Magic Is Real

By Alasse Fefalas

Eve walked into the Annex and saw Flynn bending over the Clippings Book. "So! What do we have today?"

Flynn straightened his back and turned to her, a smile on his face. "I think a street magician's accidentally using magic in his tricks."

Eve frowned. "Accidentally?"

"Oh, you know. Like setting things on fire without actually intending to do so." Flynn took his bag from the table and slung it across his chest. He ran over to the Back Door, inputted the coordinates for their destination and gave the globe a spin.

"That just sounds like a trick gone wrong," Eve said skeptically as she speed-read the articles and pulled her jacket on.

"Ah, but not when the fire takes the shape of an animal," grinned Flynn. The Back Door glowed and Flynn pulled the doors open. "Shall we go find ourselves a magician?"

Eve pulled a face and jumped through the portal after the Librarian. They exited out a shop door, onto a busy street. Walking down the street beside him, she sighed. "Why did it have to be a magician?"

Flynn gave her an amused look. "Why? You don't like magicians?"

"They're just tricksters using deception and sleight of hand to give you the illusion of magic. It's not real." Eve shook her head. "The only real thing thing about it is that it's real annoying." A man in a grey hoodie suddenly came up to her left and tapped her on the shoulder. Eve stopped and turned to him. "Yes?"

The man cleared his throat awkwardly. "Sorry, but I couldn't help overhear that you don't believe in magic."

Eve raised an eyebrow. "I never said that."

"Well, you said magic isn't real. It's nearly the same thing," he rebutted. He pulled his hood down and gave her a charming smile. His short brown hair was mussed up from his hoodie, a part of his fringe shadowing his green eyes. He stuck out a hand clad in a black fingerless glove. "I'm Sam. Street magician."

Flynn immediately grabbed Sam's hand and shook it. "Flynn Carsen. Librarian." He glanced at Eve, who shrugged and stepped aside to let him take over. "So, you're a street magician?"

Sam gave Flynn an annoyed look before nodding. "Yeah. Or, what your friend there might call, a trickster," he said, grinning at Eve. "Magic's real, babe. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Eve crossed her arms but said nothing. Flynn cleared his throat loudly to get Sam's attention back to him. "So, do you know where we can find Il Fuoco?"

"Il Fuoco? Oh yeah, dude, sure." Sam grinned at them and pointed at himself. "I'm Il Fuoco."

Eve rolled her eyes. "You're 'The Fire'?"

Smirking, Sam held out an upturned gloved hand. A small fire suddenly lit up in his palm, surprising both Librarian and Guardian. "Abracadabra."

"Whoa, is that..." Flynn started to reach out for the flame but Sam immediately closed his palm, extinguishing it.

"Sorry, bro. It's a real fire so I can't let you touch it." He looked at Eve and winked. "I know, I'm hot stuff."

"Oh, please," she groaned.

"So!" Flynn said loudly. "You're Il Fuoco! Great! I was looking for you. I, uh, wanted to write about you."

"Oh yeah? Aren't you a Librarian though?"

Flynn nodded quickly. "Yes! I am, but the Library was thinking of having a showcase of magicians. We heard a lot about Il Fuoco, so I was thinking of adding you to the write up!"

Sam's gave him a smug look. "Fire's just what I mainly do but I do other things too. You know, common magic stuff. Stuff like card magic, making stuff appear in your pocket."

"Oh, but we're more interested in your fire magic. See, people I know told me about your fire appearing in the shape of animals!" Flynn said excitedly. "How do you do that?!"

Sam looked from Flynn to Eve. His smile faltered slightly before returning back to his smug look. "Well, magic, of course," he said simply. He clapped his hands and quickly shook Flynn's hand. "Well, it was nice chatting with you guys, but I have to go."

He turned and started walking away briskly but Eve grabbed his hood and pulled him back. She gave him a smile that didn't extend to her eyes. "Well, trickster man, how about you take a look at my wallet you picked off me and see what it says inside?"

Sam's face paled. He quickly pulled Eve's wallet out of his hoodie pocket and opened it, balking at her credentials. "Colonel...! I swear, I'm not a terrorist! I'm just a magician!"

"Who's probably using real magic," she said cooly as she grabbed her wallet out of his hands. "Alakazam, jackass."

Sam shook his head violently. "It's not real magic! It's just a trick, like you said!"

Flynn took Sam's gloved hand and examined it. "It's the gloves that's making the fire. So what's making the fire come to life?"

"Ok, this might sound crazy but I swear, dude. It's magic. Actual magic." Sam looked at Flynn, his eyes wild in terror. "Look, my fire's just a trick but whenever I read that book before I do a show, it just comes to life, man! And it's amazing! I'm not kidding."

Eve frowned. "Book? What book?"

Sam shrugged. "Some book on fire magic that I found at a thrift store. It was only five bucks so I thought, what the hell. It might give me a few ideas to spice up my show, you know. But man! That book!" He whistled and gave Eve a suggestive look. "It made me on fire! Literally!"

"That's... not... how you use that word," Flynn said, frowning.

Eve rolled her eyes at him. "Really, Flynn? Now's not really the time to correct his English.

He gave her a sheepish look. "Sorry." Turning back to the street magician, he asked, "so... where's this book?"

Sam shook his head. "Nuh-uh. I ain't handing it to you, bro. Sorry but that's my meal ticket."

"And your meal includes burning streets and sending people to the hospital with second-degree burns?" Eve narrowed her eyes at him. "Look at it this way: either you hand the book over to us, or you can come with me to HQ and we'll investigate you for terrorism. Which would you prefer?"

Sam paled. "Okay! I'll hand you the book!"

"Great!" Flynn said happily as Eve released Sam's hood. He patted Sam's shoulder and added, "oh, and don't try to run. You wouldn't like Colonel Baird when she's angry."

Gulping, Sam nodded and led the way, Flynn and Eve following closely behind him. When they got to small apartment, they stood in the messy living room that was littered with empty food packets and cans of beer strewn all over the floor. Sam put away a half-eaten packet of food and handed the book under it to Flynn.

"This is it," he said.

Flynn flipped through the book. "It's in Italian."

Sam shrugged. "Where do you think I got the name from? Mum's Italian. Ain't that hard a language to pick up."

"Thank you," nodded Flynn, "for cooperating."

The magician glared at Eve. "Well it was either this, or get my ass dragged down for questioning."

Eve held his glare. "I never said questioning," she said. "Also, I never said I didn't believe in magic. I said your kind of magic isn't real. It's just tricks." Eve took Flynn's hand as they walked towards the front door. "See you around, Il Fuoco. Don't go burning streets down again."

"Magic's real, you know!" Sam called out.

Eve winked at him as she walked through the door. "I know."

Eve found herself in Annex main room, having entered through one of the side doors near the shelves. Flynn was chuckling as he kissed the back of her hand. "What?" She asked.

"You were totally enjoying yourself teasing that kid, weren't you?"

Eve shrugged. "Like I said, I don't like magicians."

"And he stole your wallet," he grinned.

"Yes, and he stole my wallet and didn't think I didn't know."

"You've been spending too much time with Ezekiel Jones." Laughing, Flynn placed the book on Jenkins' table. Turning to Eve, he hesitated before asking her, "so, umm, you still have your NATO card in your wallet?"

Eve shrugged. "It's more intimidating when people see 'NATO' in your wallet than 'Metropolitan Public Library'. I mean, the card you gave us is lovely, but not really all that useful."

"Oh, okay," Flynn nodded, his tone a little sad.

Eve took his hands and placed them around her back. She reached up and entwined her own behind his neck. "Look, just because I use it doesn't mean I'm hoping to go back any time soon. My place is here with you and the other Librarians now." She kissed him softly on his lips. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Do you miss it though?" he asked quietly.

"The what? Running around, saving people from threats they never even knew existed?" she laughed. "Don't worry, I get plenty of that here."

"Good, because I don't want you to be getting bored or anything around here," he teased. Flynn pulled her close and placed his lips on hers kissing her until her toes curled.

"With you?" she breathed as she pulled away. "Definitely not."

Fin.

A/N: This was written for -hailmulders on tumblr! Thank you for the prompt! I loved it! And I couldn't help but to sneak Evlynn in there as well... it was the shipper in me. Hehe. Tell me what you think! Thank you for reading!