As soon as I said it, I realized it wasn’t true. He’d pulled me out of the way of the men rolling the barrel. He’d opened the gate door and then walked with me on my other side.

Donovan took hold of my hand and held it up, emphasizing his point. “Sleight of hand. You’ve got to have such good control of your fingers you could pick-pocket the name badge off a policeman.” He let go of my hand. “Not that I did that . . . more than once.”

He casually picked up a coin, made it disappear from one hand, then dropped it into my lap with the other. “Now you try. Toss the coin up high so your audience’s gaze is focused on it. Look where you want them to look. Their gaze will follow yours. Then make a grand sweep with your right hand, but don’t close your fist all the way until the coin falls through to your left hand.”

I did my best to follow Donovan’s instruction. I didn’t catch the coin the first time, or the second, or the tenth. It thudded to the ground, sometimes lying sullenly at my feet, other times rolling off in an attempt to escape my doomed magic trick.

Donovan went after the coin those times. With my long skirts, getting up was a production of hauling lace and ruffles around. This was probably why you never saw magicians wearing Renaissance gowns.

While Donovan fetched my errant coin, I would toss one of the extras up in the air. The results were the same. Around the twentieth time, I threw the coin too close and it fell down the front of my dress.

“Hmm,” Donovan said. “I suppose you don’t want me to get that one.”

I fished it out, blushing. “How long did it take you to learn this?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been doing this sort of thing since I was a kid. Making things disappear was a necessity.” He fluttered his hands dramatically, and both the extra coins vanished.

He could palm two at once? I couldn’t manage one without it looking obvious.

“Why did you need to make coins disappear? Were you working your way up to dollar bills?”

“I didn’t start with coins. I started with food. I went into the neighborhood grocery store and pocketed stuff. It didn’t take long before I got caught. It’s hard to hide cans of ravioli in your jacket.”

He said it so casually, like it wasn’t an awful thing. I couldn’t imagine being a hungry and having no way to feed myself. “Did you tell the police why you stole the food?”

“The store manager didn’t call them. I guess he figured a kid stealing canned goods had his reasons. He just banned me from coming back.”

“He should have helped you.”

Donovan let out a laugh, not amused, just unbelieving that I was so naive. “My neighborhood was filled with kids like me. The homeless guys fought over trashcan territory. What was one manager supposed to do? He was trying to make a living.”

The coin lay forgotten in my hand. “So how did you eat?”

“I realized I needed to be smart about stealing.” He picked up one of the extra coins. Instead of flipping it, he moved it across the back of his fingers—not so much a trick as a nervous habit. “I’d seen restaurants on TV shows, so I knew how they worked. I got dressed in my best clothes took a bus to a good part of town, and walked into a restaurant during the dinner rush.

If anyone had asked why I was by myself, I would have told them my family was eating and I’d just gone to the car for something. No one asked, though. People are used to ignoring kids.” The coin reached Donovan’s pinky finger and he sent it back the other way.

“You know how people leave money on tables for waiters to take? Turns out, bills aren’t much harder to palm than coins.”

I wanted to tell him I was sorry his parents had failed him, sorry society hadn’t helped him. He didn’t want to hear it though, and it was pointless to say. The world was dark in places. You couldn’t fix that.

“What will happen if you don’t go back to Ohio?”

“The next time Shane needs money, he’ll do something stupid. Probably steal another car.”

“Another car?”

Donovan nodded. “I told you I’d never been caught.” The coin moved around his knuckles. “Shane knew I stole things and figured he could too. You fence a car, and it keeps the rent paid for months.”

Donovan stopped moving the coin. “The cops picked him up his first try. He got off with a hand slap. The second time he got caught, I took the rap. I didn’t want him to go to juvie.” Donovan put the coin back on the bench. “So those are the sordid details of my past.”

I didn’t know what to say. I gave his hand a squeeze. “We’ll get back.”

I practiced making coins disappear for a few more minutes. I didn’t get much better. After that, Donovan put a goblet-sized rock into my dress pocket. I stood by the bench and practiced taking it out without rustling my skirt. I wasn’t much better at this than I was at palming coins.

After a half an hour of failing at the task, I sank back on the bench with defeat. The rock sat despondently in my lap. This wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t learn the art of theft in two weeks let alone two days. I was kidding myself to think I could steal a goblet from underneath the nose of a powerful fairy. “So, what sort of woodland animal are the Seelie fairies betting I’ll be turned into?”

Donovan motioned for me to get back up and keep working. “You’ll be fine.”

“If you wore gloves, you wouldn’t technically be touching the goblet. Maybe the curse wouldn’t affect you.”

Donovan picked up the rock and held it out to me. “It has to be you.”

I didn’t take the stone. “Have I ever mentioned I’m naturally clumsy?”

“With more practice, you’ll be able to do this.”

“In PE after I ran hurdles, the track looked like a line of dominos had been knocked over.”

Donovan took my hand and set the rock in my palm. “Then it’s a good thing you don’t have to jump over anything to move the goblets.”

“At the winter choir concert, I lost my footing and fell into the row of girls below me. Think dominoes in sparkly red dresses.”

“I’m sure it could have happened to anyone.”

“Torsha Baker was accidentally standing on the edge of Nan Marie Swapp’s dress. When Nan Marie went down, her dress ripped halfway off. She still won’t speak to me.”

“If you were clumsy before, Chrissy must have fixed it when you wished to be a dancer. I’ve been watching you. You’re as graceful as the other princesses.”

I would have liked to believe him. “Kailen said I was a lousy waltzer.”

“No, he didn’t. He said you needed to learn to follow your partner’s lead. That’s different.”

“You heard him giving me dance instructions?” I suppose that shouldn’t have surprised me. Kailen said it enough times. Still it was odd to think of Donovan, close by, watching my stumbling attempts.

He shrugged. “There wasn’t much else to do. I figured I should learn how to waltz in case King Rothschild holds a ball. He’ll expect a prince to know how to dance.”

“Was it hard for you to pick up the steps?”

“I didn’t have a partner who made me nervous.”

In other words, no, it hadn’t been hard. It was only hard for me because I was graceless. I let out a sigh. “I hope the queen turns me into a bird. At least it would be cool to fly.”

Donovan stood up and held his hand out. “It’s time for a dance break.”

“You want to dance?”

He kept his hand outstretched. “Cocky fairies get on my nerves. We’ll go over the steps and tonight you’ll blow Kailen away.”

Not likely. Still it was nice of Donovan to help me. And I was tired of practicing with the rock.

I took Donovan’s hand and stood up. My skirt swished back and forth from the momentum, more eager than I was to start dancing. Donovan led me a few feet away from the bench and pulled me into position. One of his hands rested on my shoulder blade. He held the other lifted in his hand.

Last night at the campfire, we’d sat closer than we were now. While I’d shivered, Donovan had wrapped his arms around me. But I felt his closeness more now. A fluttering of nerves rumbled through my chest and made it hard to concentrate. His hand felt warm in mine. Did mine feel cold in his?