Your Magic Show, My Eternal Farewell

Until she turned twenty-four, Nina Shaw had never known what it meant to want something she couldn't have.

As the Shaw family's only daughter and Summerbank's most sought-after socialite, she had enough admirers to form a line stretching across the whole city. Whatever she wanted, someone would find a way to put it in her hands before she even had to ask.

Then she met Ian Xavier.

She was sitting in the front row of the VIP section at his magic show when the spotlight fell on him. His long, slender fingers moved effortlessly through the air, and suddenly, snow began drifting down from above the stage. The entire audience held its breath, but Nina barely noticed the spectacle. She couldn't take her eyes off his.

After the show, she went backstage and handed him her business card.

"Ian Xavier, right? I'm Nina Shaw, and I've got my eye on you."

Ian didn't take the card. "Who are you?"

The next morning, the largest LED billboard on the continent flashed the same sentence all day long:

IAN XAVIER, MY NAME'S NINA SHAW.

By evening rush hour, traffic downtown was backed up for nearly two miles. Social media exploded, the story broke into the top ten trending topics, and reporters descended on the theater, crowding around Ian with cameras and telephoto lenses.

Tickets for his show that night sold out in three minutes.

On the third day, Nina drove two hours to the theater to wait for him after work, only for him to slip out through the back entrance.

On the fourth, she bought a magic prop he'd wanted for years and had someone deliver it to him. He sent it back with a note.

"Ms. Shaw, please don't do this."

Nina tucked the note into a drawer, smiling so widely that her eyes crinkled.

Three months later, Ian's mother fell gravely ill, and he couldn't scrape together enough money to cover her hospital bills. Nina stepped in and paid 40,000 toward the cost.

Ian came looking for her that night. He stood outside the gates of the Shaw estate, soaked to the skin by the rain.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I like you."

He was silent for a long time before finally speaking. "Nina, I'm not good enough for you."

Nina didn't understand what he meant. All she knew was that he'd finally said yes.

On their wedding day, Ian designed a magic act just for her. With Nina standing at center stage, he snapped his fingers, and her wedding gown transformed from pure white to deep crimson, then from crimson to shimmering gold.

Gasps swept through the room. Nina looked down at the flowers blooming across the hem of her dress, and when she raised her head, Ian was on one knee before her, holding out a ring.

Married life brought a thousand little gestures that made her feel loved.

Once, she casually mentioned craving the sausage biscuits from a little shop near the old mansion she remembered from childhood. The next morning, a box of them was waiting on the breakfast table. Ian had gotten them for her.

Whenever she worked late, he waited outside to take her home, even if she didn't finish until two in the morning. One December night, with the temperature in Summerbank down to twenty-eight degrees, he arrived and immediately wrapped his down jacket around her. Left in nothing but a thin sweater, he shivered uncontrollably in the cold.

And he never bought her anniversary gifts. He made them himself.

For their first anniversary, he built a music box with miniature figures of the two of them inside. When she opened the lid, a tiny Ian performed magic tricks while a tiny Nina stood beside him, smiling.

For their second, he made her a lamp that projected a sky full of stars across the ceiling. The constellations matched the exact arrangement of the stars on the day she was born.

There was only one thing Ian refused to do: accompany her to social events.

He wouldn't attend the Shaw family's parties. Whenever Nina tried to persuade him, he'd say, "Those people in your family look at me like I'm some kind of performing monkey."

He wouldn't go to gatherings with her friends, either. She assured him they were all young people, but he always had the same response. "Your friends drive cars that cost more than I'll earn in my entire life."

Even taking a picture together was a struggle. Once, when Nina wanted to post a photo of them on social media, he pulled his hand away.

"Don't. You're a rich girl who married a guy who does magic tricks for a living. How embarrassing."

Nina froze. She was about to say something, but Ian had already turned and walked into the kitchen.

Then Willa Sutton came into their lives.

Willa was Ian's childhood friend. She had come to Summerbank looking for work and had nowhere to stay, so Ian invited her to move into their guest room.

"It's only for a few days," he assured Nina.

Nina didn't object. It was just a guest room, and she wasn't petty enough to make a fuss over that.

But a few days turned into something else entirely.

When Willa mentioned craving the chicken noodle soup she used to eat back home, Ian rode his scooter for an hour to a little restaurant on the outskirts of the city. The round trip took two hours, yet the soup was still warm when he carried it to her bedside.

When Willa said she missed her family, Ian went to the train station the very next day to pick up her parents. He rented them an apartment nearby and paid six months' rent in advance.

And when Willa caught a cold, he canceled three performances and stayed with her at the hospital for two days and two nights.

That night, Nina sat in the living room waiting for him. It was one in the morning when the front door finally opened.

"Ian." She looked straight at him. "Either she leaves, or you both get the hell out. Your choice."

On the day Willa moved out, she stood in the doorway with tears in her eyes, looking at Ian. He never raised his head.

Nina thought that was the end of it. She believed their marriage could finally return to normal.

Until today.

It was their third wedding anniversary, and Nina had gone to the theater hoping to surprise her husband. When she pushed open the backstage door, crew members were bustling around, preparing for the show.

Ian was sitting at his makeup station, and Willa was standing right beside him.

She was dressed as his stage assistant, handing him props while they stood close together, laughing and chatting as if nothing had ever happened.

Ian glanced at Nina through the mirror but said nothing.

When the performance began, Nina took a seat in the audience.

From there, she watched Willa hand Ian his props, watched him smile at her in the middle of his tricks, and watched the two of them work together with flawless coordination.

The final act was a water-tank escape.

Willa was locked inside the tank, and the water rose until it covered her head. Ian began the countdown.

But the ropes didn't come loose.

Willa started struggling underwater, twisting desperately against her restraints. Gasps broke out across the audience as Ian rushed toward the tank and began pounding on the glass like a man possessed.

His fists struck again and again until the glass finally shattered. Blood mingled with the spilling water as he dragged Willa free, gathered her into his arms, and ran toward the backstage area.

"Call an ambulance!" he roared.

Nina remained in her seat, watching until he disappeared into the wings.

Suddenly, she remembered another night in this very theater, three years earlier. She had been sitting in the front row then, too, watching Ian conjure a snowfall out of thin air.

Back then, she'd pursued him with such determination that the whole city had been talking about it. She'd truly believed that if she wanted something badly enough and fought hard enough to get it, nothing could ever be beyond her reach.

Now she sat alone in the theater, long after the audience had gone and the lights had been turned off.

Only then did she take out her phone.

"Carter, draw up the divorce papers and have them delivered to my house."