Wicked as They Come by Delilah S. Dawson

known.”
    She picked up the jar of powder and sniffed it, then held it up to the lamplight.
    “No scent, no color,” she muttered to herself. Then she pierced me again with her sharp, dark eyes. “You say you saw it? Just now? In a dream?”
    I nodded.
    “You ever seen such things before?”
    “No, nothing like that,” I admitted.
    She opened the door and called softly, “Master, she’s ready for you.”
    When Criminy walked in, his face was hopeful in a way that I found very endearing, even if I didn’t want to. He saw me, and his eyes lit up. I could have sworn I saw shadows dancing against fire there, and he reached for my now significantly smaller waist and lifted me up in a twirl, then attempted to lead me in a little dance step. I hoped the skirts would hide my lack of skill and prayed that my face would hide the thrill that zipped through me when he touched me, even through all that fabric.
    “You’re a vision, Letitia,” he said.
    Jeff had always called me Tish, thinking that “Letitia” sounded old-fashioned and silly. But I liked the way it sounded when Criminy said it, feminine and charmingly formal.
    “Well done, Cleavers. You’ve gilded the rose.”
    She bobbed a curtsy, but her sly eyes never left me.
    “Master, did you know she’s a glancer?” she said.
    “Really?” he asked softly.
    He dropped my hand and stared at me. The combined weight of their regard was crushing.
    “Did I do something wrong? I don’t know what a glancer is.”
    “What happened?” he asked us both.
    “I didn’t mean to, sir, but we got tangled up and touched skin,” she said, a little sheepish. “I jumped away right quick, so no worries on that count. But she had a glance.”
    “Fascinating,” Criminy said. “Please elucidate, darling.”
    I repeated the dream to him in as much detail as I could remember, desperately hoping I wasn’t as crazy as I felt. He listened, deadly serious, and said, “Bring me the powder.”
    She put it in his hand, and he opened the top and smelled it. He grabbed his coat from the floor where I had left it and put it on, straightening his collar and shooting his cuffs. He pulled a tiny vial from an inside pocket, untwisted its top, and let one drop of blue liquid fall on the powder. It sizzled, and a curling plume of green smoke rose into the air, making my eyes burn.
    “Damn,” he said under his breath. “Cyanote.”
    Mrs. Cleavers gasped and put her hand to her forehead, as if she might faint. From another pocket in his coat, he pulled a black silk handkerchief. Working quickly, he tied little knots to form a bag, then placed the entire jar of powder in it. He waved one hand over it, said an unintelligible word, and snapped, and the entire package disappeared.
    He wiped his gloved hands off on his breeches and then turned back to us. Noting my dropped jaw, he said, “What?”
    “I’m just impressed,” I said. “I mean, the top hat and handkerchiefs and rabbits and juggling are pretty standard with a few years of practice, but that looked like it really disappeared. You’re really good.”
    He laughed again, and Mrs. Cleavers chuckled, too. “Standard? You think that’s all it is? A little practice? It takes fifty years of legerdemain to banish that little jar to my writing desk just a few yards away. It’ll be another fiftyyears before I can actually make it disappear. And have you forgotten that I made you disappear this morning, as well?”
    “Are you saying that was real magic?” I said. “That’s crazy.”
    “Well, let’s see. Are you telling me you just saw the past in a vision? That a monkey in a top hat was trying to murder my chief costumer and head accountant with the most powerful poison in existence using her makeup jar? If so, perhaps I’m not the crazy one here.”
    I raised my eyebrows at him.
    “Well, fine, I am the crazy one, but I think we’re a matched pair,” he answered. “This glancing of yours is a lovely surprise.”
    “So when I