like this.
“I’ve never thought I was going to die before,” he admitted. “I’ve known it was a possibility, statistically, but I’ve never actually thought I wouldn’t get out. Not until today.”
Henley pinched her eyes shut to keep stronger emotions back. “All I could think about was my kids,” she said. “I saw the day each of them was born, the first time I felt them kick, the first time I held them. Ellie’s last karate tournament. Tanner’s soccer game. Maisie’s dance recital.”
Daniel squeezed her hands, hoping he could steady them if he just held on tight enough.
Henley choked on tears she was refusing to shed as she said, “What would they do without me?”
“It’s alright,” because it was now. It was over.
“I thought about Dylan,” she went on. “He watched his father drown and it ruined the rest of his life.”
“‘Ruined’ is a bit strong. He’s a master magician. And he had the privilege of meeting us.”
Henley gave a weak chuckle at that, despite everything. Atlas wanted to make it happen again and again. He wished he could pull relief out of a compartment in his sleeve and offer it to her.
“I just kept thinking that they’d never forgive me,” Henley said quietly. “What was I thinking, coming here?”
“It’s a part of you.” Daniel wanted to tell her it was the part of her. It was her. Magic, illusion, the thrill of the stage. The controlled rush of adrenaline when the clock was counting down and a magician’s skills and preparations were all that remained between life and death.
At least, that was who she used to be. He missed that version of her, the Henley Reeves who lived for the trick. Over the last few days it had been nice to pretend she was still that person, but that’s all it had been, wasn’t it? An illusion.
Daniel Atlas liked to imagine his heart as a vast cavern—dark and empty. Eternally calm. Right now, something in that cavern ached.
Normally there was nowhere Daniel would rather be than the stage, but if they had nowhere else to be he would have sat there holding Henley’s hands for another hour. After all, this would probably be the last time he’d get the chance. What had he done, giving her up?
He knew, actually. She wanted a life he didn’t. She had retreated—or advanced, perhaps, depending on your perspective—to a place he could not follow.
Still, if they could stay in this moment for longer, he would. Instead, he said, “We have to go.”
Henley nodded. Just as Daniel went to release her hands, she grabbed on harder. This surprised him. For the first time Henley met his eyes, and he couldn’t quite read the look of quiet intensity burning in her expression.
“I didn’t think about Eric.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before the wall gave out, when it looked like it wouldn’t be enough. When I thought I was finally going to drown for real, I didn’t think about my husband,” Henley said, her voice tight.
“I’m sure that’s perfectly—”
“I thought about you.”
Then those trembling hands were on his face and pulling him closer. Henley slipped her tongue into his mouth and Daniel kissed her back slowly, intensely. It couldn’t have lasted for more than a few seconds, but a world bloomed in each one, a world of regrets and hopes and different lives.
It was only the clock quietly ticking down in the back of his mind that gave him the strength to push her away. Otherwise, he would have closed the door and made bad decisions all night long. Daniel loved making bad decisions when it came to Henley.
He pulled back far enough to cause their lips to part, but not so far that Henley couldn’t press her forehead to his as she let her fingers trace the angles of his jaw. “We almost died,” he whispered. “That kind of adrenaline does things to people.”
What he didn’t say was that Henley was all he’d thought about. When the tank burst and they came to a stop in the slosh of sand and water and glass, the Horsemen had collectively picked themselves up, exchanged hugs of relief, but it had taken everything Atlas had to let go of Henley and move on to the next set of hands waiting to congratulate him on their collective survival. If they had been alone, he would have just kept holding her.
He wanted to keep holding her now. That’s why he forced himself to say, “We can’t miss our entrance. I’m sure Lula will help with your makeup.”
“No,” Henley said. “I can do it. I’ll be out in a minute.”
By the time Atlas returned to the living room Merritt was ready and waiting, rocking on the balls of his feet to emphasize everyone’s tardiness. “Take your time ladies,” he called. “Lula and Henley ought to hurry up too.”
Jack came in, buttoning his shirt as he walked. “You’d take longer if you had any hair left.”
“All that product you use, yours kinda looks plastic, so who’s the real winner here?”
“Me,” Atlas said definitively, checking his own hair in the floor length mirror. Effortlessly messy. Tended to but not over-quaffed. “Right in the middle, like Goldie Locks and the three bears.”
Lula came in chuckling, “Bears? There are at least two twinks in this equation.” She tied Jack’s bow tie as he hid a smirk.
“All that leaves is Ruby Locks herself,” said Merritt. “Where is our original princess?”
“She’s just finishing up,” Atlas said, perhaps too casually, because Merritt raised a curious eyebrow.
“Is she now?”
Daniel shrugged. “I have to assume. Lula, do you mind?”
Lula went up to Henley’s room, and when they both emerged a few minutes later Henley looked like a different woman. Hair blown out, makeup just so, shoulders back as she strode down the stairs. Here was the confident performer Atlas had always known.
Merritt whistled, and Daniel used this moment of distraction to flash Henley a reassuring smile.
When the Horsemen strode on stage it was like nothing had happened. Not an unplanned escape attempt earlier that evening, not a debacle a decade ago. They were exactly where they belonged, and that included Henley Reeves by his side.
But that was the thing about illusions—they were never built to last.