Weather Witch by Shannon Delany Read Free Book Online Page B

though, that what we do here may look like magick, but it is merely science, spit, and spark!” He tossed the torch high into the air and tore his strange hat off, throwing it into Jordan’s astonished hands as another costumed performer tossed a second torch his way. Both torches flew into the air and tumbled down, were caught and tossed back up as another was thrown into the fray, so quickly three fiery torches flew before the gasping crowd.
    Two of his compatriots jumped in with three more torches, three men juggling nine torches, each in turn thrown to the man in the middle, who then hurled them high, caught them, and spun them back to his friends. He tossed all but one of them away, the other performers extinguishing each in turn. With a fluid movement their leader caught the final torch, and, taking a swig of something from a flask that appeared in his hand, he rolled the lit torch along his open mouth.
    The crowd screamed and Jordan pressed the hat close to her stomach, eyes wide.
    Flame danced across his tongue and he snapped his mouth shut, snuffing the fire before taking another swig of the clear stuff in the metal flask.
    He bent, leaning so far back his hair nearly brushed the veranda’s floor. He brought the flaming torch close enough to his lips he might have kissed it … but instead he sprayed liquid past its flaming head, and the crowd fell back, shrieking, as he breathed fire.
    Swinging the torch, he passed it off to be snuffed and the screaming became wild clapping. With a gracious bow he grabbed his gear and he and his cohorts dodged away.
    “Stunning,” Rowen murmured.
    Jordan looked up at him. “It was a brilliant display.”
    “I was referring to you, ” he corrected.
    She rolled her eyes.
    His gaze drifted from her eyes to the place on the veranda occupied by a well-dressed man sporting a leather mask in the form of a fox’s face. At his side stood an attractive female assistant in a fine silk robe decorated with rolling waves. Her hair was long, straight, and as dark as ebony and her eyes were slanted in a distinctly Oriental style.
    Between them rested a large and colorfully painted wooden trunk.
    “So what is this, do you suppose?” Jordan asked, motioning to the man and woman. The crowd had quieted, seeming to wonder the same thing.
    “Good evening, friends. I am the Wandering Wallace,” the man said, his arms sweeping wide to encompass the entire crowd as if they were all personally invited by him. “Tonight I will entertain you and challenge your senses and powers of observation with tricks that will both astonish and amuse.”
    There was no response from the crowd. They withheld judgment, cautiously waiting. He looked suspiciously like something one would have seen before taking the boat to the New World. With his trunk painted brightly with stars and strange symbols and his beautiful assistant with her foreign features, he nearly stank of something they knew better than to become entangled with.
    Magick .
    “Let me first assure you that the tricks I perform tonight to entertain such fine folks as yourselves include no magick at all. Nothing will truly disappear and nothing will actually manifest. These things are but simple illusions brought to you as the result of years of training in sleight of hand. Can I make it appear that something has manifested out of thin air…?” He slid his hand across the empty space before them and opened it, a ball popping into existence between his finger and thumb.
    A few ladies in the crowd jumped back and a few men bristled. Some even turned their faces to the rumbling sky overhead, disapproval obvious. “Yes, yes. But wait,” he instructed. “When I slow the move down…” He turned his back for a mere moment before starting all over again, hand flat and before them. “… and loosen my fingers…”
    The same ladies who had gasped before gasped again, but this time in delight, as his fingers parted and they glimpsed something the color