Unreal Alchemy

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

I love you so much that I care your favourite show got cancelled

  Again

  I care that they whitewashed the casting,

  And queerbaited the fans

  And they fridged three female lead characters one after the other

  That really sucks

  I’m so sorry

  And something about spoilers

  * * *

  I love that you care that your game just isn't the same without mirrors

  I love that you care that two fictional characters who never kiss on the mouth might someday get married

  Or have a threesome

  With that one guy whose name I can never remember

  But he's totally in that other show that you love

  Not the one that got cancelled

  The other one

  This is how much I love you

  This is how much I care

  I don't understand why you have to see the movie the first day it comes out even though the line's super long and it will be the exact same movie if you see it a week later

  Because something about spoilers

  * * *

  I love you

  And that's why I care

  That the award went to the wrong writer

  In fact all the awards are broken

  And the reviewers are sexist

  And you and your best friend are fighting

  The best friend I've never met

  Because she lives on the internet

  And something about spoilers

  * * *

  I don't really care

  But I love that you care

  I love that you have a whole secret language of letters

  OMG OTP OT3 WTF it all means something to you

  Actually I'm pretty clear on WTF

  We have that one in the real world too

  I love you so much that I read a book with vampires in it

  Even though they made a TV show about it and I could watch that instead

  The book was quite terrible

  But I'm reading the sequel

  I won't ever tell you

  Because I love that expression on your face

  When I say I'm going to look up the ending on Wikipedia

  I don’t care about spoilers

  But you really do

  * * *

  I love you

  I love your thirty five fandoms

  And your one true pairings

  And your intense flamewars about pop culture analysis

  And your games with imaginary friends

  And the way you watch TV shows like someone is scoring points

  (and maybe someday you'll win)

  I love all these things about you

  I don't really care

  But I love that you care

  And something about spoilers

  Unmagical Boy Story

  Part 1

  Monday Morning

  Chapter 1

  9am, Far Too Early

  The lecture hall is full of buzz and roar — conference delegates from every Magical Theory department in the country, and a few international guests. Grad students, of course, dozens of them, all nursing their own papers to be presented at some point over the next three days. Having this many magical adepts in the same space means a tension in the air that can’t be fully compensated for by the hex-dampeners built into the walls.

  Coffee helps. At gatherings like this, coffee is the most effective dampener of magic. Those to-go cups clutched in the fists of the professors and grad students alike reduce the risk of an academic debate turning into a literal tornado of static and feelings.

  Viola didn’t get up early enough to grab a coffee, and she regrets that now. Why does she have to be the first speaker?

  Why does she have to do this at all? Couldn’t she just have ditched university after her first degree and signed up to be someone’s trophy wife, like her father always wanted?

  It’s not too late. She could trophy wife the hell out of someone. Right now, that seems a better bet than the cool, crisp pages beneath her fingers, and the knowledge that she would have more time to perfect her paper it if she hadn’t spent the entire weekend recovering from Friday night.

  It’s all Chauvelin’s fault. It’s all Jules Nightshade’s fault. It’s the fault of that inane band that everyone loves so much.

  This is all her own fault.

  Professor Medeous finishes a passive-aggressive conversation with Professor Hekate, then rises to make the introduction. “First we shall hear from one of the more promising doctoral students specialising in Practical Mythology here at Belladonna University, current holder of the Pandemonium Prize for Innovation: Ms Viola Vale.”

  Viola steps forward: a small half-Chinese woman, 20 years old, poised and elegant with a black bob of hair and a gleam of pearls at her throat, her silk cheongsam barely visible beneath the academic gown.

  Her voice, when she speaks, is calm and precise, despite the whirl of nerves and magical flame under her skin. “I am told that by the second year of postgrad, most students are ready to set their exegesis — or their supervisor — on fire. I thought I’d save time and energy by concentrating my efforts on the myth of Prometheus.”

  She pauses for the small ripple of laughter, here and there among the deep tiers of seats. “Those of you in the audience who laughed at that, you’re my favourites.”

  Then she pauses, caught off guard, by a familiar face in the back row. Not him, not here. She wasn’t expecting…

  The show must go on, of course.

  She speaks: “The earliest versions of the Prometheus story come to us from Hesiod, both in the Theogony and his later poem, Works and Days. Everyone knows that Prometheus stole fire from the gods, but the part of the story that is less well known is that Zeus stole it first. He took fire — our own innovation — away from humanity as a punishment. When we suffered for lack of fire, Prometheus stole it back, on our behalf. Zeus further retaliated by creating Pandora, or “all gifts,” a woman who carried a jar full of great evils, and was so curious that she unleashed them on the world.”

  Viola pauses for effect, tugging her robe straight, and refusing to look up, up at the back row. I’m sorry. I swear, I didn’t mean this to be so personal. Something inside her has shifted and changed, and that couldn’t help but be reflected in the paper that she wrote and rewrote and tweaked.

  After Friday night.

  Suck it up, Vale.

  “It’s a good story,” she says, her voice ringing clearly across the lecture hall. “But like many of our ancient sources, Hesiod doesn’t begin to make sense until you accept the premise that he was speaking in metaphor. ‘Fire’ does not mean actual fire any more than the jar was a literal jar. If you read the Theogony as a treatise on the Real and the Unreal, our society split as it always has been into two halves, then the Prometheus myth is clearly about human society’s reliance on magic, and our collective fear that one day, the gods will take it back.”

  Part 2

  2am, Ill-Advised Hook Up

  Chapter 2

  7pm, Little Black Dress Alert

  Viola Vale knew she was in trouble when she peered at her tired, un-made up face in the bathroom mirror, and it flashed the words ‘little black dress alert’ in poison green.

  Oh, hell no.

  “No,” she ordered the mirror, and watched the word appear in her own signature purple font before she turned around, and returned to bed.

  Viola’s bed was covered with her essential texts, a roll of parchment, and an Unreal laptop sealed in a containment bubble to protect it from the magic that infused her room.

  So many stressed out, over-achieving Real Witch postgrads had occupied this room over the decades — a plum piece of residential hall real estate, a corner single with a view of the Belladonna U quad and easy fire escape access to one of the best magical libraries on campus. Electronics never lasted long around here. The walls practically vibrated with mood altering enchantments.<
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  As Viola attempted to sink herself back into her analysis of Hesiod, the small hand mirror beside her bed blinked the words, ‘little black dress alert.’

  “Goblindamnit.” How many mirrors did she have, anyway? Too bloody many.

  Head down, Viola immersed herself in medieval interpretations of the Prometheus myth, making careful notes as she went. She had ten minutes of peace before frost cracked a pattern against her window, with the words ‘little black dress alert’ written on the fogged glass.

  The temperature had dropped about ten degrees, and if she used her own magic to warm herself up, she risked setting fire to the doona cover. Again.

  Viola dropped her quill and stormed over to fling open the window. “WORLD OF NO, NIGHTSHADE,” she howled into the now-chilly evening.

  A beautiful blond incubus of a man slid in through the gap before she could pull the window closed. Jules Nightshade. He lounged against her bookcase as if he belonged here, all skinny leather trousers, moon-pale skin and pixie-sparkle hair product.

  “You know you want to,” he drawled at her.

  “I have a paper to present at the Conference of Mystical Confluence first thing on Monday morning, Jules,” Viola said snappishly. “I don’t have time for your usual weekend riot of clubbing and shenanigans.”

  “No one does homework on a Friday night, Vale,” said her best friend in the world. “You’ll grow old before your time.”

  “This isn’t homework, it’s real work. This conference is a chance to make an impression on…” Viola trailed off, because Jules didn’t care about professional reputation, or her future in academia. Like her, he had grown up in a world where Daddy bought you anything you wanted.

  It took Viola a long time to learn that the things Daddy couldn’t buy for her were the only things worth having, and even longer to learn that Jules would never join her on that ride.

  “I have to work all weekend to get this perfect,” she said finally. “It’s important.”

  Jules rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to work at anything, Vale. You snap your fingers and the world bends to your will.”

  “Fuck you,” she said, because he really didn’t get it. Bad enough that everyone in the world saw that when they looked at her — the spoiled princess who got everything without even trying. There had always been two people she relied on to know who she truly was underneath the bitchery and rose-scented lip gloss. Jules Nightshade was one of them.

  The other was gone, and his absence still burned like iron on a hexed tattoo.

  Jules didn’t realise that he had said something unforgivable. “You need a relaxing night out, honeybunch.”

  “I am not going to to blow off a chance to look brilliant in front of every magical theorist I respect in this country. Especially not to spend a crappy night downing cheap mojitos while you hit on every twink in sight and pretend you’re not nursing a massive crush on six foot of indie drummer.”

  Jules didn’t react to her low blow, which was in retrospect something of a warning sign. He batted his eyelashes. “Chauvelin invited us.”

  Oh. Viola felt a jolt of flames in her stomach. “You talked to him?”

  Jules shifted uncomfortably, which was out of character. He usually had no shame. Perhaps his trousers were too tight for his ego. “You know he’s seeing that girl?”

  “The one from the terrible band with the drummer you don’t have a crush on?”

  “No, actually. Her sister. But yes, that band, shut up. Chauv and his new girlfriend go every Friday to watch the band, and he asked us along.”

  This was huge. Ever since the accident, since everything changed, there had been little contact between Viola and Jules and their other best friend. Ferdinand Chauvelin, who wasn’t one of them any more.

  Who had spent the whole summer and half of first semester pretending that he wasn’t a Basilisk King, that he didn’t share their history. They’d fought with him about it — each argument more explosive and messy and cruel than the last — but they hadn’t exactly talked. Without Chauv to balance them on an everyday basis, Jules and Viola had sharpened themselves on each other like edged weapons.

  It hurt that Chauvelin had shut them out. It hurt worse that, deprived of his steady influence, they became awful human beings.

  “He invited us,” she repeated.

  “One drink?” Jules purred. “One drink, mend the rift, best of friends again, early night, work on your paper thing tomorrow?”

  Oh hell. Time to dig out a little black dress.

  “One drink,” Viola warned. “Early night. Work tomorrow.”

  Jules looked far too pleased with himself. Viola could tell already that this was a terrible mistake.

  She made it anyway.

  Sometimes you just have to leap off a cliff, and hope someone hands you a hex-free cocktail on the way down.

  Chapter 3

  8pm, Cover Charge: Two Drinks

  Medea’s Cauldron had a two drinks cover charge on a Friday night. Because of course they did.

  “Do you think they’ll waive the requirement for me if I tell them how much I hate the band?” Viola asked as she and Jules made their way to the table.

  Who was she kidding? One vodka elderberry wasn’t going to cut it. Not for this. This being, as it turned out, the most awkward double date in the history of everything.

  “I’m glad you came,” said Ferdinand Chauvelin, looking relaxed and happy and beautiful. His black hair was buzzed closer than usual, so it didn’t curl. He still dressed like himself — a quality white silk shirt, unbuttoned enough to show off the endlessly burning wing of his phoenix tattoo against the deep brown of his skin.

  He wasn’t wearing his usual amulets. Not even the bronze knot of protection that Viola gave him for his eighteenth birthday.

  “Of course,” she said, and took his hand in a squeeze, because she wasn’t a total bitch. “It’s good to see you, Chauv.”

  That was a lie. It was awful to see him so damned comfortable in a grungy crowded pub, instead of lurking in a more elegant establishment with his real friends, being snarky and hilarious.

  “This is Hebe Hallow,” Chauvelin added, with hearts in his eyes.

  The mousy girl beside him gave Jules and Viola a wary nod. She wasn’t a pushover, then. She wasn’t unmagical, either. Her skin tingled against Viola’s as they clasped hands in the traditional friendly (not too friendly) greeting. There was nothing extraordinary about this girl, but the Hallows were an old and respectable family.

  He could have done worse. When Viola first heard that Chauv had transferred to the College of the Unreal and was dating a girl from the other side of Hemlock Square, she had imagined him slumming it with a null or a newbie.

  Realisation crashed in on her all over again that Chauvelin, her Chauvelin, was a null himself. Maybe forever. How did you survive without magic in this world?

  Jules took over the conversation, chatting to Hebe Hallow about the band, and her studies, like he was the tolerant and supportive friend of the group — like he hadn’t broken three mirrors when he first heard Chauv transferred out of the College of the Real without even talking to them about it.

  Good Witch, Bad Witch, was that how they were playing this? How long could Jules keep up the pretense that he was the nice one?

  “How is it on the other side of campus?” Viola broke in, gaze fixed on Chauvelin, as if there was no one else in the noisy pub. “Are they starting you off in kindergarten, or do you get to count your lost magical years towards some kind of qualification?”

  Hebe flinched at Viola’s sharp tone. Chauvelin took it in his stride. “My degree will be mixed,” he said. “That’s allowed, these days. I’ve completed enough shadowmancy units already to count that as a major, but I’m trying a bunch of different Unreal subjects right now. No point in specialising until I know what I like.”

  “You were supposed to graduate at the end of this year,” Viola said, stabbing her vodka elderberry with a straw.
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  “Now I probably won’t,” said Chauvelin, his voice going darker, in a warning tone. “It’s not the end of the world.”

  “You realise you could have taken a year of theory classes with us and completed a Real Degree by November.”

  “Of course I realise,” he snapped. “We don’t all enjoy reading about other people performing magic, Vale. What’s the point of graduating with a Real degree I can never use?”

  Heat sizzled under her fingertips. If she didn’t let her anger out properly, she was likely to set fire to the table. “I suppose I would have known you felt that way. If you had talked to us at all in the last few months.”

  A flash of guilt crossed Chauvelin’s face, but then Hebe Hallow covered his hand with her own, and the guilt vanished.

  Viola knocked back the last of her drink. “Look at that. I need a second one after all.”

  Jules caught up with her at the bar. “Quite a show, precious. Tell us what you really feel.”

  Viola’s whole body trembled with rage. She didn’t do this, didn’t let feelings get to her, not in grubby little dive bars where the bartender — hello — wouldn’t even make eye contact with her, too busy pouring cocktails for a bunch of Fake Geek Girl fans in homemade t-shirts.

  “You did this deliberately,” she said bitterly.

  “Vale…” Jules drawled. Which wasn’t an answer.

  “I’m impressed. It was a tidy piece of strategy. Let me bitch out, so you don’t have to play the villain.”

  Jules bumped his hips against hers. “It worked, didn’t it? At least he’ll be texting one of us next time he makes a major life change.”

  “I am not a wand,” Viola spat. “Don’t point me at your enemies.”

  Hurt flared in his eyes, and an icicle began to form beneath the bar where Jules was resting his hand. “Chauv isn’t our enemy.”