"We've been requested to assist on a case." Hotch gaze was steely as he strode into the room, dropping a file in front of Reid and gesturing to the plasma. Their heads swivelled around, waiting for the details to pop up as Reid quickly scanned the reports.

"The unsub is targeting performers?" he mused. "Why have they requested us?"

"They want profilers to go undercover. They think this unsub makes contact with the victims before he kills them. A profiler should be able to narrow down the suspects by observing body language and behaviour."

Rossi smirked. "One problem with that. No offense guys, but I've heard you all sing and there's no way anybody is going to pay money to see that."

Reid was sipping at his coffee, tracing a finger over the map of the area. Hotch clapped a hand onto the younger man's shoulder, his mouth twitching as Reid looked up at him curiously. "Oh no, we don't need anyone to sing."

"Me?" squeaked Reid, face paling. "Hotch, I can't perform in front of people, real people. What would I possibly be able to put on a show about?"

Hotch waggled his fingers. "Magic."

.

.

"Mystic Thunder?"

"I'm not doing it." Reid carefully placed the pin into the map, biting at his lip as he considered the placement. "Stop suggesting stage names."

Morgan snorted, scrolling down the webpage on his phone. "The Prodigious Spencer? Ooh no, how about Spontaneously Sorcerous?"

Reid dropped the pushpin, making a strangled noise that had JJ looking up quickly to make sure he wasn't choking. "Where on earth are you getting these?" she asked Morgan incredulously. "That's ridiculous."

"Name generators," Morgan said, his eyes still locked on the phone. "Garcia helped, but you really don't want to know what she came up with."

Rossi blinked. "Why, what did she say?" There was a muffled thud under the table and Rossi jumped, quickly looking back down at the profile he was working on. Hotch glared around the table, his expression clearly telling them all to get back to work.

"It doesn't matter!" Reid squeaked, face flushing. "Do you know that when polled, more people admit to a fear of public speaking than dying? People would rather die than talk in front of a crowd, doesn't that tell you anything?

The phone rung shrilly. Hotch leaned over and tapped the speaker button, allowinh Garcia's voice to ring into the room. "Hello my lovelies, I have new information for you." She paused and they could almost hear her smiling over the line. "Also, some new suggestions for you, my wonderful Doctor Magician."

"Is Doctor Magician a suggestion?" asked Reid with a bemused expression at the exact moment Hotch growled, "Garcia."

"Sorry Sir, never again Sir. That wasn't my suggestion however Sir, I was actually leaning more towards Dominus Hex-"

Reid dropped his head against the whiteboard and groaned.

.

.

The woman was still wearing the dress she'd sung in the night before, her body posed carefully across her bed. Reid stared down into her blank brown eyes and swallowed heavily.

"Alicia Hart, aged twenty-three. She performed from eight pm to midnight last night at one of the more popular bars in town. Was last seen leaving the bar with two other women and a man. Are you okay?" Rossi's was watching Reid carefully, pen poised on his notepad.

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?" Reid avoided his gaze. He leaned down to run a gloved finger along the neckline of her dress.

"Because you feel guilty. You don't feel like you did enough to save her. Would you like me to continue? I can continue. Honestly, I could talk all day."

Reid stood abruptly, cutting off Rossi's monologue. "I'll do it."

Rossi placed a consoling hand onto the taller man's shoulder. "You'll be fine, kid. We'll all be there watching you every minute, no one will get near you."

His consoling words earned him a dubious look from his colleague. "Rossi, I'm not worried about the unsub."

.

.

Reid offered her the cards with a shaky smile. "Pick a hand. Card. Pick a card, I mean."

Emily snorted, taking one of the cards and quickly glancing at the suit. "You may need to work on your showmanship, Reid."

"You still need a stage name," Morgan added, holding his phone up with a face-splitting grin. "How about Bubbles?"

Reid gave him a pleading look. "Card tricks are terrible. Who does card tricks? No one wants to see card tricks."

"Don't do card tricks then," Hotch suggested, breaking his silence. "Your strength is in your mind. Use it."

Reid's eyes widened. "Oh!" he breathed, spinning on his heel and bolting out of the room. As soon as the door swung shut behind him, Morgan's grin vanished.

He turned to Hotch, his dark eyes worried. "What if this is a mistake? Can he handle this?"

Hotch leaned back in his chair and eyed his team, face calm. "I think that Reid can handle a lot more than we give him credit for. Just wait and see."

.

.

"Where's my Junior G-Man?" Garcia's face filled the screen as she leaned forward intently towards the webcam.

"Getting ready. They're due to start in an hour. Is everybody aware of where they're required to be throughout the show?" Hotch slipped an earwig in, fiddling with the microphone on his collar to hide it better from a casual observer. "Reid and JJ will both be wearing earwigs, so they can hear us, but they won't be able to return communication. Reid has a panic button on a pen but we'd all prefer he doesn't have to use it."

"JJ?" Garcia asked, eyebrows threading together. "Why is JJ with him?"

Morgan laughed softly, the humour not reaching his eyes. "He needed an assistant. And we're all happier knowing that he's not on his own."

"He's on a stage in front of three hundred people." Garcia frowned. "Are you getting all papa wolf on him, Morgan?"

"He's not going to be in front of us the whole night," Morgan grumbled, straightening his tie with a frustrated jerk. "Hotch says he needs to keep the act up, which means going backstage by himself, leaving an opening. And he's unarmed. Isn't anyone else concerned here?"

Rossi slapped Morgan hard on the back with a bark of laughter. "Only thing I'm concerned about is whether poor Reid is going to completely lose his head up there."

"Only thing I'm concerned about," Prentiss cut in from where she was carefully arranging a thigh holster to be hidden by her trouser leg, "Is what he's going to be wearing up there."

.

.

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea," Hotch mumbled out the corner of his mouth to Rossi. Rossi ran the stem of his wine glass through two fingers, wrinkling his nose at the non-alcoholic wine filling it. The room was filled with people, chatting and eating merrily, waiting for the show to begin.

"You don't think the unsub is here?" Rossi asked him. "Or have you, of all people, joined the 'Reid can't look after himself' club?"

"If the call was yours, would you have sent him up there?" Hotch casually ran his gaze across the room, making sure Morgan was in place in the upper galley, Prentiss stationed by the door dressed as an usher.

"Absolutely," Rossi replied. "Morgan is a classic alpha male, Hotch. He's smart, sure, but he looks at Reid and sees someone smaller than him, someone who needs protection. Which is fine for him, but not for you. If you see him like that, you can't trust him to do his job."

Hotch nodded, calm awareness settling over him. Reid could do this.

The lights snapped out suddenly, causing a chorus of hushed whispers. Hotch's hand twitched reflectively towards his hip as the stage lights flickered on, blue glow flickering oddly off the curtains.

"Your eyes can be deceived," a familiar voice rung out from around them. Rossi leaned back in his chair, a delighted expression appearing on his face, his eyes dancing around the audience. "Illusions are everywhere. Can you trust your mind?" A man appeared in the centre of the stage, stepping out from mid-air to a chorus of gasps from the audience.

It took Hotch a beat longer than it should have to recognise his youngest agent in the confident man standing in front of them, sharply dressed in an impeccable tightly tailored suit and purple tie, face partially covered in a glittering masquerade mask. "Holy shit, is that Reid?" crackled Morgan's voice in their ears. "I didn't recognise him with his tie on straight."

"Is magic real, or is that another illusion created by optical trickery?" Reid asked, striding forward and gesturing with his arm, flowers appearing out of nowhere in his hand. He tossed the flowers into the audience, spinning on one heel and moving back towards the centre of the stage. "In theory, it seems simple. Distract, divert… disappear." He vanished again.

"How did he do that?" Morgan crackled again, sounding enchanted. "Did you see that?"

Suddenly the audience turned, a startled smattering of applause beginning. Hotch turned his head and blinked as Reid leant calmly against the balustrade of the upper gallery, light making his eyes shine strangely. The man sitting next to him gave a yelp of shock, before laughing and clapping, grinning at him. Reid turned to the stranger and tilted his head. "Do you trust your mind?"

The man nodded, his mouth moving quickly. Reid took the man's arm and pulled him upright, leading him back towards the balustrade. Before Hotch's eyes could adjust, they were back on stage, the other people seated on the gallery leaning towards the spot where they had been standing, arms waving over the empty space.

A woman dressed similarly to Reid appeared on stage holding a chair, sliding it under the confused looking audience member and stepping back with a bow. Hotch smiled as the woman's blonde hair curtained forward over her face, recognising JJ even with the mask. As she straightened she tapped two fingers against her mouth, making a movement with her hand towards a man sitting close to the stage in a theatrical mockery of a kiss.

Hotch didn't even need to say anything, Emily's voice sounding instantly through the earwigs. "Moving over there now, I'll watch him."

Reid handed the man on the stage a microphone, striding around him in a quick half-circle, studying him intently. "Have you ever met me before?"

"No," the man stuttered nervously.

Reid laughed. "You could have said yes and I'd have let you go back to your seat. Two choices, you pick the boring one. Do you believe that I can read your mind?"

The man shifted, mouth twitching into a nervous grin. "No. Maybe. Not really."

"Your mind is an open book to me. You're single with two cats in a studio apartment. One a ginger, one a tabby, both given to you by your… sister. You're studying law, but you'd much prefer to be studying psychology. The mind intrigues you, you want to learn what makes it tick." He paused, waiting for the man to reply. When he responded with a dazed agreement to everything Reid had said, Reid leaned forward again. "Do you believe in hypnosis?"

Rossi sat straight upright in his chair. "Oooh. I knew this would be good."

.

.

Hotch's phone buzzed with the panic signal from Reid and they were all moving before he'd even checked the screen, knowing without looking that Morgan and Prentiss would be moments behind him.

They burst into the change room, guns ready and their words dying on their lips.

"Reid, how in the hell?" Morgan asked, lowering his gun and tilting his head to examine the scene.

Reid was leaning against the dresser, the man from before slumped on the floor in front of him, hands cuffed and mouth bound with what looked like a variety of colourful handkerchiefs. "A magician never reveals his secrets," he replied with a cheeky grin.