Magic Mansion by Jordan Price (best fiction books to read .txt) 📕

began cheering, too—although it had not occurred to them to do so until they heard it start in the Gold Team. Everyone was shouting. Hats were flying—and giraffes and bumble bees and even a smiling hot dog—until finally Sue surged to her feet, held a fuzzy pink animal high, and shrieked, “Is this it? Is this the rabbit?”

From the tip of its long ears to the end of its cotton tail, it sure looked like it was. Faye reached into one more hat (pulling out a stuffed guitar) as if she figured she should keep on searching, just in case, but the look on her face told Ricardo what Monty finally confirmed just a moment later. “That is indeed the elusive rabbit, Sue. Congratulations. Gold Team wins the second round of this challenge.”

For just a moment, Ricardo was elated. But once the floor was cleared of hats and covered instead with silver rings, he somehow registered that he was hearing his own name…and that the time had come for him to face his signature props.

“Ricardo the Magnificent,” Monty said, in that dazzling accent of his, “why have you chosen to represent the Gold Team in the Linking Ring portion of the Four Props Challenge?”

Against John, no doubt. Against Professor fucking Topaz. His idol. Jesus. Who he would need to try and beat. Now he knew how dumbass Kevin Kazan felt when he got Fabian Swan eliminated. Ricardo swallowed hard, but the lump in his throat stayed exactly where it was. Was it possible to forfeit? No, he couldn’t do that. He owed it to Bev and Muriel and Sue to win. But it was what he wanted to do—crawl away and go back to working bachelorette parties and be tipped with singles in his g-string and the occasional margarita.

“Hello?” Iain called out. “Answer the man…sometime today.”

“Uh…what was the question?”

Iain made a “go ahead” signal, and Monty repeated, “Why have you chosen to represent the Gold Team in the Linking Ring portion of the Four Props challenge?”

“Linking rings are my best trick, Monty. I’ve been juggling them ever since I was twelve. When I heard there was a ring challenge, I jumped at the chance.”

“Fair enough, Ricardo. You’ll have your chance to prove just how adept you are at handling the rings. And the Red Team player you’ll be pitting your prowess against—”

I think I’d prefer to die rather than hear you say it. Can that be arranged?

“—is Jia Lee.”

Chapter 24

RINGS AND SILKS

Ricardo couldn’t have been more stunned if Monty had marched up and bitch-slapped him.

“Are you okay?” Sue whispered. “Iain just said for you to go stand on your mark.”

Ricardo stood. His feet felt numb. His hands, too. And he wasn’t sure he remembered exactly how to breathe.

Jia waited for him at the gaffing tape X. Although she was just over five feet tall, she managed to look a foot taller, imperious and stern. Ricardo belatedly reminded himself that his stretchy outfit wouldn’t allow for sloppy posture, and he squared his shoulders as he tried not to be too obvious about swallowing past the lump that remained in his throat.

“Miss Lee,” Monty said, “you’re known for taking the traditional acts of magicians like Ching Ling Foo and Tchin-Chao, and performing them with a modern twist. Even today, these rings are sometimes called Chinese Linking Rings. Do you think that will give you any advantage?”

Jia stared at Monty coolly for a long moment, and then said, “I guess we’re going to find out.”

Ricardo looked at Jia, and then at the rings. And then he realized that she had a linking ring routine in her own wildly popular act, Apple Blossom Vanish.

And she was good.

“Magicians, you will have three minutes to see exactly how many of these rings you can link together. But to make things a little more interesting….”

No—I don’t want interesting. I want to perform with my linking rings!

“You’ll do it…wearing mittens.”

Ricardo attempted to smile gamely for the camera…but he simply couldn’t do it. Early on in the competition, he’d told Amazing Faye that Magic Mansion had nothing to do with talent. It was about spectacle. But now, as he truly felt that sentiment deep in his gut, his disappointment was overwhelming.

Maybe Faye had been right. Maybe it really was all about humiliation, so the viewers could bask in their schadenfreude as they picked each magician off, one by one.

As the thought crossed his mind, he heard the minuscule whir of a handheld lens zooming, and he felt someone lurking just to his side. Closeup. He forced himself to smile.

Assistants brought out the fleece mittens—one gold pair and one red—and Ricardo and Jia were positioned face to face in the center of a great spread of silvery rings. And even as Ricardo was balking at the thought of groping through them with ridiculous mittens on, as well as the cameras and the humiliation and the pressure (and the strangely sickening relief that he was not actually competing against John after all, at least not today)…Ricardo realized that he could feel something.

Cool. Round. Shiny. Filled with that delightful chimey sound they’d make if he struck them together.

Their familiarity calmed him. And so he was able to meet Jia’s eyes, and wait for the signal.

“Ready? Set?” The buzzer bleated. “Go!”

Jia and Ricardo both dropped to their knees. It hurt when his kneecap struck metal. He ignored the pain.

The whole trick of linking rings was that some had a small slot in them that allowed another ring to pass through. No big surprise there. The pleasure the audience took when they watched a linking rings act was all about the performance. They knew there was a slot somewhere, probably covered by the performer’s thumb, but they were willing to suspend disbelief as long as that performer could juggle, or do handstands, or dazzle them with witty banter, or mince around in high enough heels.

Ricardo always focused on his slotted rings rather than his solids. Knowing where the gap was positioned at all