THE EMPRESS | NYSM

ACT SEVEN.

SHOW TWO
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"BETH, do me a favour. Visualize your most adventurous sexual experience." Merritt asks Elizabeth. As a reply the magician rolls her eyes at the mentalist.

"Ew, stay out of her head you perv." Henley says with such disgust.

"Well, see, if I stay out of her head, I'm never gonna get into her pants."

Elizabeth gives him a look that says 'no', while in the background Daniel peaks his head out to catch a look at Merritt, Henley, and Elizabeth

"Let's stick with this exercise." In the foreground, Jack delivers a priggish smile at Daniel, knowing that it annoyed the man. "It helps..." Merritt continued but was only to be interrupted by a random stranger who entered the room.

Although, it wasn't a random stranger. They were quite familiar of this person, very familiar in fact. He was known to expose such magicians that Elizabeth once knew, Lionel Shrike.

"Pardon the intrusion. But I just wanted to wish you good luck tonight." Thaddeus Bradley says, God, did Elizabeth hate him so much. With the sight of him in the room, her jaw clenches and fist curls in a ball. Anger was prominent in Elizabeth.

"Someone stop me before I hit this guy." Elizabeth whispers, but it was loud enough for Thaddeus to hear.

"So you can try to expose us later in your little website?" Jack says with hate in his voice.

"And on demand." Thaddeus adds on, smiling at the end.

"That's not gonna happen." Henley scoffs at the man.

"Oh, no? Operating on a special plane because of The Eye? I heard it's a lovely place. Lots of star shine and moonbeams. Make any magician's wish come true. You've come a long way, much further than anyone would have expected of a bunch of wannabes and had-beens."

"Oh! If by "has-been" you're referring to me, I just wanna say I'm flattered, because I always considered myself a never-was. Do you mind if I do a quick read on you?" Merritt asks, getting up from the couch.

"By all means."

Elizabeth, Henley, Jack, and Daniel all watch. Jack keeps a grin on his pretty face, while Elizabeth watches with furrowed brows. "Okay, I'm picturing a little boy." Merritt starts as he puts on his black jacket. "He wants to be a great magician someday. And though he's good, he's not quite good enough. So he ends up at the bottom of the entertainment food chain, feeding off of those who have the talent that he never did. Tell me, am I getting close?"

With that Thaddeus stays quite, but the Horsemen weren't done with him at all. No, Daniel had something else in mind. Something that he thought would be fun to do on the exposer.

"Wait. Before you go. I'm working on something new. Do you have a second?" He asks but Thaddeus doesn't say anything. "Okay. Name a card." Elizabeth, Henley, and Jack join the two, with Henley holding a rabbit in her arms. "King of hearts." Thaddeus answers.

"Knew it!"

"Okay." Daniel simply says. A snap of his fingers, a shake of the cards, a blow on the deck, was all it took to preform this magic trick. To the Horsemen it was an everyday thing that they could simply do, to others it looked easy but all magicians knew there was something more. "It's up your left sleeve." Thaddeus says with such confidence in his tone, as if he got Daniel all figured out. But, oh, was he so wrong.

"Is it?" Daniel asks, pulling up his left sleeve to prove a point. He shows it to the Horsemen who agrees with him, shaking their heads as well. "No. No, I don't see it up there." Elizabeth says. "You know, why don't you check your unnecessary velveteen pocket right there?" Daniel says to Thaddeus.