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$2.99 eBook Sale: December 2020

The holiday season is finally here and we’re giving you TONS of monthly ebook deals to brighten up your season. Check out which of our favorite SFF books you can snag for only $2.99 throughout the entire month of December here!


Image Placeholder of - 91Gamechanger by L. X. Beckett

Rubi Whiting is a member of the Bounceback Generation. The first to be raised free of the troubles of the late twenty-first century. Now she works as a public defender to help troubled individuals with anti-social behavior. That’s how she met Luciano Pox. Luce is a firebrand and has made a name for himself as a naysayer. But there’s more to him than being a lightning rod for controversy. Rubi has to find out why the governments of the world want to bring Luce into custody, and why Luce is hell bent on stopping the recovery of the planet.

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Poster Placeholder of - 81Spine of the Dragon by Kevin J. Anderson

Two continents at war, the Three Kingdoms and Ishara, are divided by past bloodshed. When an outside threat arises—the reawakening of a powerful ancient race that wants to remake the world—the two warring nations must somehow set aside generational hatreds and form an alliance to fight their true enemy.

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Image Place holder  of - 13Wild Cards IX: Jokertown Shuffle edited by George R. R. Martin

Bloat, the boy-governor of the Rox, wanted to make Ellis Island a safe haven for Jokers, and made a choice to recruit the Jumpers, superpowered teen outcasts who could steal a man’s body in the blink of an eye. But under the leadership of Dr. Tachyon’s psychotic grandson, the Jumpers grow more vicious and uncontrollable every day, becoming the greatest threat the Wild Cards have ever faced….

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Place holder  of - 4Glorious by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven

Audacious astronauts encounter bizarre, sometimes deadly life forms, and strange, exotic, cosmic phenomena, including miniature black holes, dense fields of interstellar plasma, powerful gravity-emitters, and spectacularly massive space-based, alien-built labyrinths. Tasked with exploring this brave, new, highly dangerous world, they must also deal with their own personal triumphs and conflicts.

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Placeholder of  -89Interlibrary Loan by Gene Wolfe

Hundreds of years in the future our civilization is shrunk down but we go on. There is advanced technology, there are robots. And there are clones. E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person, his personality an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human. As such, Smithe can be loaned to other branches. Along with two fellow reclones, they are shipped to Polly’s Cove, where Smithe meets a little girl who wants to save her mother, a father who is dead but perhaps not. And another E.A. Smithe… who definitely is.

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The Unspoken Name by A. K. Larkwood

Csorwe does—she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin—the wizard’s loyal sword. Topple an empire, and help him reclaim his seat of power. But Csorwe will soon learn—gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.

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The Glass Magician by Caroline Stevermer

New York 1905—The Vanderbilts. The Astors. The Morgans. They are the cream of society—and they own the nation on the cusp of a new century. Thalia Cutler doesn’t have any of those family connections. What she does know is stage magic and she dazzles audiences with an act that takes your breath away. That is, until one night when a trick goes horribly awry. In surviving she discovers that she can shapeshift, and has the potential to take her place among the rich and powerful. But first, she’ll have to learn to control that power…before the real monsters descend to feast.

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The Bard’s Blade by Brian D. Anderson

Mariyah enjoys a simple life in Vylari, a land magically sealed off from the outside world, where fear and hatred are all but unknown. There she’s a renowned wine maker and her betrothed, Lem, is a musician of rare talent. Their destiny has never been in question. Whatever life brings, they will face it together. Then a stranger crosses the wards into Vylari for the first time in centuries, bringing a dark prophecy that forces Lem and Mariyah down separate paths. How far will they have to go to stop a rising darkness and save their home? And how much of themselves will they have to give up along the way?

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Dune: Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Humans have managed to battle the remorseless Machines to a standstill . . . but victory may be short-lived. Yet amid shortsighted squabbling between nobles, new leaders have begun to emerge. Among them are Xavier Harkonnen, military leader of the Planet of Salusa Secundus; Xavier’s fiancée, Serena Butler, an activist who will become the unwilling leader of millions; and Tio Holtzman, the scientist struggling to devise a weapon that will help the human cause. Against the brute efficiency of their adversaries, these leaders and the human race have only imagination, compassion, and the capacity for love. It will have to be enough.

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Dreamer of Dune by Brian Herbert

Everyone knows Frank Herbert’s Dune. This amazing and complex epic, combining politics, religion, human evolution, and ecology, has captured the imagination of generations of readers. One of the most popular science fiction novels ever written, it has become a worldwide phenomenon, winning awards, selling millions of copies around the world. Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert’s eldest son, tells the provocative story of his father’s extraordinary life in this honest and loving chronicle.

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Glitz and Glam: The Glass Magicians Playlist

Are you as excited as we are for The Glass Magician by Caroline Stevermer? Find out what it’s all about and join us in the Gilded Age New Yorker spirit with this playlist celebrating The Glass Magician‘s release below!

Image Place holder  of - 65Reminiscent of The Golem and the JinniThe Glass Magician by Caroline Stevermer is a magical and romantic tale set in New York’s Gilded Age.

New York 1905—The Vanderbilts. The Astors. The Morgans. They are the cream of society—and they own the nation on the cusp of a new century.

Thalia Cutler doesn’t have any of those family connections. What she does know is stage magic and she dazzles audiences with an act that takes your breath away.

That is, until one night when a trick goes horribly awry. In surviving she discovers that she can shapeshift, and has the potential to take her place among the rich and powerful.

But first, she’ll have to learn to control that power…before the real monsters descend to feast.

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Order The Glass Magician Here:

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Fantasy Shapeshifters Galore!

Fantasy Shapeshifters Galore!

We are OBSESSED with shapeshifters at the moment, thanks to The Glass Magicians by Caroline Stevermer. Who doesn’t want to deal with their problems by spontaneously turning into a bear?

Here’s some of our favorite shapeshifter fantasies–Tell us what we missed in the comments!

image-36516The Glass Magician by Caroline Stevermer

Thalia Cutler doesn’t have prolific family connections. What she does know is stage magic and she dazzles audiences with an act that takes your breath away. That is, until one night when a trick goes horribly awry. In surviving, she discovers that she can shapeshift, and has the potential to take her place among the rich and powerful. But first, she’ll have to learn to control that power…before the real monsters descend to feast.

 

image-36502Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the “Sliver of Infinity,” reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler’s most hellish prison. Kelsier “snapped” and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn.

 

image-36539The True Game by Sheri S. Tepper

In the lands of the True Game, your lifelong identity emerges as you play-Prince or Sorcerer, Demon or Doyen. Raising the dead is the least of the Necromancer’s Talents-he is a wild card who threatens the True Game itself. A giant stalks the mountains. Shadowpeople gather by the light of the moon. Bonedancers raise up armies of the dead. And the Wizard’s Eleven sleep trapped in their dreams. Players, take your places. The final Game begins now…

 

image-36541Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

The Malazan Empire simmers with discontent, bled dry by interminable warfare, bitter infighting and bloody confrontations with the formidable Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, ancient and implacable sorcerers. Even the imperial legions, long inured to the bloodshed, yearn for some respite. Yet Empress Laseen’s rule remains absolute, enforced by her dread Claw assassins.

For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his squad of Bridgeburners, and for Tattersail, surviving cadre mage of the Second Legion, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the many dead. But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities of Genabackis, yet holds out. It is to this ancient citadel that Laseen turns her predatory gaze. However, it would appear that the Empire is not alone in this great game. Sinister, shadowbound forces are gathering as the gods themselves prepare to play their hand…

 

image-36512The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells

Moon has spent his life hiding what he is: a shape-shifter able to transform himself into a winged creature of flight. An orphan with only vague memories of his own kind, Moon tries to fit in among the tribes of his river valley, with mixed success. Just as he is once again cast out by his adopted tribe, he discovers a shape-shifter like himself—someone who seems to know exactly what he is, who promises that Moon will be welcomed into the shape-shifter community.

 

image-36537The Last Dragonlord by Joanne Bertin

Dragonlord Linden Rathan, last-born of a race of immortal weredragons, has spent six hundred years alone, searching for his soultwin while his fellow Dragonlords watch over humanity’s Five Kingdoms. When the Queen of Cassori dies mysteriously, Linden and the other Dragonlords are called upon to prevent civil war as two human claimants vie for the regency.

As the battle for Cassori rule escalates, Linden becomes the target of the Fellowship, a secret society of true-humans who could actually destroy his immortal life. Then he meets a beautiful young ship captain named Maurynna who may be the only one who can help Linden bring Cassori back from the brink of chaos.

 

image-36511The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Maniye’s father is the Wolf clan’s chieftain, but she’s an outcast. Her mother was queen of the Tiger and these tribes have been enemies for generations. Maniye also hides a deadly secret. All can shift into their clan’s animal form, but Maniye can take on tiger and wolf shapes. She refuses to disown half her soul, so escapes, rescuing a prisoner of the Wolf clan in the process. The killer Broken Axe is set on their trail, to drag them back for retribution. Maniye’s father plots to rule the north, and controlling his daughter is crucial to his schemes. However, other tribes also prepare for strife. Strangers from the far south appear too, seeking allies in their own conflict. It’s a season for omens as priests foresee danger, and a darkness falling across the land. Some say a great war is coming, overshadowing even Wolf ambitions. A time of testing and broken laws is near, but what spark will set the world ablaze?

 

Placeholder of  -22The Belgariad by David Eddings

It all begins with the theft of the Orb that for so long protected the West from an evil god. As long as the Orb was at Riva, the prophecy went, its people would be safe from this corrupting power. Garion, a simple farm boy, is familiar with the legend of the Orb, but skeptical in matters of magic. Until, through a twist of fate, he learns not only that the story of the Orb is true, but that he must set out on a quest of unparalleled magic and danger to help recover it. For Garion is a child of destiny, and fate itself is leading him far from his home, sweeping him irrevocably toward a distant tower—and a cataclysmic confrontation with a master of the darkest magic.

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Every Tor Book Coming This Spring

We’re poking out our heads from our winter hibernation to yell about TOR SPRING BOOKS! We are more than ready for the weather to get warm so we can drag this big ol’ stack of books outside. Here’s EVERYTHING coming from Tor this spring:

March 24

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The Poet King by Ilana C. Meyer

After a surprising upheaval, the nation of Tamryllin has a new ruler: Elissan Diar, who proclaims himself the first Poet King. Meanwhile, a civil war rages in a distant land, and former Court Poet Lin Amaristoth gathers allies old and new to return to Tamryllin in time to stop the coronation. For the Poet King’s ascension is connected with a darker, more sinister prophecy which threatens to unleash a battle out of legend unless Lin and her friends can stop it.

 

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A Broken Queen by Sarah Kozloff

Barely surviving her ordeal in Oromondo and scarred by its Fire Spirit, Cerulia is taken to a recovery house in Wyeland to heal from the trauma. In a ward with others who are all bound to serve each other, she discovers that not all scars are visible, and dying can be done with grace and acceptance. While she would like to stay in this place of healing, will she ever be able to the peace she has found to re-take the throne?

 

April 7

The Glass MagicianPlaceholder of  -68 by Caroline Stevermer

Thalia Cutler doesn’t have prolific family connections. What she does know is stage magic and she dazzles audiences with an act that takes your breath away. That is, until one night when a trick goes horribly awry. In surviving she discovers that she can shapeshift, and has the potential to take her place among the rich and powerful. But first, she’ll have to learn to control that power…before the real monsters descend to feast.

 

April 14

Image Placeholder of - 29Queen by Timothy Zahn

Nicole Hammond is a Sibyl, a special human that has the ability to communicate with a strange alien ship called the Fyrantha. However, Nicole and all other sentient creatures are caught up in a war for control between two competing factions. Now, the street-kid turned rebel leader has a plan that would restore freedom to all who have been shanghaied by the strange ship.

 

Place holder  of - 21The Last Emperox by John Scalzi

Emperox Grayland II has finally wrested control of her empire from those who oppose her and who deny the reality of the empirical collapse. But “control” is a slippery thing, and even as Grayland strives to save as many of her people form impoverished isolation, the forces opposing her rule will make a final, desperate push to topple her from her throne and power, by any means necessary. Grayland and her thinning list of allies must use every tool at their disposal to save themselves, and all of humanity. And yet it may not be enough. Will Grayland become the savior of her civilization . . . or the last emperox to wear the crown?

 

April 21

You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce

Cassandra Tipp has left behind no body—just her massive fortune, and one final manuscript. Then again, there are enough bodies in her past.

Cassandra Tipp will tell you a story—but it will come with a terrible price. What really happened, out there in the woods—and who has Cassie been protecting all along? Read on, if you dare…

 

The Cerulean Queen by Sarah Kozloff

The true queen of Weirandale has returned. Cerulia has done the impossible and regained the throne. However, she’s inherited a council of traitors, a realm in chaos, and a war with Oromondo. Now a master of her Gift, to return order to her kingdom she will use all she has learned—humility, leadership, compassion, selflessness, and the necessity of ruthlessness.

 

April 28

Critical Point by S. L. Huang

Math-genius mercenary Cas Russell has stopped a shadow organization from brainwashing the world and discovered her past was deliberately erased and her superhuman abilities deliberately created. And that’s just the start: when a demolitions expert targets Cas and her friends, and the hidden conspiracy behind Cas’s past starts to reappear, the past, present, and future collide in a race to save one of her dearest friends.

 

May 12

Deal with the Devil by Claire Eddy

Nina is an information broker with a mission—she and her team of mercenary librarians use their knowledge to save the hopeless in a crumbling America. Knox is the bitter, battle-weary captain of the Silver Devils. His squad of supersoldiers went AWOL to avoid slaughtering innocents, and now he’s fighting to survive.

They’re on a deadly collision course, and the passion that flares between them only makes it more dangerous. They could burn down the world, destroying each other in the process…Or they could do the impossible: team up.

 

May 19

I Come With Knives by S. A. Hunt

A dangerous serial killer only known as The Serpent is abducting and killing Blackfield residents. An elusive order of magicians known as the Dogs of Odysseus also show up with Robin in their sights. Robin must handle these new threats on top of the menace from the Lazenbury coven, but a secret about Robin’s past may throw all of her plans into jeopardy.

 

Uranus by Ben Bova

On a privately financed orbital habitat above the planet Uranus, political idealism conflicts with pragmatic, and illegal, methods of financing. Add a scientist who has funding to launch a probe deep into Uranus‘s ocean depths to search for signs of life, and you have a three-way struggle for control.

 

May 26

Automatic Reload by Ferrett Steinmetz

In the near-future, automation is king, and Mat is the top mercenary working the black market. He’s your solider’s solider, with military-grade weapons instead of arms…and a haunted past that keeps him awake at night. On a mission that promises the biggest score of his life, he discovers that the top secret shipment he’s been sent to guard is not a package, but a person: Silvia, genetically-altered to be the deadliest woman on the planet—her only weakness is her panic disorder.

 

June 2

Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Phyllis LeBlanc has given up everything—not just her own past, and Dev, the man she loved, but even her own dreams. Still, the ghosts from her past are always by her side—and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she keeps in her heart. And so Phyllis will have to make a harrowing choice, before it’s too late—is there ever enough blood in the world to wash clean generations of injustice?

 

June 9

The Living Dead by George A. Romero and Daniel Kraus

A pair of medical examiners find themselves battling a dead man who won’t stay dead. In a Midwestern trailer park, a Black teenage girl and a Muslim immigrant battle newly-risen friends and family. On a US aircraft carrier, living sailors hide from dead ones while a fanatic makes a new religion out of death. At a cable news station, a surviving anchor keeps broadcasting while his undead colleagues try to devour him. In DC, an autistic federal employee charts the outbreak, preserving data for a future that may never come. Everywhere, people are targeted by both the living and the dead.

 

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

The hunt is over. After fifteen years of lies and sacrifice, Baru Cormorant has the power to destroy the Imperial Republic of Falcrest that she pretends to serve. The secret society called the Cancrioth is real, and Baru is among them. But the Cancrioth’s weapon cannot distinguish the guilty from the innocent. If it escapes quarantine, the ancient hemorrhagic plague called the Kettling will kill hundreds of millions…not just in Falcrest, but all across the world. History will end in a black bloodstain.

 

The Shadow Commission by David Mack

November 1963. Cade and Anja have lived in hiding for a decade, training new mages. Then the assassination of President Kennedy trigger a series of murders whose victims are all magicians—with Cade, Anja, and their allies as its prime targets. Their only hope of survival: learning how to fight back against the sinister cabal known as the Shadow Commission.

 

June 16

By Force Alone by Lavie Tidhar

Everyone thinks they know the story of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. The fact is they don’t know sh*t.

Arthur? An over-promoted gangster.
Merlin? An eldritch parasite.
Excalibur? A shady deal with a watery arms dealer.
Britain? A clogged sewer that Rome abandoned just as soon as it could.

 

Glorious by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven

Audacious astronauts encounter bizarre, sometimes deadly life forms, and strange, exotic, cosmic phenomena, including miniature black holes, dense fields of interstellar plasma, powerful gravity-emitters, and spectacularly massive space-based, alien-built labyrinths. Tasked with exploring this brave, new, highly dangerous world, they must also deal with their own personal triumphs and conflicts.

 

The Unconquered City by K. A. Doore

Seven years have passed since the Siege—a time when the hungry dead had risen—but the memories still haunt Illi Basbowen. Illi’s worst fears are confirmed when General Barca arrives, bearing news that her fledgling nation, Hathage, also faces this mounting danger. In her search for the source of the guul, the general exposes a catastrophic secret hidden on the outskirts of Ghadid. Illi must travel to Hathage and confront her inner demons in order to defeat a greater one—but how much can she sacrifice to protect everything she knows from devastation?

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Excerpt: The Glass Magician by Caroline Stevermer

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Place holder  of - 60Reminiscent of The Golem and the Jinni, The Glass Magician by Caroline Stevermer is a magical and romantic tale set in New York’s Gilded Age.

New York 1905—The Vanderbilts. The Astors. The Morgans. They are the cream of society—and they own the nation on the cusp of a new century.

Thalia Cutler doesn’t have any of those family connections. What she does know is stage magic and she dazzles audiences with an act that takes your breath away.

That is, until one night when a trick goes horribly awry. In surviving she discovers that she can shapeshift, and has the potential to take her place among the rich and powerful.

But first, she’ll have to learn to control that power…before the real monsters descend to feast.

Please enjoy this excerpt of  The Glass Magician, available 4/28/2020. 


Chapter Three

Although the Majestic Theater had just as many seats as the theater Thalia had played in Philadelphia, the performance that evening was much better attended. It had been six months since Thalia had last played New York City, but some of the stagehands remembered her.

“Hey, Lady of the Lake,” one called when he saw her. “Welcome back to the big time.”

“Oh, Ed, I’ve seen bigger,” Thalia replied sweetly.

Ed the stagehand rolled his eyes. “You’re too young for that kind of talk, Miss Cutler.”

Thalia left Ed behind as she made her way toward the dressing rooms. Although the Majestic Theater was in the Cadwallader Syndicate, not the Keith Syndicate, backstage was no different. It was full of shadows and smells—sweet greasepaint, stale sweat, cheap perfume, and even wet dog hair from one of the animal acts.

The dressing rooms at the Majestic, unlike those at some theaters, were worth the argument it took to get one. Thalia wasn’t the headliner, so there was no designated room with a star on the door for her. The rest of the cast shared the two bigger rooms, one for men and one for women. The women’s dressing room had mirrors on one wall and a screen to dress behind. It wasn’t perfect privacy, but Thalia had experienced much worse. There were theaters out on the circuit with so little thought given to the performers that Thalia had to change in her room at the boardinghouse before the show.

Behind the screen, Thalia buckled herself into the pigeon squeezer, which fitted over her corset and chemise. Once she had the doves safely stowed, she donned the white Lady of the Lake gown with its hanging sleeves. The extra fabric made it easy to produce the doves on cue without giving away their point of origin. Thalia unpinned her fair hair and combed it to fall smoothly over her shoulders and down her back. The gilt circlet of the Lady of the Lake’s crown was the finishing touch. Thalia made sure she had it on straight and pinned firmly in place before she shook out her voluminous skirts and stepped forth. A black Solitaire clog dancer in a blue dress immediately took her place behind the curtain.

To put on her greasepaint, Thalia had to jostle for room in front of a well-lit mirror. Singers, dancers, and acrobats were doing the same, but Thalia held her own against them all. She finished up her face with a dot of red beside the inner corners of her eyes and put enough kohl on her light brown eyelashes to darken them to visibility.

By the time Thalia joined Nutall in the wings, she was fully in character, head high, back straight, the genuine regal Lady of the Lake with every swoop of her sleeves. She reminded herself to keep her chin up, the better to show off the line of her throat. Thalia knew she was no Lillian Russell, but she strove for that kind of elegant self-possession.

Nutall shifted his attention from the ventriloquist act onstage to Thalia. “There you are. Ready to impress them?”

Thalia gave him her widest smile. “Ready to catch a bullet.”

“Don’t even joke about it.” Nutall squared his shoulders. The ventriloquist finished up and took his bows. The pit orchestra struck up Thalia’s music. Nutall smiled back at Thalia. “Break a leg.”

Although their act was announced as the Lady of the Lake and the Siege Perilous, Nutall ignored the mistake until it was time to replace the old trick with the new. They moved through the routine dove by dove, until it was time for the big finish.

Nutall’s voice was smooth as aged brandy and as deep as London fog, pitched to reach the last row of the seats in the highest tier of the cheapest balcony. “Tonight, for the first time on the New York stage, you will be privileged to witness the Lady of the Lake performing the most dangerous of all feats of stage magic: the Bullet Catch. First things first. Ladies and gentlemen, Solitaires, Traders, and Sylvestri, may I have a volunteer from the audience?”

The man they’d planted in the audience volunteered enthusiastically. Fortunately, the crowd was lively, so there were other members of the audience clamoring to be chosen. Nutall brought him up to the stage, where Thalia opened the case with her father’s muzzle-loading rifle. Thalia showed the weapon to the audience with great panache. Shopping the prop, as her father had called displaying an item of equipment to best advantage onstage, had been Thalia’s specialty since she’d grown old enough to go onstage as her father’s assistant.

Nutall issued his next command to the volunteer. “Please take a moment to inspect this deadly missile. Do you agree that it is a musket ball of solid lead?”

The volunteer agreed it was. At Nutall’s bidding, he scratched his initials on the surface of the ball with Nutall’s own penknife.

Thalia then made the most of the gestures it took to load the rifle—fine black powder, carefully measured out before the performance ever began; then wadding; and finally the rifle ball—then a pantomime of tamping it all down gently with the rod from beneath the rifle barrel. Thalia pretended to present the loaded rifle to their volunteer, but Nutall intervened.

“You have inspected this rifle, sir. You stand witness that the ammunition is properly loaded down to the last grain of gunpowder?”

The volunteer agreed all was as it should be.

Thalia glided across the stage to take her place on a wooden pedestal. She stepped up and struck a queenly pose, holding the enamel cup out in her most regal manner.

“It is my honor to be the man to pull the trigger,” Nutall announced. “Solitaires, Traders, and Sylvestri, prepare to witness a living wonder of the modern world. The Lady of the Lake will use her great powers to capture the rifle ball before it can pierce her breast. Her powers are great, but even the greatest stage magician can suffer a mishap.” In an aside, Nutall added, “If you have children with you, I suggest you cover their eyes.”

Thalia held her cup high.

Nutall called, “My lady, are you ready?”

Thalia, mindful of the circlet she wore, inclined her head only slightly as she nodded her consent.

Nutall commanded the pit orchestra. “Drumroll, please!”

The pit orchestra gave him his cue, a snare drumroll worthy of a firing squad.

Nutall leveled the rifle at Thalia’s breast and paused, as if to savor the moment. He took careful aim at the cup in her hands. In his top hat and evening clothes, his shoe-button- black eyes somehow appeared closer set than usual. He was the very picture of a noble English gentleman, entitled to shoot beauty in any form, whether it wore fur, feathers, or a frock.

The sleight of hand was over. Thalia already held the volunteer’s leaden rifle ball, the one marked with his initials. She had switched it for a duplicate when loading the rifle, palming the scratched original out of sight until it was time for it to reappear when she caught it in her cup.

Now, with nothing more than the force of her personality, Thalia would convince a theaterful of people that they could not trust their own eyes. She took a deep breath of sheer, delighted anticipation. This was the real magic. Traders might Trade. Sylvestri might work wonders with a forest. But no one but a stage magician could show people what it looks like to violate the laws of physics.

Thalia could smell the excitement of the audience. She knew what that meant. The stirring sight of Thalia held at gunpoint, valiant and vulnerable, spoke to something dark inside the watchers. This might be the night the trick failed. This might be the night they saw a woman shot down before them.

Thalia kept her eyes on the muzzle of the rifle Nutall held. She didn’t have to look at Nutall. Her entire attention was focused on directing her audience.

The drumroll broke off as Nutall lowered the rifle. Intent on some imaginary flaw in the sight, he inspected the gun while the crowd stirred, speculation fanned hotter by the delay.

Of all the tricks in stage magic, the Bullet Catch was the most dangerous. There was always the chance someone in the audience might join in with a firearm of their own. The spell Thalia wove with her manner and gestures, the spell Nutall wove with his voice, these were all the protection she had from such mischance.

When the drumroll resumed, Thalia kept her shoulders square and her head high. Here it comes. Make it look good. With the greatest possible delicacy, Thalia widened her eyes and flared her nostrils, permitting a flash of fear to show in her expression.

Nutall aimed the rifle again, this time with confidence, and squeezed the trigger.

The gunshot rang out; the audience gasped. Thalia mimed something striking her cup with terrific force, jerking as if her knees had tried to buckle, maintaining her balance on the pedestal with great difficulty. As Thalia’s balance changed, she made the pass that slid the volunteer’s rifle ball into the cup. She let her expression soften, fear vanquished by triumph, but did not permit herself to smile. The pit orchestra’s triumphant fanfare was short but perfectly timed.

Thalia held the cup high as she let the rifle ball roll around the interior. Smiling only slightly, she stepped down from the pedestal to permit their volunteer to peer into the so-called Holy Grail. Even though he’d been in on the act from the first moment, still he registered wonderment.

Yes, that was the mark he’d made. Yes, that was the rifle ball he’d handled. Yes, the Lady of the Lake had caught the bullet in midair. It should have struck her in the breast. The man gazed at Thalia in awe.

Thalia stepped away before the man’s admiration of her bosom crossed the line of good taste. This was vaudeville, after all, decent entertainment suitable for the whole family. Burlesque had no business at a respectable joint like the Majestic.

Thalia moved smoothly from one side of the stage to the other, offering the cup to the audience’s view. She made the bullet slide and rattle as she turned the cup.

Thalia knew to the split second when the applause peaked. Milking the audience was for performers who earned far less applause. She took her curtain call, sharing the ovation with Nutall, who bowed as she curtseyed. She made her stately way into the wings just before the closing curtain would have swept her off anyway.

No one over the age of six honestly believed Thalia had caught the bullet in the cup. But no one in the audience could tell exactly how the trick had been done. The pageantry that Thalia and Nutall had given them was easier to believe than the laws of physics. In that place between what the audience knew and what it tried to guess, that was where Thalia made her living. That was her magic. That was her power.

The Bullet Catch was just a trick. The danger, however, was completely real.

Copyright © Caroline Stevermer 2020

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