Jack Carr knows a thing or two about escape. He has been shuttled from foster home to group home to foster home his entire life. The only constant has been his interest in magic, especially handcuff tricks like those mastered by his hero, Harry Houdini. But none of his experiences could prepare him for what's in store in the Forest of the Dead.
Jack is tricked by the powerful underworld magician Mussini into performing in his traveling magic show. To find his way back to the living, Jack will have the help of Mussini's other "minions"—kids stolen just like Jack—and his wits, nothing more. Can he follow the example of his hero, Houdini, and escape the inescapable?
The boy wove through the crowds of the carnival, shoving his way to the sideshow tents. Darkened pathways swarmed with fire-eaters, sword-swallowers, and contortionists, but the boy would not be tempted from his mission to see the legendary and most feared of them all: the Amazing Mussini.
Whispers pulsed around the tent like the lightning bugs filling the dark summer sky with tiny bursts of light. The line quickly thinned; the boy's body tingled as an Asian girl, her neck covered in tattoos, escorted him to Mussini. He stumbled toward the great magician. His throat tightened as he made his request, eyes heavy with awe.
"I've come to hear the secret."
The magician waved him closer.
Mussini grinned from under his black top hat. He offered the boy a deal, for the secret he wanted to hear was the most expensive of them all. The boy tried to steady his hand as he signed the contract. Thick ink oozed from the tip of the pen like tar or blood. The aged paper, cool to the touch, held the sour stench of death. The boy squinted at the contract, the words swirling fast—a contract on his soul to be collected in fifty years, time to enjoy his secret, time before Mussini would return and collect his price.
A dark web of words spooled from Mussini's lips. The boy stared into the black pools of his eyes, caught in the ebb and flow of his voice. And when the story was over, the secret told, only then did the boy realize what he had done. The mistake fresh in his mind, the boy pleaded for mercy. But the magician roared with laughter, his contract ironclad. No room for second chances. The raucous crowd around Mussini drifted toward the boy. Fearing for his life, he burst out of the tent.
The night rang in his ears; the air stung his lungs. A sudden burning on his flesh brought him to his knees—a tattoo appeared on his wrist, the mark of the magician himself. Mussini. It was then, through the pain and fear, the boy decided he would study the strange ways of the magician, learning everything he could about the world, science, stars, and magic, anything to combat the wicked curse laid upon him.
The only thing the boy was sure of, clutching his wrist, was that when Mussini came back in fifty years, the soul he took would not be his.
