The Tenth Rule: "Magic is madness."

"Jack?" I said.

"Oh yes," he said. "I've been nimble and I've been quick. I've killed giants and I've climbed beanstalks. I've built a house and eaten a pie and even worn springs on my heels. I've haunted lonely roads and robbed from the rich and paraded down the street wearing plants. I've been so many things to so many people, but I'm still just Jack." He grinned and it was like a shark standing before a minnow.

"And what do you want?" I asked.

"Oh, young Tom Keller asking me what I want?" he said. "How ironic. Young Tom Keller, who wanted to be a magician since he was six. Who wanted to be a magician so badly, but was never really any good at it. Who would put on magic shows that nobody would attend, who would try so hard to perform just one trick right and then get it all wrong. Who finally gave up one day and decided to be a bartender instead."

"How did you-" I almost asked before stopping myself. Stupid question.

He smiled and answered anyway: "Because I chose you, Tom. Because you are the perfect person to learn magic. Magic, as I've said before, requires a mind on the edge, a mind teetering, just waiting for a strong gust of wind to push it off the cliffs of insanity. Because magic is madness!"

"You're crazy," I said.

"Didn't I just say that?" Jack said. "What if I told you that everything you experience tonight wasn't real? That magic was just a sham?"

"I wouldn't believe you," I said. "Everything I've seen-"

"Everything you've seen?" Jack said. "Everything you've seen is nothing. Everything you've seen is a product of your fevered imagination. Just think: we've been talking for hours and hours, right?"

"Yes," I said.

"So why hasn't the sun come up?"

I looked up. The moon still shown brightly, no sign of the sun. But when I closed the bar, it was perhaps one am and now... I looked at my watch and found that it had stopped, stopped before the bar had closed. Perhaps it had stopped when I met Jack.

"Maybe it did," Jack said, reading my mind. "Or maybe you're in a rubber room somewhere, with your eyes tightly closed, imagining this whole scene."

"No," I said. "It's real. It happened. You can't trick me."

"Trick? Me?" Jack laughed. "Trick or treat. My trick was your treat. Didn't you enjoy it all? Didn't you love believing that magic was real?"

"It is real," I said.

"I never said it wasn't," Jack said. "But magic is fickle. Magic doesn't like being exposed. So, like any good magician, you can't tell anyone about it. They would lock you up in the looney bin! Because, of course, you are crazy. Talking about magic and everything."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"To prove a point," he said. "Magic is madness. Only those who are mad can do magic. Because only they can see the magic, because the magic only exists to them. They see the world through a different eye. Don't you, Tom?"

"I'm not mad," I said.

"Oh," Jack said, "we're all mad here."