ARC: Shadowplay Page 5

  Danger had a way of finding him. A shark nearly devoured him off the coast of Northern Linde. He was kidnapped by bandits in Kymri. He was trapped in a landfall in Byssia. But he always managed to escape lasting harm.

  Ten years passed. He had grown from a sheltered boy to a wise man. The day arrived when he must return to the castle and accept his fate.

  Upon Prince Mael’s return, his younger sibling abdicated and Mael ruled as king, marrying a beautiful princess.

  Many years passed, and no harm befell him. King Mael became one of the most famous kings of Elladan history. He did not break. But he did bend. And when the colonies threatened war, he allowed them to secede. For that was how the prophecy was fulfilled – the Empire of the Archipelago broke into Ellada, Linde, Byssia, Northern Temne, Southern Temne, and Kymri. He lived happily ever after.

  Much of the political subtleties were lost on the children, but they delighted in the display of monsters and fighting and the happy ending. They clapped loudly and a man in a dark hood came around the crowd holding a puppet who asked the children for coins.

  “That was one of my favorite tales, growing up,” I said.

  “Really?” Drystan asked. “It always seemed like so much propaganda to me.”

  “I always liked the message of it. King Mael chose to see the world and learn from it. And Mael Snakewood stopped wars.”

  Drystan shrugged. “More like he delayed it.” That was so: Ellada had used the threat of Vestige to put the colonies under their rule again after King Mael died.

  “That’s true,” I conceded. It had been a game of back and forth for centuries. I didn’t think the former colonies would ever stand for being subjugated again. Ellada no longer had as much Vestige to use and it became an empty threat, and they knew it.

  At the corner of the square, a small man wearing a billboard proclaiming “LEAVES FOR ALL” shouted at passers-by as he shoved leaflets in their faces.

  “Are you tired of being cold and being hungry? Are you tired of the Twelve Trees of Nobility taking all the water and sunlight from us? Join the Foresters! Make a difference to Ellada!”

  The boy caught sight of us and stomped over, pushing a flyer into our hands. “Make a difference,” he whispered, impassioned. He trotted back to his stand and took up his place again.

  On the flyer, the stylized image of the man from my vision stared back at me. The man overlaid on the angry, shouting crowd. My breath hitched in my throat.

  “What’s wrong?” Drystan asked.

  “Who’s this?”

  “That’s Timur. The leader of the Foresters. No one ever sees him in person.”

  I shook my head and threw the flyer into a nearby bin.

  When we turned around, two policiers stood before us. For a moment, I gaped at them, with their dark, pressed uniforms, their shining brass buttons, the guns holstered nonchalantly at their sides.

  And then I remembered who I was supposed to be. The Glamour pressed against my sternum, buzzing softly.

  “Sun’s blessing,” I managed with a smile and a passable Temri accent.

  The policiers stared at me with a slight curl to their lips. It made me feel uncomfortable and small. I could barely breathe. They didn’t seem to recognize me or Drystan. I schooled my face into blank, polite interest.

  “Can we help you, gentlemen?” Drystan asked in that same, bland politeness.

  “No, I don’t believe so,” one said, genially enough, but still they lingered. My forehead dampened with sweat.

  “Well, good day to you, sirs,” I said, nodding and smiling at them, though I avoided eye contact with them. They nodded back and bid us good morning, but they trailed us as we made our way across the square. We pretended to peruse the window of a second-hand bookstore.

  “They know. They know!” I hissed under my breath.

  “No,” Drystan said, his voice sad. He still kept the Temnian accent, just in case, and I made sure to do the same. When we left the square, they tailed off.

  “They thought we were Temnian,” Drystan said. “The disguise worked too well.”

  Relief flared for the briefest of moments before it clicked into place. We looked Temnian. We looked foreign. And many distrusted those who were not born on Elladan soil. “Those bastards. We weren’t doing a thing.”“They’d probably do the same to anyone they thought was Byssian or Kymri, too.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel any better.” Even as a runaway policiers hadn’t looked at me with such scorn. And as Iphigenia Laurus, I could have very well passed those two as I took a stroll in the park with my mother, and they would have tipped a hat to me.

  We picked our way back home, and I was silent, lost in thoughts.

  He paused, considering me. “You’ve never noticed this? There’s a reason the tumblers didn’t go into town much. Wasn’t worth the hassle.”

  My stomach flipped. “No,” I whispered. “I never noticed.”

  Drystan rested a hand on my shoulder. The sky opened, drenching us with rain. We half-ran the rest of the way back to the Kymri Theatre. When we stood, dripping in the corridor, I snapped the lock shut with a clunk.

  6

  MOONS, CLOUDS, SUNS, STARS

  “I could list every magic trick in the book, and in intricate, infinite detail describe the reveal behind each one. And you could understand it. But that does not mean you are a magician. It means you know a few tricks. For a trick without context is only a fold of the fingers or a tuck of a prop up a sleeve.

  “I could teach you how to switch objects. A clown may pass a cloth over a false bird and bring it away to show a live, cooing dove to delight a sideshow. But a charlatan soothsayer may perform the same trick using misdirection to change the sacrifice of a live crow for a dead one covered in maggots. The same trick for different purposes, with very different results in the audience.

  “There is no one way to be a magician any more than there is only one way to be human.”

  The Secrets of Magic, The Great Grimwood

  “Are you ready to begin?”

  Maske held up a deck of cards.

  We nodded.

  The cards clacked together as he bridged them effortlessly. Maske brought his arms wide, a trail of cards following his hands. Flashes of red and black, the numbers jumbling together. He did it again, and I searched for hidden threads. He shuffled the cards in different ways, tumbling sections over each other; interlacing them and snapping them smartly back into a pack. The cards danced over his fingertips into circles and “S” shapes, each move flowing to the next without hesitation.

  He fanned the cards, face down. “Pick a card,” he said, flashing us a magician’s smile. “Any card.”

  My fingertips hovered over the deck. The edges of the cards were well-thumbed, the silhouettes of the rampant dragons on the back faded. I touched the back of one card.

  He held it up for Drystan and me to see, turning its face away from him.

  I had chosen the ace of stars. I nodded and Maske shuffled the card back into the deck. He placed the pack upon his outstretched hand. The other hand hovered above the deck, and the top card levitated between his hands. He held it for us to see.

  “Is this your card?” he asked.

  The ace of stars. Amazed, I nodded.

  He returned the card to its siblings and fanned the cards again. “Drystan. Pick a card. Any card.”

  Drystan selected one, tilting it to me. The six of clouds. Back into the pack it went. After more showy shuffles, Maske showed us the deck again, face up.

  “Where is your card?”

  We searched for the six of clouds, but could not see it. When we shook our heads, Maske opened his mouth and drew out a card. He passed it to us. Drystan took it with no small amount of trepidation, but the six of clouds was quite dry.

  We clapped. He gave a little bow.

  “What I showed you will not be easy to learn. For it is not just the manipulation of cards,” he said, shuffling with various flourishes, “but h
aving the instinct. And that cannot be entirely taught. Knowing how long to pause, what you say and how you say it, your body language, the confidence… all of this is what completes the illusion. Take an aspect away, and the magic is lost.”

  His demeanor changed. He stood stiff as an automaton, shuffling mechanically. He held up a card – the two of suns – and put it back. He fumbled. And in that hesitation, I saw how the trick was done. I met Maske’s gaze, and he saw my understanding and was pleased.

  “We start with cards, coins and other small objects: sleight of hand, or prestidigitation. This is where magic begins. You come from rich families – surely you have had a magician at a birthday party or something of the sort?”

  I shook my head, but Drystan nodded.

  “And what sorts of things did these magicians do at these parties?” he asked.

  “Card tricks, coin tricks, cups and balls, things with billiard balls, eggs, flowers…” Drystan trailed off, trying to remember others.

  “Exactly. Close up magic uses everyday objects and does something extraordinary with them. With grand illusion and séances, you can distract with great bursts of light, or darkness, but you cannot do that so easily with something so innocuous. It’s all in your fingers.”

  He walked us through the very basics – how to hold the cards just so, and how to shuffle in different ways. We did these easy steps for over an hour, until we could do them without hesitation. Drystan far surpassed me with his fancier shuffles and flourishes. Half of the time I seemed to drop the cards. I decided it was the awkward angle I shuffled due to my sling. In fact, I was surprised Drystan did not comment on the fact I could shuffle at all. The bruising around my thumbs was almost gone, and they no longer hurt and only felt stiff.

  We broke for lunch, and then the afternoon was spent amongst books. Maske brought us to the library, a dusty room filled to the brim with books and furnished with overstuffed armchairs. He chose some books and left us to it, saying he was going to his workshop.

  “What is he doing in there?” I asked.

  “No idea. Magic.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Ricket wandered in to join us, curling up on a small bed made of old rags in the corner.

  Drystan chose a book – Magick, by a Professor Cynbel Acacia. He settled down into a chair, opening the tome and reading. His long fingers curled around the pages, the shadows of his eyelashes on his cheeks.

  Not wanting to be caught staring, I picked a book entitled The Secrets of Magic by a name I recognized – the Great Grimwood, one of the most famous magicians from a century ago. The book looked to be about the same age, and I turned the crumbling pages gingerly. The type was small and difficult to read, but the voice engaging. The Great Grimwood, whose real name had been Adem Risto, had been born in the village of Niral. An incredible inventor, he transformed magic from sideshow entertainment into a show fit for nobility and royalty.

  Ricket moved from his bed to my lap. I stroked his head idly as I read, his purring a calming sound. It occurred to me in that moment how very lucky we were to be here. Maske hadn’t turned us in, we were warm and fed and learning a trade. I could only hope that this relative peace would last, even if it did mean hiding behind drawn curtains and locked doors.

  The book had a brief overview of magic from its beginning: as basic illusions that priests would wield to cement their followers’ beliefs and sway the cynical. Vestige artifacts were considered holy and proof of the divine. Yet when scientists deduced that Vestige might be technology and not magic, believers grew more cynical of the priests’ effects. Magic for a long time was street entertainment, often married to vaudeville or circuses.

  Grimwood also listed many of his tricks, from sleight of hand to grand illusion. Diagrams explaining the placement of mirrors and the position of fingers were difficult at first, yet when I understood, I felt a glow of triumph. I took a coin from my pocket and tried one of the tricks in the diagrams, frowning as the coin kept dropping from my fingers.

  Drystan looked up from his book. “What are you trying to do?” I showed him the page. He studied the drawing before setting it aside.

  He clasped my hands and walked my fingers through the trick, showing me how to hide the coin between my fingers. His hands were warm, and I watched his fingers on mine, trying to quell the feelings his touch stirred. A blush crept up my neck. Drystan met my eyes. We were inches apart. Everything in me seemed to stop – my breath, my heartbeat, my ability to blink.

  Drystan made the smallest sound in the back of his throat. My breath left in a rush and we looked away from each other, confused and guilty.

  Drystan’s face was impassive as he focused on the trick. He performed it for me with no hesitation. His hands were steady.

  “There,” he said. “You try.” It was if nothing had happened.

  I took the coin from him, the metal warmed by our skin. I took a deep breath, and performed the trick, trying to copy Drystan’s movements. I made the coin disappear. Drystan clapped and I smiled sadly.

  “That’s not too sore for your hands?” he asked.

  Now he noticed.

  “They’re alright,” I said, swallowing. “I heal… quickly.”

  “I’ll say,” Drystan shook his head. “I dislocated a shoulder once. I couldn’t move it for weeks.”

  “How’s your book?” I asked, to change the subject and distract me from thoughts that had nothing to do with magic tricks.

  Drystan let the subject drop. “Good, though academic. All the salacious bits have been made as uninteresting as possible. Yours seems better. I’ll read it when you’re done.” He set the book aside and stretched, the joints in his neck cracking, before standing and scrutinizing the bookshelves. He reached up for a book on the top shelf, and his shirt was short enough to reveal a flash of pale skin. Pricks in Styx! I stood and ran my hands down the thighs of my trousers.

  “Fancy a pot of tea?” I asked, striving for nonchalance but sure I sounded slightly panicked.

  “Please,” Drystan said, taking his book back to his seat. For a moment I glared at the top of his head. He was so infuriatingly calm.

  Or maybe he didn’t feel what I felt. And what right did I have to feel anything, with our lives still in ruins, and Aenea gone?

  I made my way to the kitchen. Far away, I could hear the whine of a drill against metal coming from the direction of Maske’s workshop.

  I tapped my fingers against the table, antsy. I still had not settled into this new life. Sometimes, I didn’t know if I’d even settled into life as Micah Grey. Every now and again, it almost felt as though it was not my life I was living. I was not dressing as a boy, standing in a kitchen to run away from a blonde boy in the library with blue eyes and long fingers. As if inside, I was still Iphigenia Laurus and none of the events that had happened after she ran away had touched her.

  But at the same time, I knew that wasn’t true. If I woke up tomorrow in my old bedroom, with Lia singing her song to wake me up, if I dressed in skirts and found myself back in that life as a girl, I’d chafe even more than before.

  I thumbed through a pile of old newspapers on the table while I waited for the hiss of the kettle. It was all the usual doom and gloom – prices would rise on glass due to a temporary shortage of shipments from Kymri. The Foresters lobbied Parliament for more seats on the council again and were angry that they lost, threatening more protests. Infected meat had caused sickness in one of the southern coastal towns. The Royal Physician was set to return from a brief sabbatical in Byssia and there’d be a banquet in his honor.

  A scandal caught my eye. Lord Chokecherry had been caught having an affair with several young women from the docks. I closed the newspaper, my gaze lingering on the headline of the article about Drystan and me. Questions haunted my mind. Did Maske truly trust us? Could we trust Maske? What would become of us? No answers came.

  Without a thought, I threw the newspaper on the fire, watching the edges of the paper curl like the dying
leaves of autumn.

  That night after dinner, my injuries ached, so I made my way to the loft, away from the quiet magician and his former apprentice.

  I thought that as soon as I reached my bed I would fall into a dead sleep, but my mind would not rest. The shadows in the room were long and dark, and so I lit a candle and dragged my pack onto the bed. I took out my small treasures, laying them side by side. The soapstone figurine of the Kedi, given to me by Mister Illari, the spice merchant who took me in briefly after I ran away. I ran a fingertip over its rough face, remembering the two visions of the Phantom Damselfly where she had called me by that name.

  A Kedi was worshipped as a minor deity in Byssia, a possible Chimaera born both fully male and female. Looking at the figurine again though, I wondered if a Kedi was actually a Chimaera. It looked human. It was not furred or scaled. Though its face was reminiscent of Alder features with its high cheekbones and long neck, like the Phantom Damselfly.

  I held up the disc that contained her to the candlelight, rainbows flickering across the surface of the strange metal. I turned the disc over. A small clasp or button was on the bottom center. I did not press it.

  I settled back onto the pillow, staring up at the rough ceiling beams. What did I hold in my hand? She was more than an apparition, more than an ancient recording. She spoke to me in the circus and met my gaze. I remembered the tilt of her head as she regarded me, the thoughtful pulsing of her wings. She told me that it had been so long since anyone had seen her or spoken to her. How long? Since the Alder Age?

  I sighed. I tormented myself with questions I did not know the answers to. Maybe the Phantom Damselfly had those answers, but I was too afraid to ask.

  I rummaged in my pack until I found my crumpled sheets of paper, an old stub of a graphite marker and a thin, ratty paintbrush. I took the lemon I’d claimed from the kitchen the other day out of the bedside table drawer. I squeezed the juice into a bowl, dipping the paintbrush into the juice in order to write a real, hidden letter to my brother: