"I feel stagnant, like I'm just doing the same thing over and over again," Allie said, looking at a large prop in the corner of the shop as she was on the phone with Zoe, adding, "I just want us to stay fresh, you know? We can do the same show for a while, but after that we have to switch it up, otherwise audiences get bored. I think that's part of Strange's appeal, is he's always doing something different."

Allie walked past a wall full of capes and sighed.

"No, I know," she continued, "we have more important things to worry about right now, I just...I wanna keep doing this but I want it to be the best it can be, you know what I mean? I want us to be great. I want us to be 'beens', not 'has beens'....yeah that did sound cooler in my head, you're not wrong," Allie said, laughing, "Alright, I'm gonna go. I'll be back at the casino in a bit."

With that, Allie hung up her cell and slid it back into her pocket before turning and walking to the counter, tapping her nails on the glasstop to get the attention of the man behind the shop. He was old, balding, a little hunched over, but dressed well in a collared shirt with suspenders and a well groomed mustache. He turned away from stocking the shelf behind the counter and faced Allie.

"Yes, can I help you?" he asked.

"Maybe, um, I've never been here before, so...I'm a little lost, I think," Allie said, "I'm looking for cuffs that are easily escapable."

"We have those," the man said, "the question is, are you good enough to get out of them?"

"Well, considering I'm a successful practicing magician, I would tend to say yes," Allie replied, "that's my face on the billboard out there."

The man looked out the window and grunted.

"First of all, you can't say practicing. You're not a doctor. Secondly, that's a nice billboard, but anyone can get one of those. Hell, I could pay for one that says you eat babies and nobody would stop me because it all comes down to who has the money to advertise it," the man said, making Allie raise her eyebrows, smirking in surprise; he continued, "so I posit the question once again to you, are you good enough to get out of escapable cuffs?"

"They're literally designed to be escapable."

"And yet so many can't do it, fascinating how that works isn't it?"

Allie smiled, and then her smile turned to a face of shock as she realized who was standing behind the counter.

"Oh...my god," she whispered, "you're Mr. Magic."

And the old man grinned.

                                                                           ***

One hand stuck a draining tube into the womans arms, the other hand turned a radio dial on, blasting Billy Joel's "You May Be Right", as Rachel St. Sebastian stepped back from the table and watched the blood begin to drain out of her body. Rachel reached into her coat pocket, retrieved her cigarette pack, smacked the bottom with her palm, and then slid one out. She lit it and then put it between her lips, inhaling, shaking her head at the sight before her.

This was an out and out tragedy, something that didn't have to happen. Something that could've so easily been avoided. Rachel turned away from the table, turning her eyes elsewhere to anything in the room. She simply couldn't stand to see her like this, even though she knew this would be the likely outcome. Rachel took another long drag, and then coughed, exhaling. She thought back to when she and Claire used to hide bodies in the walls, and how simple all of that seemed now in retrospect. If only she'd known where it would lead.

But that was the thing, right? She DID know where it would lead. She hadn't been blind, well, perhaps willingly so. She had just ignored it because being in love makes you do stupid things.

But she'd known all along full well what the end result would be. Where it would all lead. After all, there were only two places for a cult leader to end up; incarcerated or dead, and she'd already been incarcerated. Rachel sighed and felt her eyes well up with tears again. She finally turned back to facing the table and approaching it again, looking down at the woman laying atop it, her body growing paler by the second from the lack of blood as it drained down the table and into the bucket below.

She'd give anything to do it all differently.

                                                                           ***

Molly was sitting at her drafting table in her home, chewing on her lip, when the door to the room opened and she looked up to see Benny entering. She smiled at him as he walked in and shut the door behind him. On days when Olivia worked really long shifts, Benny and Molly often wound up back at Molly's, and Molly, being a morning person, was always up before him, so she made coffee, which he now had a mug of in his hand as he walked in and plopped himself down on the nearby couch, lifting the mug to his lips and sipping carefully.

"Did you sleep good?" Molly asked.

"I did, you have such a nice bed, I'm jealous," Benny replied, "I might just have to tell Olivia we're living here from now on."

"She'd never go for it, she loves the studio too much," Molly said, "...these plans don't make any sense."

Benny stood up and walked over to the desk, standing behind Molly, a hand on her shoulder as he rested his chin on her head and looked down at the blueprints on the table in front of them.

"What doesn't make sense about them?" he asked.

"The measurements are far too large," Molly said, "if all he's keeping is cash, maybe chips, why're the dimensions this wide? It's almost like he's trying to keep something of large proportions in here. I mean, I know the casino makes a lot of money, gotta have somewhere to keep it, but still. It just doesn't make sense."

Benny reached down and shuffled the papers, screwing up his face at it and tapping at something.

"What is this?" he asked.

"What is what?"

"This thing here," he said, tapping again, "it looks like a large garage door."

Molly looked at it and furrowed her brow.

"I...I didn't even notice that," she mumbled, "yeah what is that?"

Benny shrugged and walked back to the couch as Molly threw her drafting pencil down on the desk and groaned, turning to face him in her desk chair.

"I hate this," she said, "I hate all of this. I'm not even supposed to be involved in any of this. I was just asked to build the new casino. Allie had to barge in and make me an accomplice without my knowledge, and now I'm entrenched in it. Now we have FBI agents breathing down our backs about access to the vault, and for what? We don't even know what it is he's keeping in it! Apparently something very big, but what?! I'm so sick of all this."

"C'mere," Benny said, curling his finger at her. Molly folded her arms, pouted, and, using her heel, dragged herself across the room in her chair, making Benny laugh; once she was close enough, he leaned forward and put a hand on her thigh, smiling at her as he said, "you do realize you're the hero of this story, right?"

"What do you mean?" Molly asked, confused, adjusting her glasses.

"Because when it breaks, and everything is out in the open, and all the guilty parties are behind bars, the public perception is gonna be that YOU were the integral key into achieving this. They literally - the agents, Allie, everyone - couldn't be doing this without you. You are literally the hero of this story. So sure, being the hero sucks, and answering a call to adventure you didn't even want sucks, but it might pay off for you in the end."

"Or, and hear me out, it won't. I'll likely be barred from ever working on anything again, because I'll no longer be trustworthy," Molly said.

"Well, then you can build whatever you want. Do you remember what you told me in my bedroom that first night? The night you guys all holed up there together? You told me you wanted to build a house. Something simple and beautiful, cozy and far away from everyone and everything. You could finally do that. Once this is all over, you could finally do that, and we can go with you, and we can have a nice little home and a nice little life away from all this shit, this shitty fucking city, and it'll all be possible because of you, Molly."

Molly wanted to cry. Benny actually remembered something she had said, nobody ever remembered what she'd said. She scooted the chair closer and collapsed inwards onto him on the couch, making him laugh as he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed.

"Trust me," Benny whispered, "it's all gonna work out."

"I love you," Molly said, muffled into him, making him laugh some more as he ran a hand up into her curly bushel of hair.

"I love you too," he replied.

                                                                               ***

"So, how'd you wind up here?" Allie asked, leaning against the counter as Mr. Magic, or Rufus, as he had asked her to call him, continued stocking the backshelf; Allie added, "like, it makes sense, having you own a magic shop, and I don't know why I never came in, I guess I'm just loyal to the one I've always used, and there's so many of the goddamned things in the city, given the ratio of magicians there are, but still."

"Well," Mr. Magic said, finishing stocking a line and turning to face her again, "once I quit performing, I figured, well, what better way to supplement my income by being adjacent to my former career, so I figured I'd open the shop. Oddly enough, most of my customers are kids. Kids doing talent shows, kids doing magic for the fun of it, not actual live magicians. I kinda like it that way, though. Nice to be the local elderly magic shop man to children."

"That is wholesome," Allie said, "I had your kit when I was a little girl. The tape and the whole thing. I must've watched that thing a thousand times over."

"You probably wore your VCR out," Mr. Magic said as he opened another box, making Allie laugh.

"I mean, it was worth it. You're literally why I do what I do," Allie said.

Mr. Magic stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her, a small smile on his lips.

"Well, thank you, that...that kind of statement almost makes it all worth it," he said, "what did you need escapable cuffs for anyway? That's such an old fashioned beginner trick."

"Well, if you must know," Allie said, "...I'm looking to break into my casinos vault, and they're part of the misdirect."

Mr. Magic touched his moustache thoughtfully, nodding.

"Gotta admit," he said, "that's a new one."

                                                                             ***

Molly was laying on the couch, her head in Benny's lap as he sat upright, his neck back, his eyes shut, one hand still lost in her hair. Molly was looking at the ceiling overhead and the little hanging decorations she'd strung up there when she first moved in. She then craned her neck and looked up at Benny, smiling. After her assault in the windmill at the golf course, she never thought she deserved to be treated with any kind of respect, and so this relationship was such a nice little wake up call.

"Am I a bad person for hoping she gets caught?" Molly asked.

"Who, Allie? I don't think so, considering what she's gotten us all involved in," Benny said, "but frankly, what'll likely happen, is she'll cut a deal and take a reduced sentence willingly for having helped the agents."

"That doesn't feel fair," Molly mumbled, "she's done so much damage."

Molly was angry. She didn't want to be, but she was. She was so very angry at what Allie had done to her, to everyone, and especially to Zoe. Nobody deserved to be dealing with the shit they were, and it was all her fault. One rash decision that led a chain reaction. Then again...if Tony was funding a dangerous politicians career using his casinos money, that wasn't any better. Molly grimaced.

"This city is fucking reprehensible," she said, "it turns you into a bad person. It makes you do awful things for the sake of success."

"No argument here," Benny said.

"And the worst part is, anyone is susceptible, regardless of intention. You can just be pulled into it like an undercurrent grabbing seashells from the beach."

"That was a beautiful analogy," Benny remarked, making her giggle.

"I just wish..." Molly started to say, but stopped, causing Benny to open one eye and look down at her.

"You wish what?" he asked.

"I was gonna say I wish just one person would treat me right, but...now I have two who do, so I stopped," Molly said, "...hey Benny?"

"Yeah?"

"You wanna build a house?" she asked, and he smiled.

"Yeah," he said, nodding, grinning.

                                                                              ***

"We can stand here and talk about glass boxes and escapable cuffs all day," Mr. Magic said, "what it really comes down to, Miss Meers, is not how good you are at the misdirect, but how good the misdirect IS. There's a distinct difference. Now, for example, you can be the best at it, bar none, no rivals even close to your skill level. But if the misdirect isn't interesting enough to grab the attention of those around you, your skill level at it doesn't matter."

Mr. Magic and Allie were now sitting in the little asian soup place a few stores down for lunch. Allie lifted her spoon full of noodles to her mouth and slurped, as Mr. Magic added some soy sauce to his broth.

"Because," he continued, "and this is key...people are simple creatures. They'll look at anything. But there's a difference between grabbing their attention and keeping their attention. So you wanna get into this vault? You're gonna need a lot better than escapable cuffs and a glass box."

"Why are you even entertaining the idea of helping me?" Allie asked, and Mr. Magic smiled slyly as he leaned back in his booth.

"You want to hear a story, Allie?" he asked, as she nodded in response; he continued, "this is the story of a man named Rufus Heck, who became Mr. Magic, and how a politician used him as a scapegoat. That politician? The very same man your boss is in cahoots with."

"What were you doing involved with him?" Allie asked, confused.

"...let's just say that's part of the story," Mr. Magic replied, "so, once upon a time..."