Someone giggled. Jack tried varying the pattern a little; someone giggled again. He stole a glance away from the flying fruit, wondering what he was doing that was so funny.

The audience wasn't looking at him. They were looking behind him.

And all the children were giggling now.

Carefully, keeping his eyes mostly on his juggling, Jack threw a quick glance to each side. Preenoffneoff was nowhere to be seen. Could he be coming up behind Jack? With a serving knife from the table, maybe?

A drop of sweat trickled down his back. He hadn't been invited here, after all. He'd crashed this ceremony, and there were plenty of species in the Orion Arm who would consider that a good enough reason to cut such an intruder into fish food. Some of those species might even laugh and applaud and giggle while it was being done.

Did the Wistawki think that way? He didn't have the foggiest idea. More to the point, did Preenoffneoff think that way? He didn't know that, either.

All he knew was that the giggling was getting louder, and that the adults were smiling, too. Keeping the fruit in the air, wondering how fast he could go for his tangler if he had to, he turned his head quickly to the right.

It wasn't far enough to see what was behind him. But it was far enough to spot Preenoffneoff standing by the balcony door. He wasn't moving toward Jack, and there was certainly no knife or other weapon in his hand. And like the other adults, he was smiling.

Jack focused back on his juggling, thoroughly confused now. Could there be another Wistawk back there? The drunk from the balcony, maybe? Probably not.

Then how about a Wistawk sneaking up on him from the left?

That was possible. Again, Jack twisted his head quickly to the side, this time to his left.

Again, it wasn't far enough to see directly behind him. But again, there was no threat anywhere that direction that he could see.

So what were they all giggling at?

He'd tried to play it subtle; but there was nothing for it now but to go obvious. Slowly, still keeping the fruit circling through the air in front of him, he turned around.

Draycos was lying on his back on the floor between Jack and the table, his neck and tail curled upward like a mismatched set of parentheses, busily juggling five of the apples back and forth between his four paws.

Jack let out a quiet huff of relief. So no one was trying to murder him, after all.

A second later, the relief vanished, rolled over by a flood of annoyance. What did Draycos think he was doing, upstaging him that way? How dare he?

He let his hands come to a halt, catching the pieces of fruit as they fell, and stood there glaring at the dragon. What was he going to do, he wondered desperately, now that Draycos had ruined his act?

Draycos kept juggling another couple of seconds, then suddenly seemed to realize that Jack was watching him. Letting out a guilty squeak, he quickly stopped, catching one of the apples in each paw.

The fifth apple was still soaring high overhead. Arching his neck, he caught it neatly in his teeth.

Behind Jack came a clatter of the finger-snapping that was the Wistawki version of applause. Draycos held his pose, blinking at Jack like a kid caught raiding the cookie jar.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Jack realized the dragon hadn't ruined the act at all. In fact, he'd made it far better than anything Jack could ever have come up with on his own.

With a flourish, he turned back to face the Wistawki. "My amazing electromechanical assistant Draycos," he announced, waving a hand back at Draycos. He stepped back to the table and returned his borrowed fruit to the plate, then turned to Draycos and gave a slight nod.

Draycos understood. One at a time, in rapid succession, he tossed Jack the apples he was holding in his paws. Jack caught each in his left hand, tossed it in turn to his right hand and set it back on the plate.

Last, Draycos spat him the fifth apple. Jack caught it and stopped, reacting as if it was wet with saliva. He looked closely at it, made an exaggerated yucky face that got him more giggles from the whelps, and tossed it back to Draycos. The dragon caught it in his mouth, bounced it around to each of his paws, then tossed it back to his mouth. A flash of sharp teeth, and the apple was gone.

"My amazing electromechanical assistant Draycos must have skipped lunch," Jack said dryly over the finger-snapping applause. "Now, who's got that deck of cards?"

Chapter 14

The show, in Jack's humble opinion, was a smashing success.

He'd never done a real magic show before, but it was almost as if his whole life had been spent training for one. Most of the tricks he performed were ones Uncle Virgil had taught him, either for scamming money on the streets when he was a little kid, or more recently as distractions for cons the two of them had worked together. Uncle Virgil had taught him sleight of hand, too, both for use in scams and also as dexterity exercises for his safecracking and pickpocket training.

And of course, the glib patter nearly every magician used to talk up the audience was pure con artist. It was like he was back to his old life again. Almost as if he'd never left it.

The only difference was that this time the audience would be giving him money voluntarily instead of him stealing it from them. When Uncle Virge had urged him to remember his training, this probably wasn't what he'd had in mind.

Still, the biggest surprise of the evening, at least to him, was Draycos. From that first bit of scene-stealing juggling, the dragon slid naturally into the role of the magician's smart-alecky assistant.

He played the role beautifully, too. Even when Jack's tricks weren't all that impressive, Draycos's inspired clowning in the background more than made up for it.

It was the last thing he would have expected from a dignified, noble warrior of the K'da. Uncle Virge would never believe it.

They ran the show for nearly an hour before Jack decided it was time for the grand finale. By this time, hopefully, Raven would have moved the search for him to some other part of the city. Depending on what the Wistawki paid for the show, he and Draycos ought to be able to hire a transport to get them to the backwater spaceport on Aldershot where the Essenay would hopefully be waiting for them.

"And now, my friends, one final bit of magic for your amusement," Jack told them, slipping off his jacket and holding it out in front of him. "An ordinary coat, as you can see."

He flipped it around, letting them see both the inside and the outside. "I will now ask my amazing electromechanical assistant Draycos to come stand in front of me," he went on, hanging the jacket spread out in front of him in a two-handed grip—

Obediently, Draycos stepped in front of him, staying behind the jacket. Hopping up on his hind legs, he stretched his body up between Jack's outstretched arms, resting his front paws on the top of the jacket. Jack couldn't see what he was doing with his face as he peered over the jacket, but the whelps were giggling again.

"I thank you for your time and your attention and your courtesy," he said, bowing to the room. The movement made the jacket bob up and down; Draycos bobbed right along with it. "Unfortunately," he continued in a sterner voice, "I can't say as much for my amazing electromechanical assistant Draycos. Draycos, you have been decidedly disrespectful to me tonight."

Draycos leaned his head straight back so that his face was upside down to Jack's. "I?" he asked.

"Yes, you," Jack said firmly. "And that last trick was the final straw. I'm afraid I'm going to have to fire you."

There were yips of protest from the whelps. "No, no, I've made up my mind," Jack told them. "Draycos can no longer be my assistant. And when a magician fires an assistant, where do you suppose that assistant goes?"