The Mysterious Mirabilus smiled, and gave a slight bow. "The one and only."

Christopher Valentine, AKA "The Mysterious Mirabilus," was the world's most famous magician-and debunker. Technically he was what real practitioners called an illusionist-someone who simulated magic through nonmagical means-but this Einstein- haired "illusionist" could do without magic things that most experienced sorcerers couldn't do with magic. I mean, showy, big league stuff like walking on water, parting a small lake, and, most famously, appearing in two places at once, a trick he'd demonstrated on TV's famous talk show way back when, The Night Shift with Jack Carterson.

I'd caught that one live. As a child, before I was old enough to know stage magic from real Magick, the Mysterious Mirabilus had been my hero, and I'd stayed up countless nights to catch his appearances performing his latest trick. By the time I grew older and had turned to real magic, the Miraculus Mirabilus had come out as Christopher Heywood Valentine, stage magician, and had turned his considerable talents to debunking what he considered "the flim- flammery of our age." He traveled the country, issuing the Valentine Challenge to all magicians: to do a magic trick he couldn't replicate under controlled conditions.