Caster

by Elsie Chapman

  I’ve already figured out I won’t be able to cast myself clean before getting home, just as I won’t be able to cast myself to heal, either. Casting more full magic now would just add even more pain.

  More than that, I know casting full magic outside the fighting ring over the next three days isn’t going to be a smart move at all. Not only would I be using up full magic when I should be saving it for fighting, but any pain from casting that magic will then come with me to the ring.

  I’ll have to turn away buyers, something I’ve never done before.

  Saint Willow, Jihen, my family’s debt—their shadows loom that much larger in my mind.

  “Okay,” Kylin starts, taking a deep breath, “I just wanted to talk to you about what I said before. About not caring about winning. You kind of said something like that, too, remember?”

  “I didn’t, I only said I was nervous. But okay, what about it?”

  “I didn’t mean it. Obviously. That’s why I tried so hard to knock you out of the tournament.”

  I lift a brow. “That’s an interesting way of saying you tried to kill me.”

  “I was trying to make you pass out.”

  Kylin does her best to look sorry when we both know she’s lying. I know it because I’ve pulled the same trick before on Shire. My stomach clenches—I don’t want to see myself in Kylin, to be that age again. It makes me think of Shire, being a big sister.

  “You could have done it a dozen other ways,” I say, trying to sound as cold as possible, “ways that wouldn’t involve trying to kill me.”

  “I could have. I didn’t. I’ll choose better next time.”

  “What’s the point of this conversation again?”

  “See, what I said was stupid, and I really regret it now. So can we make a pact? For us to both forget what each of us said and not use it against each other during the tournament?”

  “You know we might still end up having to fight each other, right? If we’re the last two left, I’ll still try to beat you.”

  Kylin nods. “But for now, let’s pretend we never said that stuff. I kind of need to if I want to believe I can do this.”

  I’m pretty sure this moment might never happen again in the history of the tournament. How this might even be the very first—two fighters agreeing together to pretend to be brave.

  Of course, I could always just say no.

  I glance up at my reflection. My eyes are lined with purple, and a sheen of dried blood covers most of my skin—my clothes are unrecognizable. No, I’m unrecognizable.

  Is this what being a fighter instead of just a caster means? To have to become someone else entirely? I drop my eyes, not liking this face of full magic that feels like a stranger’s.

  I use my finger and some spit to wipe the blood off my face and neck, then turn back to Kylin.

  “Fine, we’re making a pact. This doesn’t mean we’re friends or anything.” Don’t make me care about having to save you again. “We’re both still going after the same thing.”

  “Thank you. For stopping out there, by the way.” She attempts a smirk. “I guess it was the least you could do after ruining my lucky shoes.”

  “How lucky can they be, then?”

  Kylin snorts and casts the door unlocked. The thick metal of the lock twists back into its original shape.

  I move to leave, deciding to make a point of avoiding her over the rest of the tournament. I can’t make friends while at this tournament. Not when enemies are easier to cast magic on.

  “I’m going to need more than luck to beat Finch, anyway,” Kylin says as I take another step. She sounds tired and miserable now. “Maybe it was beginner’s luck—I still don’t like how he won last year. But he must really want to be in the Guild, and unless you win, you won’t even be considered.”

  Impatience ebbs and flows. I want to remind her, You said two minutes, time’s up, this conversation is over.

  Is this how Shire felt each time I pushed her? When I clung a little too hard, or for a little too long? And her eyes couldn’t hide her frustration—the way I wanted too much?

  “Still, he won,” I say. “He must have been the strongest.”

  Kylin does that double-shoulder shrug again. “I was just a spectator last year, so maybe it’s different when you’re only watching. But he wasn’t the favorite. When he won, I was really shocked. I think he cheated somehow.”

  I glance over at the washroom door and half wish for someone to come in. Then I could leave and not feel bad.

  “I think a lot of people were shocked. This fighter named Shire was the favorite and—”

  My head swivels. My heart begins to pound hard enough that it hurts. “Shire?”

  Kylin nods. “She was the favorite all the way to the final round. But then Finch killed her during their final battle. That’s how he won.”

  There’s a roar in my ears. It wants to drown out Kylin’s words, but they’re in my head all the same. I can’t unhear them.

  Shire didn’t die casting banished magic for marks. She died while fighting in this tournament.

  No.

  She didn’t die. Finch killed her.

  This is the payback that Rudy was talking about. To do this one last thing for Shire and enter the tournament so he could fight Finch for killing her. He was dying and didn’t tell me, maybe hating the idea of taking me down with him as much as my possibly ruining his chances.

  Maybe he even meant to kill Finch in return.

  I’ll never be sure how far he meant to go. You have to really know someone to make that kind of guess, and that wasn’t Rudy and me. I don’t think we were even really friends. Not the way he and Shire had been.

  And of the three, who is left now?

  I shut my eyes as the room spins. The past presses close, full of all the moments that kept me in the dark. Rudy and Shire spun them to keep me safe, and yet—

  How far can I go?

  “What’s the matter?”

  I peek out and Kylin’s face is close, searching mine. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”

  “I— Do you remember if Shire had a backer?”

  “Yeah. A guy. But I can’t remember his name.”

  “Was it—?”

  Kylin freezes. It’s almost comical watching the realization hit as her eyes land on the letters on my cheek and get huge. But only almost, because nothing about this is exactly funny. “Rudy,” she whispers.

  I shudder. So it’s all really true. I guess it’s never easy having ghosts change on you, when there’s already too little of them left behind. “Shire was my sister.”

  Kylin’s eyes might pop out of her head soon. “What?”

  “We knew she died casting full magic, but just not how.”

  “Wow. Wow. Wow.”

  I silently will her to not say another wow. If I hear another wow, I might just scream.

  “She deserved to win, you know.”

  My pulse trips as I stare at Kylin, a sharper, even uglier dread now swirling in my stomach.

  I think he cheated somehow.

  “She was better than he was,” Kylin continues. “But then—”

  “You said you think Finch cheated?” Shire losing fairly is one thing. She would have known the risks of the tournament, going back for each round the way she did. Even Finch going all Etana the Cruel on her and killing just to win is completely fair—dishonorable, but fair—because Shire would have known that that was a possibility, too.

  But Etana never cheated when she fought. During the years she was champion, she at least killed her opponents in clean combat.

  Something in my tone must scare Kylin, because she pales and rears back a bit on the counter.

  “I don’t really know if he cheated or not,” she says. “Killing isn’t cheating according to the rules, but it’s just—I was so shocked when he actually won and—”

  “But that’s what you said. You said he cheated. And I don’t mean killing, but cheating in some other way, then. Is th
at possible?”

  Kylin just stares at me. She’s still pale, still backed away from me, but now something on her face says she feels sorry for me.

  “The thing is,” Kylin says, “even if Finch had used a gathered spell—which aren’t against the rules, either, just like killing isn’t—what can you do about it now?” The door opens and two women come in and Kylin snaps her mouth shut.

  I run from the washroom, needing to escape.

  A gathered spell?

  The food court is much emptier now—a clock on the wall says it’s two in the morning—as I dart across. The registration area and starter counter are deserted, and even the bets counter has calmed down.

  Is all of the Guild of Now needed to run the magic for this part? It’s a question for Embry I’ll never be able to ask, because who am I but one more fighter in a long string of them? Or is it only during the actual fights that all of you have to work together so the whole place doesn’t snap in half? How strong are each of you on your own? Did any of you do as Etana the Cruel did to become champion? Do any of you remember my sister?

  I nearly fumble my key starter to the ground as I cast for the elevator to take me back to street level.

  Gathered spells.

  What was Kylin talking about? It’s like trying to catch the wind, the way I’m having to learn about the tournament even as I’m in it.

  The elevator comes and soon I’m outside. I take all the wrong streets and the Meat Sector smells raw and bloody as I head toward Tea. Or maybe it’s just the tournament I’m still smelling, carrying it home with me on my skin. I’m wide awake now, the late hour meaningless as bits and pieces of the night swirl in my head, trying to form themselves into something I understand.

  If Shire had won a year ago, everything would be different now.

  Two hundred thousand marks would have paid off all of Wu Teas’s debts. Saint Willow would have left us alone. Jihen would be off shaking down someone else. The cop who’s probably already moved on from watching the apothecary to watching me—he would have no reason to be around at all.

  Shire would be alive.

  My parents would be happy.

  Something in my chest wrenches.

  Even if Finch did cheat and used a gathered spell or something, what can you do about it now?

  The question keeps me moving fast despite still hurting from the fight. My bruises ache with each stop, and the soreness of my bones is a feverish hum within my skin. The idea of fighting tomorrow while feeling anything like this fills me with dread. Because what if everyone else won’t have to? How do I know they’re not all better at healing, even?

  I shove my smog mask on and head west, cutting through the sectors of the city—Spice, Tower, Government. The streets glisten from a recent rain, as wet as the Kan Desert was dry, such that it burns. My lungs burn, my sore body shouts, and my mind continues to race as I run.

  Time winds back.

  It was nearly a year ago, an hour before midnight.

  I checked the time again on my bedside table and listened. The sounds in the kitchen were soft enough that I knew it would be Shire, being careful to not wake up our parents. They agreed a long time ago to let Shire cast in order to keep Wu Teas alive, but it existed for them as an unhealing sore, a thorn they could never fully extract. Shire always did her best to help them forget. She did what she could so that her marks entered the teahouse without notice and then left nearly the same way—silent payments for the banks, the suppliers, to Saint Willow and the dark web of his business.

  There was the sound of a drawer being shut, then the bang of a cupboard door. I heard Shire saying something to herself, over what she was doing as she prepared to leave for a job.

  Too restless to lie still anymore, I climbed out of bed. Not bothering to change out of my old T-shirt that I wore for pajamas, I slipped on jeans and grabbed a light jacket from the floor. I looked at my starter bag that I’d placed on my desk, hesitating, then picked it up and slung it over my shoulder. I left my bedroom and headed down the hall.

  Maybe tonight would finally be it. I would be able to convince my sister to let me go along and watch her cast full magic. I would watch and learn and then I could help, too. I was more than old enough, and not getting to learn with Rudy wouldn’t matter so much if it just meant getting to learn from Shire.

  Hope brimmed in me like hunger as I turned into the kitchen.

  My sister was at the island. She was concentrating hard enough that she didn’t hear me come in. Only half the lamps were turned on, and the light of them skimmed off her face.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in a loud whisper, going over to see. Whatever it was, it must have been something beyond leftover magic, something important that needed full. Shire had learned to be careful about casting anyway, but on days she had a job, she was especially so—never do more than needed. This was something special.

  She swept away the tangle of metal before I could see. The lot of it fell into her starter bag that she held on her lap. “Nothing much, just fixing something,” she whispered back. “What are you doing up, Aza?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. And I heard you in here, getting ready to go.”

  Shire’s gaze fell to my jeans, the jacket I held, the starter bag at my shoulder I would leave behind if promising just to watch made any difference.

  Her dark eyes flashed with irritation. Over the years her patience with me had slowly faded, worn thin by my unchanging insistence, the little sister who kept asking for the one thing she couldn’t have.

  “You know you can’t come,” Shire said. “How many times do you have to keep trying?”

  “If I stop asking, it’s always going to be a no.”

  “Stop asking because it’s always going to be a no.”

  “C’mon, I’ll stay out of your way.” I slung my starter bag around so it hung from my back, out of easy reach. “Your buyer won’t even see me.”

  “And what if it was a Scout who saw? Then it’d be the both of us in trouble.”

  “You’ve never been caught all these years. And Mom and Dad would never know, either—why would I say anything?”

  “It’s more than Mom and Dad, it’s—” Shire zipped shut her starter bag. “I have to go. I’ll be back soon.”

  It was true that our parents hadn’t been Shire’s main argument for a long time. Now that I was fifteen, I could keep a secret as well as anyone. And though I wasn’t nearly as good at controlling my full magic as Shire was with hers, I was definitely better than I had been at the beginning—so how would I get even better unless I practiced when I could?

  A part of me was also sure that Shire herself could help convince my parents to let me help. How with the two of us making marks together, Wu Teas would never have to be in trouble again. Shire would stop being in danger from casting. The honor of our family’s legacy would be safe.

  But then, I couldn’t tell what it was exactly that kept Shire from letting me go. It seemed like she didn’t want me to go for her own reasons. Not because she was worried about me getting hurt or accidentally killing off a species or a forest somewhere, or because of our parents and all their forever worrying, but because she wanted to keep being the one who did it all. The one who could be trusted.

  Resentment swelled until there wasn’t room for anything else.

  “There’s always going to be buyers in Lotusland looking to buy real magic, you know,” I said. “Maybe one day they’ll be able to come to me. And you and Mom and Dad won’t be able to stop me from casting.”

  “Oh, Aza.” Shire got to her feet, telling me she was done.

  “I’m serious. I only need one buyer, and then it’s word of mouth. Just how you did it. It can’t be that hard.”

  She looked at me, her expression exasperated. “I trained with Rudy for years, and then there were more months where I cast for almost nothing because I messed up more than I didn’t. It can be that hard.”

  “I’m not stupid.” I clutched my jacke
t close even though we were still indoors.

  “I’m not saying you are. I’m saying that learning how to control your magic by casting on those who think you already know is reckless.” Shire walked past me as she left our cramped kitchen and headed toward the front of the teahouse.

  I hated hearing her call me that. Reckless. It was one of the words our parents often used to describe me. She knew I would argue with them over it. She’d always taken my side.

  My throat was tight, my eyes gone all hot and stinging as I stared at her. It was like she was someone new, not the sister who’d always said she had faith in me.

  You can’t be scared of your own magic. It’s full magic. It’s rare, just like mine.

  I can’t control it.

  One day, you will.

  “You’re just like Mom and Dad, you know,” I said. “Not trusting me.”

  Shire’s expression went hard. The low lamplight of the teahouse at night deepened her scar and turned it full of shadow.

  “I do trust you,” she said. “But you have to trust me, too. And you can’t come with me for this, okay?”

  Then she left, going off to save us the way she’d been doing for years. But she never came back. She died that night, and now I know how.

  The loud rush of a train thundering overhead on steel tracks brings me back to the present, and I’m in the Tea Sector again, just a few blocks from home. The same late-night tea cafés and teatini bars I passed earlier are still open, even with dawn not too far off. Nothing looks any different, only hours have passed since then, but the world stays tilted on its axis, knocked over that way by my discoveries of the tournament and how Shire really died.

  I tug my starter bag closer to my chest, the one that was once hers.

  After she died, my parents let me take whatever I wanted of hers. And I knew Shire would have wanted me to, because she’d shared everything with me when she’d been alive, so why would that change after she was gone? A week after her funeral, I’d stepped into her room and stood there in the doorway, looking around with a heart turned into fire in my chest. I felt a grief that was too huge to escape, so it became a part of me, burrowing into my bones and knitting itself into my muscles, coloring every single word I might ever speak from then on.