Bora the Elaborate took me to the casino restaurant, the Full House Bar & Grill, where she got to eat for free! Maybe I should get into stage magic. We were met there by another woman, Kelly “Card” Sharp the Queen of Diamonds, who was also a magician. The fake kind, not like me.
Normally it doesn’t bother me at all being around pretty girls, but I felt huge and ugly sitting across from them. They were so petite and well dressed and had an air of being in control about them. I guess that comes from being on stage all the time. It didn’t help that they both ordered some kind of wraithlike salad that seemed to mostly be made of air while I was wolfing down the Jacks or Better half pound burger. And maybe a meatball sub as well.
They had both been trained by Miju Kim, the Mistress of Miracles, and she’s the one who had been trained my Royale. I don’t remember Royale mentioning that name, but he never did reveal much about himself and his past other than his stories about Bessie. I think I saw an old poster with the name Mistress of Miracles on it in Royale’s trunk.
Miju had been able to do “a little” real magic and she tried to teach Bora and Kelly but they couldn’t do it consistently or safely so they gave up. They told me that they were concerned about a friend of theirs.
This friend had been acting kind of strangely the past few months. This didn’t concern them too much at first, she’s a corporate power suit type and they’re stage performers. A college friendship based on the bond of playing basketball together is only going to take you so far.
They had gone on a “girl’s trip” to Cancun recently and noticed that this friend had a brand on her lower back that they thought they recognized as a sigil involving real magic. And not the good kind. When they asked her about it she dismissed as a tattoo she got on a lark. Working backwards Bora and Kelly felt that the timeline matches up to when she said she got it to when she went from normal friendship drifting apart to some strange behavior.
I told them I’d look into it. I should have also said that whenever I do something like this it’s a disaster and they shouldn’t expect anything. But I didn’t. I wanted them to like me. Which is not normal.
Rocket Cat 