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‘Why not?’

‘You have to soak up the atmosphere outside, get into the mood. And sometimes you might see band members wandering about.’

‘What band members? We’re going to see a magician.’

Kelly shrugged. ‘I don’t know, maybe one of the people they saw in half, or whatever. Woah, look at the guy with the grandma bike. I guess he didn’t get a ticket.’

A man holding onto the handlebars of a bike with an old-fashioned style basket was leaning close to the tall glass windows, trying to see inside. He looked vaguely familiar, but in the gloom outside it was difficult to make out his features. Just as they came up behind him, he jerked backwards, the bike almost knocking into them.

‘Hey, watch out, you nearly knocked into us,’ Kelly snapped, as the man put up a hand to apologise. With the theatre lights at his back, his face was in shadow, but Charlotte felt sure she knew him from somewhere.

‘Nice bike,’ Kelly said, giving a mean chuckle, clearly still feeling grumpy from her hangover. ‘I heard the fashion police have a warrant out for its arrest. Maybe Steamblack can make it disappear.’ She sniggered and nudged Charlotte, who tried to give the man an apologetic smile, but they were already past him, Kelly pushing her onwards. ‘Come on, Charlotte. We’ll be late.’

‘That was mean,’ Charlotte muttered as they reached the main doors, glancing back at the man, who had turned to watch them. Side on, his face caught the light, and she recognised him now as the man who had talked to her at the tearoom where she was going to hold Grandma’s wake tomorrow. She would have to remember to apologise on Kelly’s behalf.

‘He’ll live,’ Kelly said. ‘Unlike us, if he’d hit us with that bike. He nearly kneecapped me. Oh. My. God. There he is. Wow, he’s so huge.’

Kelly was pushing through the doors, one hand pulling Charlotte by the wrist. It felt good to be inside the lobby, even if the sanitised warmth lacked any of the natural romanticism that Charlotte liked about Sycamore Park.

Like a modern vampiric caricature, James Steamblack stood in front of them, easily a foot taller than either of them, the top hat making him seem even bigger. The cape billowed out around him, wide enough that he could have enveloped them both.

‘Welcome,’ he said, green eyes flaring, a mischievous smile on his lips. Charlotte stared up at him. She had to admit he was handsome, but in a terrifying, film-villain kind of way. ‘Welcome to the world of Steamblack. I’m honoured by your presence.’

He reached out gloved hands towards them. Through soft velvet, Charlotte felt the warmth of his palm. As she went to close her fingers over his, however, he suddenly tapped hard against her palm, and she felt something sharp. Looking down, she saw a hard-edged card had appeared out of nowhere. On it was written BACKSTAGE ACCESS.

‘I look forward to giving you both a guided tour when the show is over,’ he said, stepping back and giving his cape a flamboyant flourish. ‘Please wait by the side of the stage and show your access cards to my assistant. Now, please enjoy the show.’

He spun around. There was a popping sound, followed by a billow of smoke that seemed to come from inside his cloak. Charlotte stepped back, flapping it away with her hand, and the cloak dropped to the floor.

Where James Steamblack had been standing, there was nothing but a black velvet cape, lying in a pile on the floor.

‘Oh. My. God,’ Kelly said, then abruptly fainted into Charlotte’s arms.

With a plastic bag filled with ice cubes borrowed from the theatre’s small refreshments stand, Kelly was able to recover in time to take her seat next to Charlotte as the performance began. They weren’t quite in the front row as Kelly had claimed, but three rows back wasn’t bad, except that the two in front of them were filled with chattering journalists armed with notepads, who seemed intent on discussing every moment of each trick with their colleagues.

James Steamblack arrived on stage amidst a swirl of smoke against dramatic background music and flickering lights. A troupe of backing dancers performed an elaborate, almost tribal dance, before disappearing one by one. Charlotte might have been stunned, had one of the journalists in front of her not screamed, ‘You can see the trapdoor through the smoke!’ as the first dancer vanished seemingly into thin air.

Setting aside that she was watching obvious illusions, the show was impressive. Even Kelly, endlessly sceptical, whooped and cheered as Steamblack made a golden retriever appear out of a giant hat, pulled thirty feet of coloured flags out of his shoe, and then turned a watermelon into an orange, which he offered to one of the journalists in the front row.

By the time the curtain came down with Steamblack levitating ten feet over the stage and no ropes or wires visible, Charlotte felt both amazed and exhausted, and joined the rest of the crowd in a standing ovation. Then, as the curtain came up and Steamblack stepped out on to the edge of the stage, the crowd went even more wild.

With a smug grin, Steamblack soaked up the applause, then waved the crowd to silence. Waiting until you could literally hear a woman in the front row drop her ticket, Steamblack raised his arms and said, ‘Thank you, one and all, for being part of my first performance back on home soil. This, my dear friends, is just the start. The World of Illusions has come to put Brentwell on the map this Christmas. Each show will be more spectacular than the last, until the final performance, a live show outside of this theatre at the Sycamore Park Christmas festival on Christmas Eve, where I will do the impossible. I will make Father Christmas appear right here, in Brentwell.’

The crowd oohed and ahhed. Some people began to cheer. Charlotte said, ‘But that’s impossible, he’ll be—’

Kelly put a hand on her arm. ‘Not now, Charlotte. Let him have his moment.’

‘But Father Christmas—’

‘Shh!’

‘So I thank you again, for your warmest of welcomes. And I bid you all goodnight.’

A flash of smoke and a drum roll, and Steamblack was gone, vanishing into the air. After another cheer, most of the crowd began to file out. Kelly led Charlotte down to the front where they waited by the side of the stage along with a group of other people who had been offered a backstage tour. Charlotte continued to protest about the purported illusion planned for Christmas Eve, but Kelly pulled her aside and whispered, ‘Do you want to go backstage or not? It’s just a magic trick. He won’t really make Father Christmas appear.’

‘I hope not. All those kids who’ll miss out on presents—’

‘Charlotte, we’ll discuss it when we’re back in the car.’