Caster

by Elsie Chapman

  A final squeeze of my arm and Piper heads off.

  I go to the registration table first. It’s the same clerk as last time, and after he makes a check beside my ring name on the clipboard, he writes RUDY on my cheek. Just as I’m about to turn to leave, he stops me.

  “Hold up, you’ll need one of these, too.” He holds out a small box with a hole in its top for me to draw from.

  I pull out a white sticker with the number 15 on it. “What’s this?”

  “I find out with the rest of you. But for now, you’re supposed to put it on your sleeve.”

  I slap it on and move over to the starter counter. I use the marks Piper gave me and buy twenty ring starters, five of each. The process makes me think of Oliver, and I find myself half searching the crowd for a tall guy with wary eyes and a shirt that fits too perfectly, the brother of the fighter who killed my sister.

  But I don’t see him, and I stop looking altogether after noticing how many others are watching me. Is this a taste of what it’s like for Finch? Everyone wanting a bit of you just to feel that much closer to magic the way it once was, without cost and done freely? Most are careful to look elsewhere as soon as I meet their gaze, but one guy—earrings, a strangely rounded beard—can’t seem to. His eyes stay on mine, his thirst for magic of old palpable, and because he reminds me of last night’s autograph seekers, I quickly move away.

  It takes me a few minutes to find the washroom. The original apartment ones were all destroyed in the fire, so the Guild of Now had to cast up another. I follow an arrow through a winding maze of half-broken walls until I get to a barricaded area with two doors. Behind the door to the women’s washroom is an exact replica of the washroom from the food court.

  I duck into a stall and take out Shire’s key holder from my starter bag. I slide on all my new ring starters, combining them with the ones I have left over from last night’s fight. The key holder is heavy, reassuring. I attach it to my belt loop, step out of the stall, and crash into the person standing there.

  It doesn’t surprise me at all that it’s Kylin.

  She’s grinning, back to the confident kid caster I first saw yesterday, her bright chestnut braid swinging over her shoulder.

  I should be dismayed that she’s clearly ready to fight, but instead I’m relieved she’s no longer so nervous. The feeling irritates me, and I stride by roughly.

  “What is it with you and washrooms?” I mutter.

  “Recognized your shoes,” she says as she follows me to the sinks. “From beneath the stall.”

  “Then I’m changing them for next time.”

  “I wanted to see if you were okay,” she says as she climbs onto the counter. “About your sister. And about Finch, seeing him today.”

  I stare at my reflection and tell myself I don’t see fear there. “I’m fine.”

  “That’s good.” Kylin points to her sneakers. They have a sunflower print all over them. “New lucky sneakers.”

  “No, it’s not good that I’m fine.” Why does Kylin have to be such a kid? It’d be easier to remember how she almost killed me if she didn’t keep talking about lucky sneakers, or asking me if I’m okay. “At least, not to you. You shouldn’t want me fine—we’re competitors.”

  “So I’ve got a new pact for you.” She tilts her head as she sees my cheek. “Also, what’s your real name if it’s not Rudy?”

  “I’m Rudy here. And no more pacts—we’re not friends.”

  “But maybe we’re not enemies, either. Not really. Not kill-you enemies, just competition enemies, and that’s different. We can even enter again next year, if we wanted to.”

  But I wouldn’t, because it’d be too late then.

  As for the rest, I glare at her while I wash my hands. “We both tried to kill each other yesterday; what are you talking about?”

  “That was before our first pact. Which is why I’m asking you to make another one with me.”

  I say nothing as I dry my hands on my pants. The sticker on her sleeve says 6.

  “Let’s make a pact that we’ll avoid each other in the ring,” she says. “We’ll just go for everyone else. Maybe it’ll even just be us two by the end.”

  Something flares in me. An ache, when I haven’t even cast.

  Her words, her wish—I might have said the same thing to Shire. And my stomach hurts because I’m no longer sure what she might have said. Yes, because she always said yes to me. But also no, because the tournament was hers, a secret she’d decided to keep.

  “You’re forgetting about Finch,” I say to Kylin. “Eliminating him won’t be so easy.”

  “I don’t think he’ll kill in this tournament. The Guild won’t vote him in if he keeps doing it, once they have an opening.”

  “What if he uses another gathered spell?”

  “That was just a guess about him using one last year.” One of her double-shoulder shrugs. “If he did, he would have had to pay something huge. And also, I guess that means he’s still been able to hide it.”

  A bell rings.

  Back outside, spectators have pushed themselves to the outer edges of the room that is now the third floor. Kylin and I walk into the center where the rest of the fighters already are. Twenty-one of us left, standing in a loose circle.

  The dimensions of the apartment building are smaller than the food court’s were, and the noise level has folded in on itself, waves of sound lapping over one another and growing. Cheers and yells and clapping, a smattering of heckling boos. I make out names: Pav and Rudy and Finch.

  I scan the fighters around me and wonder how much better they are tonight than last. Nola has new glasses, and she’s wearing the number 4 on her sleeve. Wilson is number 14, his wide grin telling us all how happy he is to be here. Pav is number 13. He looks Chinese, around thirty, with pretty bird tattoos all over his arms and a panicked look in his eyes. Kylin is staring straight ahead, as she did last time, and for a second I regret not agreeing to her pact, if only because it couldn’t have hurt. At least, not at first.

  And Finch. Number 5 on his T-shirt sleeve, blond hair and celery eyes. There’s the shine of a blue-striped ribbon from his arm, showing how Oliver and the family business of the Salt Lick are behind him.

  I don’t know how long I’m staring at Finch for before he notices and turns. His expression remains unchanged as his gaze meets mine—if he recognizes Shire in me, he doesn’t show it. It only makes him colder, how simple his purpose is. He is here only for the challenge of his magic, the weighing and measuring and testing of it, and we are merely the ways he is proving to the Guild that he can be a great.

  Shire was better, and in his way.

  What are you hiding, Finch? How did you beat her?

  I drag my eyes away and there’s Oliver in the crowd, just behind Finch. The shape of their bones is an echo of each other’s, and they’re both tall with wide shoulders. That they’re brothers is clear. And if their parents are gone and it’s just the two of them, they must be close, too.

  I wonder how deep the similarities go, how strong the bond. Oliver, what kind of magic do you have? Could you ever kill with it?

  A dull, thudding fury grips me—why did it have to be Oliver who I noticed? I liked his rusty laugh, his reined-in impatience. I liked the guarded wariness in his eyes that said he cared too much. Why can’t someone else back Finch? What is Oliver still helping him hide?

  Oliver catches me watching him then, his gaze flickering over, and I know my stare is stony before I pointedly look away.

  The sound of the crowd changes, gains an edge of excitement that is as sharp as hunger. I feel it in my own throat, the need for magic. My casting arm twinges as Embry appears and makes his way toward the center of the room.

  Then I blink and the burnt-out shell of a building around us is gone.

  Gone is the singed carpeted floor, and instead we’re standing on smooth, sun-beaten pavement. The four outer walls of the old apartment building—soot-stained, broken through with piping and w
iring—are now the curved walls of a circular temple. The walls are of a polished green brick, dotted through with bricks of gold and pearl and with cutout windows of painted glass. Fat gold pillars line the courtyard, and covered staircases wind upward toward balconies. Huge potted ginger plants sit on these, full of thick green branches and fat dangling vines. Three tiers of sloped jade tiles make up the temple’s roof; massive dragons carved out of pearl perch on their peaks and hang off their edges.

  I’ve only ever seen an ancient Zinaese temple in history books. The ancient land of Zina still stands on the other side of the Pacifik, but is filled now only with the relics of these temples, with ruins of once-great palaces and courtyards. The last one fell more than a thousand years ago.

  And yet.

  I peer upward, at the sky that is more than vivid with pinks and plums, at the strings of glowing lanterns that crisscross for miles over the length of the temple’s inner courtyard. Our shadows are blurs on the pavement, softened by the dusk light. Spectators fill the spaces between the pillars, and their faces are ovals, equally blurred by distance.

  The air blows across my skin, as soft as velvet, smelling of ginger; if I stick out my tongue, I know the taste of the plant would stick. How much of that taste is the Guild? Their ethereal magic is this world, wrapping around us as it weaves together an existence that no longer is.

  I’ve never felt less like I was dreaming; nothing has ever seemed more real.

  “When the first Tournament of Casters took place two thousand years ago,” Embry says as he moves closer to us, “it was a test of skill. Three hundred years later came the first battle of caster families. It was still a test of skill, but even more so one of teamwork.”

  His voice is that smooth low rumble again, the one that worms into your brain and makes you question your own magic—Do I deserve to be here? How do I measure up? He’s in another sleek suit, this one of deepest midnight blue, and his tie is a stark contrasting white with an elegant raised rose print.

  He glances around, as though unable to keep from admiring the Guild’s work. His work.

  “This is Jayde Temple,” he says, “one of the most revered temples in ancient Zina on account of the royalty who once lived there—emperors and empresses, their families and their servants. It’s said the royals were so indulgent with their full magic that the grounds of the temple stayed warm year-round. How even in deep winter, snow would melt feet before it hit the earth. Today only ruins remain, but before it fell, Jayde Temple was also the site of that first battle between families. Two great lineages of casters clashing right here, spilling blood and magic.”

  His words stir up images in my brain. Standing in the middle of this re-created world, it’s easy to picture the royalty that once filled this place, the grand lives they would have led. Back when casting full magic was celebrated, done out in the open. When no one had to hide their power because everyone had the same kind. People in silks and velvets drinking Wu teas while they pulled power from the earth, casting it to do whatever they wanted it to do. How the only challenge they faced were other casters, racing up to the temple walls with fire in their veins and stars drawn on their palms.

  “You each wear a number on your sleeve,” Embry says, “a number you chose at random. Numbers one, two, and three, please stand here.” He gestures to his right.

  Three fighters move over: a teenaged boy with the ring name of Hurley, a woman in her twenties named Lia, and a guy in his fifties with a cigarette jammed between his lips whose name is Oscar.

  “Numbers four, five, and six, please stand here.” Embry gestures to a spot not too far from the first.

  This is Nola, Finch, and Kylin. Kylin’s expression is just as cool as Finch’s as they move to stand together, giving away no sign that she ever mentioned the idea of Finch being a cheater.

  Soon we’re standing in seven groups of three. We circle Embry like we’re numbers around a clock face.

  I study the other two people in my group, just as they study me in return.

  Number 13 is Pav. Up close the worry in his eyes is underlined by purple bags of sleeplessness, and his hands are shaking. His regret over entering this tournament comes off him in waves. Or maybe it’s just pain from fighting last night, or from whatever casting he does outside of here. I don’t know if it makes any difference when it comes to needing him to fight.

  Number 14 is Wilson. While Pav reeks of terror, Wilson’s excitement burns like a fever. He’s built smaller than I first thought, is all tightly coiled energy and barely reined-in swagger. But he’s bought into that swagger, believes absolutely in his own capacity for magic and control over it. I’ll have to make myself believe it, too—that it’s better to be on his side for this fight than not.

  “Fighters, this is your team for tonight’s battle,” Embry says. “If one of you falls, all three of you do. So, please take a moment to introduce yourselves to one another.”

  There’s an awkward kind of shuffling among us. We’re supposed to knock each other out, not become allies. I think of Kylin and Finch being in the same group and can’t deny I’m relieved—I’m not ready for her to be eliminated just yet, and her getting stuck with Finch means her chances of moving on are better than they were.

  Wilson just shakes his head as he faces Pav and me. His grin is dismissive. “Let’s not bother with the niceties. After this match we move on, and I’ll just have to get back to thinking of how I’m going to eliminate you two anyway.”

  Pav’s shoulders slump slightly. “Not the greatest attitude to have for this, kid.”

  Wilson scowls at the kid. “Casting magic is casting magic. Being nice isn’t going to help us.”

  “Doesn’t hurt anything, either.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Everyone knows it’s easier to knock out a stranger than a friend.”

  “I agree with that,” I say. “But not for this match. You heard Embry. Tonight’s about teamwork if we’re going to move on to the next round. And teamwork’s easier if we can at least pretend to be friends.”

  “I am pretending,” Wilson says. “I haven’t complained yet about being stuck on a team with ‘Pav the Coward.’ I heard the crowd. I know why they call you that. Hiding is boring.”

  Pav’s face goes red. “Casting shield and invisibility spells is a type of strategy. Sorry if it’s not one you agree with.”

  “You’re both wrong,” I blurt out. “Pav, what you’re doing is boring. Wilson, that doesn’t mean Pav might not be smarter than all of us put together. But we still have to figure out a strategy we can all agree on.”

  Pav’s expression is one of near betrayal. “I can cast other spells, too. I just don’t use them as often.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” Wilson says, far from impressed. He turns to me. “Fine, I’ll be friendly, but none of us are friends.”

  I nod. “We’re not, but you better learn fast to care about helping Pav and me stay alive.”

  “All right, now that everyone’s made nice,” Embry says as we all turn to face him, “let’s move on to the next step.”

  He flashes a deck of cards so that the cards fan out evenly from his hands.

  The gesture’s oddly theatrical. It makes me think of pretend casting, the stuff of fake magic shows and staged spells. Which is a good trick for Embry, I suppose, considering he’s a member of the Guild of Now and the Guild likely knows more about magic than anyone else here.

  He walks from group to group, holding out the cards. “One per team, please.”

  Lia draws for her team.

  “What is this?” She flips her team’s card over and over again. Its front is blank.

  So is the card Finch’s team is holding.

  More teams draw. Their cards are all blank, too.

  Pav’s the one who takes our card for us. He flips it over. The front side is completely blank, just like everyone else’s.

  “Look again,” Embry says, the remainder of the deck somehow now gone from
his hands.

  Pav flips our card again.

  The front is no longer blank. Now there’s a drawing of a bright silver coin on it.

  Silver for breath.

  “The card your team holds is the kind of spell your team will be casting tonight.” Embry pauses for effect. “The only kind of spell.”

  Wilson’s grin turns into a grimace.

  And dread fills me at the abrupt dimming of his glee—because it can only mean one thing.

  Pav, seeing my face fall or whatever it does to show my sense of doom, turns frantically from me to Wilson and back again. “What is it?”

  “It’s his weakness,” I whisper.

  Pav’s mouth forms a perfect O of dismay.

  Even the strongest casters of full magic can have a weakness, whether it’s obvious or hidden. Just having a preference for certain spells can be a weakness, because it leaves you rusty with others. If Wilson’s weak in breath spells, he might not be able to do much more than just protect himself with a shield spell. He won’t be able to cast attack spells. No air punches. No heat or fire. Under these circumstances, he might as well have no magic at all.

  Now Pav’s the one with the scowl, and he turns it on Wilson. “No wonder you’re hating on my casting shield and invisibility spells. It’s because you’re weak in them.”

  “Weak is a strong word.”

  “You can cast a basic shield, right?” I ask, no longer sure. Wilson made fun of Pav for casting his shields, but what if he’s been covering up this whole time how he can’t cast even that?

  “Yeah, of course,” he says. “I made sure my shield was good so I could focus on getting great with bone spells.”

  Pav snorts. “So that’s why I thought I heard them call you ‘Wilson the Boner.’ ”

  Wilson looks toward the ground.

  “Really useful for this round, all those bone spells you’re so great at. Thanks so much.”

  Wilson flings his arms out wide. “Hey, as if any of us had an idea this was coming. Any other kind of match and you’d be the one—”