Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Draco
The next morning, Charity arrives at the cottage in ballet flats. I dip my chin toward her toes and shake my head. "Cute. But if we need to run?"
She looks down, then back up with that stubborn lift of her chin. "Give me ten minutes." She runs into her cottage bedroom, and I hear drawers sliding open and shut, accompanied by the sound of low muttering.
Ten minutes becomes seven. She returns in black sneakers that actually grip the ground, hair braided, a messenger bag slung cross-body the way I taught her, and Lucky trotting a small circle of approval before flopping onto his towel like an old general who’s seen some things.
I sling my little canvas shoulder bag across my body—habit, instinct, the trade settling into place. She doesn’t ask, and I don’t offer. Not yet.
"Lesson plan?" she asks, too bright, too eager, like she’s pretending last night didn’t crack her world open.
"Navigation, food, and crowd math," I say. "And you’re going to watch me work."
Her smile flashes; then she tries to smother it, like joy is forbidden on these premises. "Okay."
No glossy map tonight—just the one I’ve built in muscle memory.
Corners where steam leaks from grates. Bodegas that’ll let you use the bathroom if you buy a seltzer.
A deli off Houston that cuts pastrami the width of a prayer.
I point, she watches, and the little crease between her brows smooths when things click.
Subway again. She stands where I stand, a half-step inside my shadow, eyes forward, bag in front.
A guy in a faded Knicks hoodie hawks bootleg phone chargers and calls everyone "family.
" Charity fights a smile and loses. When the train rocks, she sets her feet like I showed her—hips loose, knees springy. Quick learner.
We ride to Broadway–Lafayette. The station exhales us onto the street—pretzels, sugar-roasted nuts, wilted flowers from a bodega bucket, and the sour ghost of yesterday’s trash. Her head swivels, soaking it all in.
"Rule from last night still holds," I tell her. "Match my pace."
"I am," she says, and she is—quick, alert, not staring at shiny things long enough to miss the curb. Better than most.
First stop: a pocket-size gallery that is absolutely not a gallery.
Chain-link fence, brick wall, an explosion of color and wheat-paste that changes every week.
Someone’s pasted a six-foot hummingbird ripping free of barbed wire.
Someone else has stenciled tiny gold crowns along the bottom, like a blessing.
She drifts forward, hand hovering over the wall like she’s afraid to touch it and ruin the magic. "It moves," she whispers, watching headlights ripple over the mural until the hummingbird looks like it’s about to lift off
"It moves because you do," I tell her. "Street art’s a conversation. Blink and it’s gone."
She tilts her head. The gold crowns catch the light like they were hammered from sunlight. "Who puts this here?"
"People who can’t wait for permission."
That lands. She doesn’t say anything, but a pulse flares at her throat. The heiress who has secrets in that locked building—secrets that make her eyes light up when she thinks no one's watching. The girl in the cage who left it open on purpose last night.
We loop the block. She learns to curb-read: bikes whisper on your left; delivery guys own the lane; cars make eye contact with no one.
At a crosswalk, a man in a suit steps too close and does the quick up-down that prices her like an object.
I shift one step to block his view. He finds something else to look at. Charity exhales slowly.
"Thanks," she says.
"Rule three," I remind her. "We watch out for each other."
Washington Square at dusk is a stage clearing its throat for the real show—buskers testing amps, chess hustlers tapping clocks, skaters carving arcs between toddlers with balloons.
The arch goes pale gold; the fountain is a black mouth humming coins.
I pick a patch of stone near the ring of benches because the acoustics there are honest and the cops are lazy about shooing people until the late crowd shows.
"You’re going to perform?" She does an excited hop—pure Lucky-at-dinnertime energy.
"That’s the idea."
She flushes. "I’ve never watched you perform in public."
I tap my coin against my knuckle. "Then let’s fix that."
Set-up is a conversation with my hands. No coin-walking—too familiar. Tonight it’s paper: a clean deck, two rubber bands, and a napkin folded into a rose that will be ash by the end.
The crowd builds without looking like a crowd: a circle of space and the edges of people pretending not to be edges. Charity stands just off my shoulder, where I can feel the warmth of her without losing the thread.
"Evening," I call, voice pitched just loud enough to ripple through the circle. "Name’s Draco. If you like what you see, drop a bill. If you don’t like what you see, drop two—then I can afford to practice."
A couple laughs. A kid in a Mets cap scoots to the front like this is church and I’m the only priest who doesn’t make him fall asleep.
I teach the audience how I steal from them while I steal from them.
Rubber bands trap and melt through each other with a pop that makes the back row lean in.
A card turns face-up in a face-down spread like it changed its mind.
The napkin rose blooms in my palm and wilts into smoke that smells like cheap barbecues.
Charity’s hand finds my elbow when the smoke curls past her cheek. Her eyes are wide, her breath catching like she’s forgotten the world has air.
It rains ones and coins and a couple of fives. Nothing flashy, nothing I can’t carry. Enough to eat and enough for tomorrow’s trick.
And for a beat, I’m back in the Subura—barefoot, grubby, eight years old—flipping stones across my knuckles while the other kids lifted purses from the distracted crowd, the air thick with piss and smoke.
Coins clattering into a cracked bowl, tinny echoes that meant bread, meant water, meant maybe my ribs wouldn’t ache so hard when I curled up to sleep.
Each drop of copper was a lifeline, every alley a battleground where kids like me learned to run before we learned to read.
Later, in the arena, the same lesson played louder.
Dust choking my lungs, the copper tang of blood in the heat, the crowd’s roar slamming into my chest like a physical thing.
Win their eyes, win their favor, and maybe you walked out whole.
Maybe you lived to fight again. Spectacle was always the only armor I could afford.
And, Goddess help me, even now, the ripple of attention hits the same way—too close, too loud, too much like the sand under my feet when I was a boy who had nothing but tricks and fury.
But the joy is different. Not survival this time.
Not the desperate thrill of scraping out one more night of breath.
Bigger, brighter—because she’s here. Because Charity’s smile lights the edge of the circle and makes strangers drop bills just to be near it.
That’s its own kind of sorcery: turning her light into currency, watching it multiply in my hands.
And the want that rises in me is dangerous.
Not just for applause, not just for coins.
I want her to look at me the way she just looked at the fire curling out of my palm—unguarded, dazzled, like I’ve cracked open the dark and pulled something impossible into her world.
I want to keep that light aimed at me and me alone, greedy in a way that feels more perilous than any blade I’ve ever faced.
Her hand brushes my elbow again, dragging me back to the present. She leans close, whisper-soft. "How?"
"Misdirection," I say, under the patter of my street voice, but only for her. "Always about what you want them to see."
When the last trick fades and the crowd disperses, she's staring at me like she's never seen me before. Her eyes shine with something that might be tears, or pride, or wonder—maybe all three.
"That was…" She can't finish. Just shakes her head, speechless.
And that look—that unguarded awe—is worth more than every coin in my hat. More than every coin I’ve ever earned.
After, we split a slice from the corner place that burns the cheese just right. She licks sauce from her thumb without thinking, and I look away like a gentleman. It doesn’t help.
On the walk north, she tries to hand me a folded fifty from her messenger bag. "For… supplies."
"Nope," I say, breezy. "You keep it."
"I grabbed it from the house this morning," she blurts. "I didn’t bring a wallet last night," she blurts. "I didn’t think of it, and you gave a stranger your money, and I… I want to be useful."
"You are," I say, more blunt than I intend. "You pay attention. Most people don’t."
Her cheeks go pink. She hides in the steam of a street cart and orders two hot teas just because the words feel brave in her mouth. When the paper cup warms her hands, she looks like she’s holding a tiny planet and has to figure out what to do with it.
We cut east. A metal door halfway down a block that looks like it’s given up on itself. Two knocks, one knock, two knocks. The kid on the other side is a baby with a tattoo and a scar like a comet. He sees me and opens without asking names.
Inside is a basement strung with Christmas lights that never learned about seasons. The air tastes like beer foam and dust. A circle of kids—magicians, dancers, drifters—swap tricks like trade secrets.
I take a dollar bill and show Charity the basics: tear a corner, move the bill, make the pieces still match. No theatrics. Just the bones of the craft.
"Want to learn one?" I ask, voice low.
She nods like she’s agreeing to something that matters.
"Here." I stand behind her and guide her hands the way you teach someone to hold a bow, not a blade. "Anchor your left thumb. Right hand does the lying. Soft fingers, not claws. If you tense, they see the secret."
Her breath staggers when my chest brushes her shoulder. I pretend I don’t notice because pretending is sometimes kindness. We move together: turn, slide, press. The corner that was in her right hand is now under her left thumb. She gasps—quiet, but delighted, like a sparkler catching.
"I did it," she whispers.
"You did."
"Again?"
We do it again until the paper softens, and the lie becomes muscle memory. The room fades. The hum of other people’s miracles becomes a soundtrack, not a distraction. Her scent—expensive perfume mixed with city air and possibility—fills the small space between us.
By the time we climb back into the night, a little of the city has soaked into her posture.
Shoulders looser. Eyes wider but not wild.
We pass a couple arguing under a scaffolding.
Pass a man sleeping with his backpack clutched to his chest. Pass a woman, her dog in a sweater tucked under her arm, and she glares at us like we owe her a sidewalk tax.
New York: pay with your attention or get fined with regret.
Back at the cottage, Lucky greets us with a thump-thump-thump of his tail and a huff like we missed curfew.
Charity sinks to the floor, and the dog folds himself against her shins like she’s his favorite piece of furniture.
I clean up the small mess—a glove by the door, an empty bowl, the rubber bands that fell out of my pocket before we left.
"Homework," I say, leaning a hip on the counter. "You need three things on you at all times. A charged phone. A MetroCard with money on it. And a little emergency cash."
"How much is ‘a little’?" She’s serious, like I’ve assigned her to guard a gate.
"Hundred," I say. "Two fifties. Or five twenties if you want to be annoying. Big bills make you a target."
She nods, tucks it away like gospel. "I can do that."
"Where?"
She blinks. "In my… bag?"
"Phone case," I say. "Lined pocket. Never in the outer pocket of a purse." I point to her messenger bag. "That’s a billboard for thieves." Who am I to lecture when I lost my bankroll to a pickpocket?
"Right." She breathes it out. "Phone, MetroCard, small cash. No billboards."
"And shoes you can run in."
She looks down at her sneakers. "Shoes I can run in."
We set a loose plan for tomorrow: general exploration by day and something special by night.
If the weather holds, a pop-up show under the bridge; if it doesn’t, a late-night dumpling place that will change how she feels about being alive.
She yawns mid-sentence and tries to hide it.
Lucky yawns in solidarity. The cottage breathes.
For a second, I pretend this is normal—woman, man, dog, quiet.
"Sleep," I tell her.
"Bossy," she says, smiling.
"Alive," I counter.
She goes, braid bouncing over one shoulder. I crash on the couch because the bed feels too much like a decision I’m not ready to make. The coin tries to roll across my knuckles. I stop it, pick up a rubber band instead, and practice what I preached. Soft fingers, not claws. Secrets, not lies.
Tomorrow we'll explore more of her city. Tomorrow she'll learn even more about mine. For tonight, I let thoughts of her lull me toward sleep, Lucky's warmth at my feet, and the impossible thought that maybe this could be home.