“I’ll have to work out a method to do that one.” What Ariel just suggested would indeed be a great effect, maybe even better than the one I’m about to show. Shoving the idea aside for later, I say, “This will have something to do with those cards in Felix’s for-now-intact hands. As Hofzinser, one of the great magicians of the nineteenth century, once said, ‘Cards are the poetry of magic.’”
Felix continues to shuffle, and we both look at him sternly, Ariel’s eyes beginning to roll.
“Give Ariel a chance to mix those,” I say when it’s clear he’d keep shuffling until lunch if he could.
Felix grudgingly gives Ariel the deck, and she puts the knife on the table so she can give the cards a fancy riffle shuffle she learned from an ex back in the army.
“Now.” I turn my back to her so that Felix
