A Hidden Sleight Moves the Ship

A Hidden Sleight Moves the Ship

"A magician’s truth is the invisible hour," she said, lighting a long, thin cigarette. The flame cast flickering shadows across her face—creases deep as canyon ridges. A slight, sly smile curved her lips. She sipped from a tarnished maroon glass, its sheen like translucent bronze.

"I only leave home for funds or fun."

The man across from her shifted uncomfortably. Her presence was as thick as the smoke curling toward the ceiling.

"So you found me. Full moon and all. I’d be surprised if I hadn’t already known. Or been told."

He opened his mouth to speak, but she silenced him with a glance. On the table sat a peculiar deck of cards—black as pitch, suits a deep charcoal, numbers etched in onyx. The royals shimmered like raven feathers.

“They’re Sudanese,” she said.

He tilted his head, unsure whether she referred to the cards or the people they depicted.

“Both.”

He cleared his throat. She interrupted again.

“Love, money, fear, loathing, destiny—it’s always one, or a tangled mess of them. The human soul is really so simple.” She stubbed her cigarette into a crystal ashtray. It glowed faintly, as if the red dye within it were flammable.

“I suppose…” he murmured.

“You’re wondering about the whole of it,” she said, laughing—a wet, boggy chuckle. The smoke billowing from the ashtray reminded him of censers in a Catholic church, swinging incense into the air like whispered prayers.

She shuffled the cards in hypnotic spirals, then laid five in the shape of a V. Silence fell. Her eyes scanned the spread, then lifted to him. A new cigarette sparked to life. Smoke wove around her like mist as she spoke.

“Fear is invisible. Loathing, immortal. Love—a tug on the string of fate. Destiny hides in death. And money? It moves the pirate’s ship. Not wind. Sales.”

Yet none of these exist without one force.”

He leaned forward, caught in the gravity of her pause.

She took a final drag. The ember glowed like the soul of the dim-lit room.

“Magic is born in the invisible hours," she said. “For all we do alone will one day meet the light. Take the magician. He dazzles crowds, incites gasps, raises fears. Some think it’s dark power—demonic, perhaps. They can’t explain it, so they fear it.”

She smiled again, softer now.

“But others—though just as mystified—understand. They are magicians in their own way. They know the trick, while unseen, is real. Because the true magic isn’t in the illusion... it’s in the hours no one sees. The repetition. The failure. The mastery carved in solitude.”

She tapped the cards once, and the flame in the ashtray dimmed.

“Those are the invisible hours,” she said. “And that... is where the supernatural is born.”