Not a bad story! I always enjoy stories of magicians and I like theoretical physics/SciFi type of work. Nice job combing the two!

Just some quick tips:

Be weary of sentence structure. You have many run on/incomplete sentences. Your not so bad that I can't read the story, but it is definitely something to be conscience of.

Stray away from things "just happening." It creates an unrealistic feel. With fiction books, a reader has to be able to put themselves in unrealistic situations. If the unrealistic situations are unrealistic to actually happen, its hard to put yourself there. The part that jumps at me in particularly is when he gets the book. You said that there was no reason for him to notice the book, but he did. If there was no reason, then why did he? Its something that small and insignificant, so don't make something from nothing for no reason. A more realistic scenario would be that it jumped out at him because it DID have some particular draw to it.

One last thing: try to create some sort of drama, some sort of action and adventure that has a climax. Make some sort of conflict that needs to be resolved-----which you did, but there was no climax. Make it come and go, then peak. I find it harder to do with less words, but with 6,000 words for the twisted tales contest, that should be plenty!

Really liked the story. The strength of your story is the plot, the weakness is the lack of a climax, especially with the earlier foreshadowing.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .