The Bootlace Magician

by Cassie Beasley

  “So if she left Terpsichore, after all that, it was because she had to. Maybe she was scared of something. Or sick. She must have thought she couldn’t protect Terp anymore. Just like my grandpa couldn’t protect me anymore. And she knew, just like he did, that the circus could.”

  Micah finally stopped pacing. He felt like he’d been running a race. It all made perfect sense to him, but the Lightbender didn’t look surprised or excited at the revelation that Terp’s story might not be as tragic as everyone had thought. And he didn’t leap up and announce that they had to solve the mystery of what had happened to the unicorn mother and make things right.

  “You believe me, don’t you?” said Micah.

  The Lightbender stood up from his chair. He spoke in a careful voice. “I think you are mistaken about a few things.”

  “I’m not, though,” Micah said quickly. “I’m not here by accident, and Terp isn’t either. We’re the same.”

  “You are certainly not here by accident,” the Lightbender said gently. “But, Micah, unicorns do not become ill. So, the foal’s mother could not have been sick as your grandfather was. And while I have told you that unicorns are strong, I do not think I have managed to convey the magnitude of that strength. They are very nearly indestructible. No other living thing preys upon them or wars with them, not since the dragons of old faded from existence. I cannot imagine what would frighten them.”

  “But everyone says unicorns are good,” Micah protested. Good people, and good magical creatures, didn’t dump their kids for no reason at all.

  The Lightbender sighed. “They are benevolent,” he said. “But that doesn’t make them flawless. Sometimes difficult, painful things happen, and there is no satisfying explanation for us.”

  Micah felt like the floor was crumbling away. It seemed very important that he be right about the foal. Because if he was right, then the circus could do something to fix the problem. They could find the mother unicorn, and Rosebud could heal her. Or they could learn what had frightened her and stop it.

  “I’m sorry,” said the Lightbender. “I know you have come to care for Terpsichore, and you have been doing a wonderful job seeing to her needs.”

  She’s my responsibility, thought Micah. The first real responsibility he’d ever been given at Circus Mirandus.

  He wouldn’t argue with his guardian. But he couldn’t just give up. Whatever had made Terp’s mother leave her behind—Micah would have to figure it out himself.

  “Where are you going?” the Lightbender said.

  “I need to ask Rosebud a question about unicorns.”

  “Wait a moment.”

  Micah turned. He thought the Lightbender was going to discourage him. Or maybe even be annoyed that Micah disagreed with his advice. But the illusionist walked over to the stands and picked up a yellow baseball cap someone had left under their seat.

  Micah recognized it as one of the umbrella hats that Geoffrey, the ticket taker, passed out on rainy days. The magical umbrella would sprout right out of the top as soon as it got wet.

  “It’s raining outside,” the illusionist reminded him.

  “Thank you,” Micah said, feeling a little awkward. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just that I’m taking care of Terp now. So, I have to do everything I possibly can to help her.”

  “I understand,” the Lightbender said. He placed the umbrella cap on Micah’s head, and it tightened on its own until it fit just right.

  FIRESLEIGHT

  Over the next few days, Micah met with frustration at every turn. He talked with all the magicians he could think of who might know anything about unicorns, and none of them had much to offer beyond what the Lightbender had already told him.

  Rosebud confirmed that full-grown unicorns didn’t get sick. Mr. Head agreed that they were nearly indestructible. Nobody knew of anything they might truly fear.

  Even Jenny had suggested in her last letter that Micah might be chasing after a mystery that didn’t exist. She pointed out that her father, who was in school to become a veterinarian, dealt with baby animals that had been left behind by their mothers all the time.

  “Sometimes,” she wrote, “it just happens.”

  Finally, with no good theories left, Micah decided to look into a ridiculous one.

  The afternoon was pleasantly warm as he set out across the circus, heading for a tall, copper-colored tent. The weather had been dismal for most of the week, with so much rain that the ground was all mud in the more well-traveled parts of the circus. But today, the sun was out, and the copper tent gleamed like a new penny.

  The tent was closed when he reached it, its flap drawn and a sign posted beside it. Micah studied it for a minute, but the Portuguese didn’t suddenly become readable. He decided it was safest to assume it said something like KEEP OUT. He didn’t know Firesleight well enough to just barge in, so he stood at the flap and shouted in his loudest voice, “Firesleight! It’s Micah! Are you in there?”

  A minute later, a magician with long, dark hair and a bright smile poked her head out of the flap. “Hi!” She sounded surprised. “Did you come for the rehearsal?”

  Micah blinked. “I came to ask you a question.”

  “Perfect timing then!” Firesleight said. “I’ll answer it, and you’ll watch me rehearse my new show. I could use an opinion from someone your age.”

  She motioned for him to come inside, and Micah stepped through the entrance, looking around curiously.

  Firesleight’s tent had always been a little unusual. Instead of a stage, she had a small amphitheater. And stone terraces with benches for seating led down to the sandy area where she performed her magic.

  Today, the terraces, the walls, and the ceiling had all been turned pitch-black. And some kind of magical barrier had been set up to separate Firesleight from her audience. It was translucent and barely visible in the dim lamps hanging from the tent ceiling, but Micah could just make it out—a distortion in the air like a soap bubble that stopped right at the edge of the sand.

  “What do you think?” Firesleight asked, her voice eager. “Dramatic, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” said Micah.

  Firesleight looked pretty dramatic herself.

  Normally, the fire magician dressed in modern clothes. She’d been born in Jakarta barely a century ago, which made her practically youthful by Circus Mirandus standards. She kept up with the outside world better than most of the circus’s older magicians did, and she had a variety of fireproof hoodies and jeans, all in shades of red and orange, that she liked to wear when she performed.

  But now she was in a long black dress that blended in with the dark amphitheater.

  “Is that a new costume?” Micah asked.

  “Yes,” said Firesleight, spinning in place so that the dress flared out around her ankles. “It’s part of the routine. The Inventor and I have been working on all of this”—she gestured around the tent—“for months.”

  “It’s still not ready,” said a magician in a green sari who had just stepped into the tent. “Hello, Micah.”

  The Inventor must have joined the circus later in life than most. Her hair, clipped up on top of her head, was entirely gray, and she had lines on her face. She struck Micah as an elegant, serious-minded person, and seeing her here made him feel like he ought to be on his best behavior.

  “You have three new bracelets,” the Inventor said, glancing at his left wrist.

  “Yes,” said Micah, shocked that anyone had noticed. “I mean, yes, ma’am. Do you want to see them?”

  He held out his arm, feeling a little silly, because of course she wouldn’t.

  But the Inventor unclipped a metal device that resembled a jeweler’s loupe from the tool belt she always wore around her waist and held it to her eye while she inspected Micah’s work.

  For his part, Micah took the opportuni
ty to admire the tool belt. He thought it looked impressive and magiciany. The belt held several small, bulging pouches and a number of mysterious, gleaming gizmos—tools the Inventor could use to fix magical devices or create them on the spot.

  “These are finely crafted,” the Inventor said, straightening up and attaching the loupe to her belt.

  “Thank you,” said Micah, pleased. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his latest half-finished attempt at a bracelet for the Lightbender. “I’m having trouble with this one, but I don’t know why. I blew up a ribbon the other day trying to make it.”

  The Inventor looked thoughtfully at the bracelet. “Perhaps you don’t yet have a firm grasp of the subject you’ve chosen,” she said, before turning back to Firesleight. “If you truly wish to test your flames against the shield today, I’ll need a few minutes to make adjustments to it.”

  “Sure, sure,” said Firesleight. She plopped down on the nearest bench. “Come sit, Micah. What did you want to ask me?”

  “It’s kind of weird,” Micah warned her as he took a seat.

  “Well, who doesn’t love a weird question?” Firesleight said.

  “You know how I’ve been taking care of Terp?”

  She nodded.

  Micah took a deep breath. “I think maybe something bad happened and it scared Terpsichore’s mom, or hurt her, and so she brought Terp here to keep her safe. But the Lightbender says the only thing that ever preyed on unicorns was dragons, and they’re all gone. I know it’s a long shot, but I was wondering if you might tell me—”

  “About dragons?” Firesleight interrupted. “Absolutely! Dragons are one of my specialties.”

  Micah had hoped that was the case. The grand finale of Firesleight’s nighttime show did involve a big fiery dragon in the sky, after all.

  “Are they really extinct?” said Micah, embarrassed. It felt like asking if woolly mammoths might be hiding out somewhere without anyone having noticed.

  “That’s not a weird question at all,” Firesleight said. “Dragons loved to hunt unicorns, so you had to ask to be sure.”

  “Right.” Micah was glad she understood.

  “Well, don’t worry. The big, flying, fire-breathing kind of dragon hasn’t been seen in centuries,” said Firesleight. “I know, because when I was just a bit older than you are now, I traveled the world hoping to find one. The species hasn’t quite gone extinct, though. I guess you would say they devolved, or diminished, instead.”

  Micah listened while she explained that dragons were predators who only ate other magical creatures and the occasional human being. They began life as draklings—small, ground-dwelling, flameless. But the magic they consumed made them grow larger and larger, until finally they were powerful enough to sprout wings and breathe fire.

  “Dragonflame,” said Firesleight wistfully. “I’ve never seen it before, but the stories I’ve heard . . . For a fire magician it would be the ultimate challenge. That’s why I’ve always been interested. But the ancient dragons were horrific and greedy, and they slaughtered so many of the other highly magical species that they starved themselves out of existence. The ones who survived slowly transformed back into draklings. Most of them are no bigger than iguanas these days.”

  “So, they couldn’t hurt a unicorn?” Micah asked.

  “Definitely not,” said Firesleight. “They’ve all been asleep for many years. They hibernate in underground burrows in isolated parts of the world. They’re excellent tunnelers; they can sense magic over great distances, and they even have a sort of language. But if you dug one out of its lair, you’d see that they’re closer to bloated earthworms than fearsome monsters.”

  Micah suspected he ought to be glad that dragons weren’t flying around, eating people and animals willy-nilly, but he felt more disappointed that he’d hit another dead end. Unconscious earthworms wouldn’t even scare Terpsichore, never mind a full-grown unicorn.

  Then something else Firesleight had said registered. “The draklings have a language? You mean they can talk?”

  “They can write,” said Firesleight. “They have a few glyphs they scratch into mud or wood or rock. They claw their names into the dirt over the entrances to their burrows before they go to sleep. But to be honest, most of the names I’ve read are just different versions of the same thing.”

  “Like what?”

  “I like to burn stuff,” said Firesleight.

  “Well, you are really good at it.”

  “No,” said Firesleight with a laugh. “That was an example of dragon names! I Burn Stuff. Fire Is Great. I Burn More Stuff than I Burn Stuff. Some of the oldest draklings—the ones who were real terrors in their day—are smarter than the others. They’re more dignified about naming themselves, but even they pretty much stick to the theme. I used to have a book full of all the known names, but I loaned it to . . . uh . . . to somebody. They didn’t return it.”

  She seemed suddenly flustered.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. “Don’t worry about dragons, Micah. Even if the draklings woke, they’d be too weak to hunt for the kind of food that would build their strength again.”

  “Firesleight—”

  “Oh, look!” she said, leaping to her feet. “The Inventor’s ready for us.”

  Micah looked down to the sand floor of the amphitheater. The Inventor stood there, rolling up a silver measuring tape. “The shielding isn’t perfect, Firesleight,” she warned. “It won’t stop the hottest of your flames. If you wish to run through the entire routine—”

  “Yes!” said Firesleight. “I’m ready.”

  She turned to Micah, grinning. “Micah, you’re going to be so impressed! I hope. But you have to be honest if you’re not, okay? Because I can still make changes.”

  “I’ll be honest,” Micah promised.

  “Okay, great,” said Firesleight. She flapped her hands a little, as if she were shaking off nerves. “Go sit in the front. These back seats are going to be for the younger kids.”

  Before Micah could ask why the seats needed to be arranged by age, Firesleight was gone. She dashed up the stairs and out of the tent entirely.

  “Where’s she going?” he called to the Inventor.

  “The new routine involves a grand entrance,” the Inventor said. “Come sit down here with me.”

  Micah went to join her on a front-row bench.

  The Inventor reached into one of her tool belt pouches and removed a mechanical cylinder. It was the most complicated device Micah had ever seen—all tiny metal dials and golden knobs. It had little bubbles of glass on either end filled with something that glowed like liquid moonlight.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “Something we will no doubt need before the end of the show.”

  * * *

  The tent went dark.

  The brightest light in the amphitheater was the peculiar cylinder, which the Inventor held in her lap. In its glow, Micah could make out the shadowy shape of the nearest benches and the pale color of the sandy floor, but not much else.

  Then came the sound of drums.

  It wasn’t the music Micah usually associated with the circus. It was deeper, more foreboding. And as the drums beat louder and louder, his body picked up the rhythm until he felt like they were beating inside him.

  Flames appeared. They were no more than wisps, slithering along the sand, but they multiplied quickly, spreading until they reached the amphitheater’s stone stairs. They licked at the first step and began to climb, tiny drops of fire leapfrogging over each other, up step after step to the top, where Firesleight stood, looking like a shadow in her black dress.

  As the first of the little flames reached her, she bent and caught it on the tip of her finger.

  She smiled at the flame and blew gently on it. It drifted off her finger like a dande
lion seed to settle on top of her head. It split into two flames, then four, then eight, on and on until Firesleight wore a crown of blazing orange.

  The drums stopped.

  The magician swept down the burning stairs, and as she went, the hem of her black dress trailed through the fire, collecting the little flames one by one. By the time she reached the sand floor, she looked like a bonfire come to life.

  Micah was so impressed he half expected her to say, “Thank you for coming. The show’s over.” But she was just getting started.

  Over the next few minutes, fire filled the center of the amphitheater, forming patterns in the air, swirling up so high that it splashed against the tent’s coppery roof and fell back down like rain.

  Micah understood now why the magical barrier was necessary. The fire was wilder than he had ever seen it. The tongues of flame came closer to the audience. Sometimes, they burned white-hot, and if not for the shielding, it would have been much too risky.

  And then, just when he thought there were no more surprises, a whip of flame licked the air right in front of his nose.

  “Whoa!” he shouted, leaning back. But the flame inched closer until Micah was at risk of falling off the bench to get away from it.

  “It’s all right,” the Inventor said. “This isn’t the part of the show that’s dangerous.”

  She had pulled out a pocket notebook at some point and started jotting down observations.

  Micah cautiously sat back up, and the flame retreated. “What do you mean this isn’t the part that’s dangerous?”

  “Sit closer to me,” the Inventor said.

  Micah scooted toward her until his shoulder bumped her arm.

  The finale of the show was unlike anything Micah had ever seen. The fire filled the theater floor until Firesleight was only a dark shape, spinning at the heart of it. Golden flames crashed against the barrier, wave after wave, like a burning ocean trapped in a bottle.