The establishment selling conjuring tricks stood behind a carved wooden canopy. Its glass doors revealed only the bare outlines of the gloomy interior. Black velvet curtains were draped across showcases displaying masks and Victorian-style apparatus: marked packs of cards, weighted daggers, books on magic, and bottles of polished glass containing a rainbow of liquids labeled in Latin and probably bottled in Albacete. The bell tinkled as I came through the door. An empty counter stood at the far end of the shop. I waited a few seconds, examining the collection of curiosities. I was searching for my face in a mirror that reflected everything in the shop except me, when I glimpsed, out of the corner of my eye, a small figure peeping round the curtain of the back room. “An interesting trick, don’t you think?” said the little man. I nodded. “How does it work?” “I don’t yet know. It arrived a few days ago from a manufacturer of trick mirrors in Constantinople. The creator calls it refractory inversion.”
