[previously]

Once, a long time ago, he’d taken a summer camp on magic. Well, the summer camp had been through a local nonprofit charity; the theme one week had been magic tricks. At the time he’d never dreamed one day he’d be able to do much more significant magic, much realer magic, but… who ever did? (Who ever was in their right mind and dreamed of that: a better question.) Now, two weeks from permanent summer vacation from school, he found himself sitting on a comet learning card tricks. Tonight, he’d return to Earth and give up everything he’d ever known for a new chance at life, but tonight…

He shuffled the cards, and dropped a good twenty of them. Some people were naturals with the more complicated shuffling techniques outlined in the book at Paul’s knee, but he sure wasn’t one of them by any definition of the word; instead, he had to practice. It wasn’t an idea foreign to him. Practice got you anywhere worth going--to a mastery of the piano, of tai chi, of ripping someone’s soul out in crystal form. He wondered if Megiddo would mind if he kept the book of card tricks.

One thing he’d never managed to pin down was what the transformation was like. Corruption, and upgrading through Chaos, was painful. It defied description, being waves of pure pain forced through a starseed not meant for it. If anything, he’d say it was the sick, bone-deep pain of a migraine, spread through one’s whole body. Yes, like the stabbing pains he got in his head sometimes after too long awake or too long studying or too long without henshining. Like that, but all over his body, emanating from the center of his chest. Others described it as burning, but that seemed too genteel a term for what corruption felt like. Would purification be like that, he wondered, or a release--like the removal of a cast from a broken limb?

The cards shuffled neatly, Paul dealt them out in a four-by-four grid, gathered them up by column and dealt them again. His card--the Ace of Hearts--was exactly where the book said it would likely show up. At least he was doing that right.

If he came out the other side of Princess Iris’s purifying power with his memories as Spinel, he would remember none of this. Not the magic tricks or the time spent on Gunn with Finn. He’d remember Babylon. He’d remember Avalon, and murdering Shay, and those two senshi. All well enough, except--except--except Shay’s name, her face, the particular gesture of hands grasping the neck of a cello and the delicate hold of the bow, would all lose their meaning. How her brows furrowed when she contemplated a difficult piece of music. She’d snap her gum when upset. She would mean nothing to him anymore. Nor would his family. Nor would Tallulah. He’d forget the way his mother’s voice sounded as she sang accompaniment to Shay’s cello and his own piano. The tortured sounds Raleigh drew out of his flute would be gone, too. And Tallulah, Tallulah tucking her hair up into that stupid star clip he loved to hate. He always unclipped it whenever they were alone, it just got in the way of tangling his hands in her beautiful silken hair--

But worse would be remembering Paul. If he remembered those things, but forgot what he knew about Shay. If he remembered those things, and could not have them. If he had to wait and wonder what had happened to her, where she had gone, if she was hurt or alone where she was… If he had to stand away and watch Raleigh and his mother mourn Paul too, if he had to see Tallulah going to her physical therapy without him there beside her, that would be the purest torture. Even Avalon’s games would pale beside that. He’d have Babylon--after days trapped with Finn Derouen as his only society, he knew that he would always have Babylon--but he’d have very little else.

Gunn, maybe.

He blinked away tears, smothered laughter, and gathered up the cards by diagonals to deal them out in four-petaled flowers. The trick worked, because of course it did. Practice made perfect, as usual. He tilted his head back, blinked back tears. Darkness fell early on Gunn, around two in the afternoon from Earth time. It was… nice.

Just like the card trick, he’d have to practice being whoever he was after tonight. Spinel or Paul or whoever walked out of that, no matter how much it hurt. He could do that. He’d reinvented himself before, and this time, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. Even if he could never step back into the shoes of Paul Wyndham, he could be someone new. Someone better. Someone who wasn’t a murderer.

Card tricks to life lessons. That was a ham-handed metaphor if he ever heard one.