by Maya Motayne
He could tell by the way the magic flowed through him. The man wore a tiger mask, his thin body a puzzle of sharp angles. With his propio engaged, Alfie saw that the man’s magic was a steely gray. It crept through him, quick and sharp. Predatory. Every movement deliberate. Alfie knew he would have to tread carefully.
To be fair, he would have to tread carefully around everyone in this room. As he sat in the octagonal parlor and looked around the table of masked players, Alfie could see nothing but colored magic that moved through them with dark intentions.
The voice of Paloma, his boyhood tutor, rang in his head: Magic is a pure force that flows through this world, but it needs a conduit, a home. We are those conduits, the vessels for magic to grow in. One cannot survive without the other. We give it life, purpose, and, in your eyes, color. And when we are done, we return the magic to the ether for another to borrow.
Paloma was a dueña, a philosopher who studied magic in all its forms and worked in the development and creation of spells. While most dueños chose to only work in spell creation and intensive magical study, others opted to share their knowledge by teaching the craft of magic to children. Paloma had taught him since he was a young boy, training him until he passed his examinations to become a bruxo—a certified practitioner of magic. She had sowed in him a love and respect for magic that had only grown as he did, from boy to man. Thanks to his propio, Alfie had spent much of his life watching free magic, colorless and shimmering, flow through the air only to be taken into the human body and given color. He focused and engaged his propio to watch the shades of magic in the four players.
Beside the Tiger sat a colossal man wearing a bear mask. Within him swirled a green magic, repulsive and hulking, like mucus. He drummed his thick knuckles on the wooden table as they waited for Rayan to bring tonight’s prizes.
A maid placed chilled glasses of sangria before each player. The Tiger took a sip and grinned at Alfie, his teeth splashed red.
The Bear waved his hand at the woman. His hand was the size of her head. “Tequila,” he growled. The maid hurriedly left the room and returned with a shot glass and a bottle. The Bear promptly snatched the bottle from her hand, snorting at the shot glass as if it was an insult.
When she placed a glass of sangria before Alfie, he didn’t touch it, even though the consequences of not finding what he needed tonight made his fingers itch for a drink. Alcohol made his shadow sway. He needed it to keep still if he didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention. Controlling your shadow’s movements was like trying to control your facial expressions during a conversation with someone you hated. When he focused, he could keep his shadow from moving just as he could train his facial expression into one of politeness, but the stronger the emotion, the more difficult it was. Tonight it was crucial that his shadow lie still.
Generally, those with propio were revered for their deeper connection with magic. But he didn’t want anyone to suspect that his propio could help him cheat to win the books.
Which was exactly what he planned to do.
He focused on the players and watched the magic run through them once more.
Next to the Bear sat a woman wearing a dragon mask. When he looked at her magic, Alfie’s spine straightened in confusion. Hers was red, but it wasn’t one shade like the rest of the magic he’d spent his life watching. Hers was a constantly shifting patchwork of reds, darkening and deepening before brightening once more. A gradient of scarlets, crimsons, and burgundies. He must’ve been seeing things. She cocked her head at him, a smirk curving her lips.
“Got something to say, Fox?” She lounged in her chair as if they were waiting for dinner instead of a chance at illegal goods. “Or should I grip you by the scruff and shake it out of you?”
The other players snickered. Alfie scrambled for a clever retort, but he was saved by Rayan walking into the parlor and shutting the door behind him.
“Welcome, lady and gentlemen,” Rayan said. His short nose widened when he grinned. Like most ludicrously wealthy men Alfie knew, Rayan was eccentric and bored, which was why he held these games and procured the illegal prizes that made them so enticing.
In Rayan’s arms was a stack of four black-spined books—tonight’s prize. Rayan took a seat in the high-backed, gilded chair at the head of the table. He had a flair for the dramatic.
“Are you all ready for a game?” he asked.
The players nodded. A tense silence coiled around them.
Rayan stacked the books neatly at the center of the table. Alfie’s heart leaped in his chest—a beat for each word on each page of each book. The risk of Rayan’s games was that you never knew what game he would choose. If you wanted the prize badly enough, you paid the steep entry fee and found out. And these were not just any prize; some of these books were from Englass—and like all Englassen goods, they were completely illegal in Castallan.
Though he knew that what Englass had done to his people, using siphoning spellwork to steal their magic away, was foul beyond words, Alfie could hardly stop himself from snatching the books off the table and making a run for it. One of these books might have the kind of spell Alfie had been desperately searching for—the magic that could help him find Dez. If there was any place that would study the spellwork necessary to pull propio from one body to another, it’d be Englass. The girl who’d disappeared Dez into that black void had done so with her maldito propio, so if he could find a way to pull her propio into his body, then he could open the void and go rescue Dez himself. It was his only chance, he knew it.
With his focus gone and his thoughts knotted around the books, Alfie’s propio fell away. The hues of magic coloring the players disappeared.
“Tonight’s game, lady and gentlemen,” Rayan said with a flourish, “is cambió.”
There was a frustrated murmur around the table, but Alfie could barely stifle a smile. He and Luka had spent too many nights playing cambió. It was a timed game that was equal parts luck, strategy, and, of course, magic. While the hourglass ran, players drew cards from the deck or could even pluck a card from the player to their left in hopes of getting the strongest hand.
Then there were the charmed cards.
At the start of the game, each player was given five cards to charm with their magic. Then the charmed cards were shuffled back into the deck and distributed among the players. Cards could be charmed favorably or unfavorably. A charmed card could ruin your hand, changing your emperor card to a jester before your eyes. Or the opposite could happen and a charmed card could help you. When the hourglass ran out, the best hand took home the prize.
“Clean or dirty?” the Tiger asked. His voice was too cool, calculated. He sounded like someone who lurked behind dark corners, waiting for his prey to pass a little too close.
“Dirty,” Rayan said with a smile.
Anticipation surged through the table. Alfie’s eyebrows rose beneath his mask. Rayan wouldn’t make the game dirty unless the players knew enough spoken magic to play properly. These people must be more educated than the usual sorts he invited. Probably wealthy merchants and nobles looking to add something rare and illegal to their collections. Even so, Alfie hadn’t expected Rayan to allow a game of dirty cambió, with the risk of a player dying on his property. Now each player was in more danger than they had been just a moment ago.
Well, everyone except Alfie.
“Wépa!” The boy in the monkey mask to Alfie’s right gave a crow of excitement, his wiry body jolting with anticipation. He drummed his fingers on the table as if the game couldn’t start soon enough. He hadn’t had the chance to observe this boy’s magic. Alfie focused on him. His magic was a lemony yellow, energetic and surging. Alfie watched the boy’s twitching fingers. He was someone who could barely sit still, let alone win a game of cambió. No one to worry about.
With a flourish, Rayan pulled the deck of cards out of its small, ornate box.
“Mezclar,” he commanded. As if they were carried by a whirlwind, the cards spun aroun
d each other until he called them back to his hand. With another word of magic from Rayan, five cards floated to each masked player. “You all know the rules; charm the cards as you see fit. Be as cruel as you like. It is dirty cambió, after all.” A glimmer of mischief lit Rayan’s eyes.
Alfie watched the other players hunch over their cards, whispering words of magic. In dirty cambió there were no rules when it came to charming cards. Alfie hoped that they wouldn’t use any lethal magic. They were here for rare books, not to leave the game with blood on their hands.
But as he looked around the table, each mask more menacing than the last, he feared that the players had no qualms about a bit more blood caked on their hands.
Alfie did a few simple charms on his five cards. One that would turn emperors into jesters, as well as confounding magic to put them off their game, confuse them. He wanted the books, but he wasn’t going to hurt anyone. Not if he could help it.
“You’re all done, then.” Rayan clapped his hands. “Regresar.” The charmed cards flew back into his hands and shuffled into the deck.
“Let’s get started!” With another word from Rayan, the cards flew among the players, each person receiving seven. A fat deck to draw from sat at the center of the table.
A moment of silence washed over the players, as if waiting for a charmed card to take its effect. Alfie ran his fingers over his cards and focused; he could see no magic running through them. He didn’t have to deflect any charmed cards just yet. Even better, he had a decent hand.
He was safe. Everyone appeared to be safe. Maybe this game wouldn’t end in blood.
“The smallest animal always starts first. Monkey.” Rayan nodded at the boy in the monkey mask to Alfie’s right before turning the hourglass over. “You begin the game.”
The Monkey bit the inside of his cheek, his fingers drumming ever faster on the table. Then he reached toward Alfie’s hand, his fingers grazing Alfie’s emperor card.
Don’t take it, don’t take it, Alfie willed in his head.
Alfie forced himself to quirk his lips in a barely perceptible smirk, as if he were glad the boy was going to take that card.
It worked. At the last moment, the monkey-masked boy pulled his hand back, sucking his teeth in annoyance. Alfie stopped himself from looking too relieved. The boy reached for the deck instead, drew a card, and returned one of his own to the deck.
For a long moment the boy said nothing. His fingers stopped drumming on the table. An explosion of wheezing coughs erupted from his mouth, blood spattering the table before him. In the space of a breath his eyes had gone glassy and bloodshot. He clutched at his throat.
Alfie started in his seat and grasped the boy’s shoulder, unsure of what to do. “Help him! He needs help!” Blood-tinged foam poured over the boy’s lips as he fell forward, his head flopping on the table. The monkey-masked boy fell still, his mouth open against the wood.
Rayan softly clapped his hands, his ringed fingers clicking. “Eso! A poisoning card already!”
Alfie stared at Rayan, his heart pounding in his chest. He had underestimated the depravity of these games. He should have known better.
Rayan rang a small silver bell. Two men walked into the room and silently carried the body by the arms and legs out of the parlor. The smell of the boy’s blood cut through the air like a scythe. Alfie felt sick to his stomach.
The man seated across from him in the bear mask gave a deep, low chuckle as he eyed Alfie in amusement. The woman in the dragon mask was the only other player who also sat stock-still. He looked at her, searching her body language for the shock he felt in his chest, hammering in his heart. But when she noticed his gaze on her, her body relaxed into nonchalance. She crossed her arms, unfazed. These people were monsters.
Alfie focused on the now bloodstained card that the boy had drawn; within it swirled a vile green magic—the Bear’s. Alfie glared at him. The Bear cocked his head at him, as if inviting him to say something, but Alfie could only grip his cards so tightly his fingers ached.
All the while, Rayan shuffled the dead boy’s cards back into the deck and went on as if nothing had happened. A maid came to scrub the flecks of blood from the polished wood table.
Rayan nodded at Alfie expectantly. “Well then, now that that’s over with. Fox, proceed.”
But Alfie couldn’t move. The smell of blood still laced through the air. He could barely look at his glass of sangria without gagging.
“Onward, little fox,” the Bear said, his voice as gruff and slow as his magic.
Alfie glowered at him and took in a breath. He focused, looking at the deck. The top card was charmed by the steely gray magic of the Tiger. Before picking up the card, Alfie engaged his propio and let the magic flowing through him change color from his own royal blue to the man’s gray. A charmed card wouldn’t affect the one who’d charmed it. Alfie had nothing to fear so long as he matched his magic to the card before touching it. It would see him as its master and not harm him.
Alfie added the new card to his hand and discarded one of his lower ones. He rubbed his thumb on the card’s face and found the magic within. He nearly snorted; it was a drunkening card—one magicked to make the player who touched it become piss drunk at first contact.
Nice try, Alfie thought as he smirked at the tiger-masked man. Across the table, the man’s shoulders stiffened, and Alfie felt a rush run through him. He was not as ruthless as these players and he did not want to be, but he could outsmart them just fine.
Rayan sat at the head of the table, elated by the tension cresting between Alfie and the tiger-masked man. “And the Fox outfoxes the deck! For now. . . . Go on, Tiger. The turn is yours.”
The Tiger reached for the Bear’s hand. As his fingers lingered over a card, the Bear’s jaw clenched. With a smirk, the Tiger plucked the card from his deck.
The bear-masked man slammed his fists on the table and stood.
“He cheated!” he roared, spittle flying from his mouth. “He looked at my maldito hand! I know it!” With a curl of his fingers, a globe of flame hovered above the Bear’s palm. All the players shot out of their seats. Alfie rose last, unsure of what to do. Sweat on his forehead was making his mask slip. Were they all going to kill each other before the cards did?
The Tiger flexed his fingers in a quick, beckoning motion, and the sangria swirled out of his cup to hover before him. He closed his fist and froze it into a blade of red ice before plucking it from the air and holding it at the ready. He was a water charmer, like Alfie. The Dragon flexed her fingers and seemed to pull a dagger from thin air. Alfie only watched them all, his hand gripping his chair behind him. They stood silent, their bodies coiled tight with tension while Rayan sat in his chair, his arms crossed.
“Cálmate, Bear,” Rayan said, sounding bored. He rang the bell. A group of muscular men filed into the room—men he had hired to protect him on the nights that he hosted his games. “Either the cards kill you, or they do. Entiendes?”
The flame quivered above the Bear’s hand. The Tiger cocked his head at him, a smirk of amusement on his face.
“Fine,” the Bear groused, sitting down. Rayan waved his hand and the men walked silently out of the room. The rest of the players slowly sank back into their seats. The Dragon’s dagger disappeared back up her sleeve. With a flick of his wrist, the Tiger liquefied the frozen sangria and guided it back into his glass. Alfie sat down slowly, his cards held tight in his shaking hands. When he caught the dragon-masked girl staring at him, he took a deep breath and forced his sweaty hands to fall still.
“Carry on.” Rayan crossed one leg over the other. Alfie could see the low heel in Rayan’s gilded shoe. That shoe, like many things in Castallan, was a holdover from Englassen occupation. Englassen people tended to be taller than Castallanos. During Englass’s reign, the more you looked like them, the more privilege and respect you had. So the people of Castallan had worn heeled shoes to appear taller, more Englassen. The trend still carried on today.
&n
bsp; Enslavement was strange that way. Though his parents always spoke about what had been taken from them during Englass’s reign—their autonomy, their magic, their culture, their pride—to Alfie, it wasn’t so much about how much Englass had taken from them, but about how little of themselves Castallan had taken back after expelling their conquerors. If they’d truly rid themselves of Englass’s influence and returned to their roots, why were they still donning heeled shoes?
“Fox,” Rayan said, his voice jarring Alfie out of his thoughts. “Proceed.”
Alfie looked away from the shoe and played his turn, his hand growing stronger as the hourglass ran down. Throughout the game, Rayan would speak a word of magic and make the chairs of the players switch places, zooming around the table, leaving Alfie dizzy in his seat.
“After all,” Rayan had explained mischievously, “I can’t have you drawing from the same person over and over again, learning their tells and using them to your advantage. What would be the fun in that?”
Alfie wondered if this was just another way to keep them on their toes. He sidestepped charmed card after charmed card, putting them back into the deck once he came across them. One was meant to make him endlessly vomit, one meant to blot out his eyesight for three turns, and when he found the terrible card that had killed the monkey-masked boy in the deck, he took it as his own before discarding it to the bottom of the deck, not wanting to watch someone else cut their own throat.
Without the Monkey, the woman in the dragon mask was to Alfie’s right. As the hourglass began to peter out, she plucked the drunkening card from his hand with confident fingers. She’d probably assumed he had no charmed cards because he had yet to react to any. That assumption would usually be right, but not in this case.
As soon as she touched it, a hiccup erupted from her mouth and her whole body relaxed as she gave a slow, syrupy laugh.
“You know what I just realized?” Another hiccup. “I’m wearing a mask on top of a mask. Do you get it? Do you get what I’m trying to tell you pendejos? I’m wearing two masks at the same time!” She threw her head back and laughed, sounding as if she’d drunk a bathtub of sangria.
