After a famous stage magician dies performing a dangerous trick, Micki, Ryan, and Jack learn he’d bought a cursed antique: a pair of magician’s boxes created by the legendary Houdin. The boxes let someone in the main cabinet survive any death-defying illusion, because the damage is transferred to whoever is trapped in the hidden second box. With the antique now in the hands of another performer at a magic competition, Jack revives his old stage persona “Mad Marshak” and enters the contest to find out who’s using the deadly prop.
The investigation leads the trio to The Great Montarro and his crew. The villain using the Houdin boxes turns out to be Lyla, who’s been sacrificing victims to make the act work, while her partner Harvey Ringwald ultimately dies by his own rigged illusion. The cursed Houdin Box is recovered by the end of the episode. The case also reveals Jack’s past as a stage magician, a detail foreshadowed in the previous Halloween episode.
