The Bootlace Magician

by Cassie Beasley

  The minutes trickled by as Micah stared deep into Fish’s eye, trying with all his might to open his mind up, making room for some spectacular new idea that would put a stop to the Bird Woman once and for all.

  “Well,” he said, when the silent staring match finally became too much, “I guess you know best. But just in case.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of gray thread. “This is the locator knot.” He held it up to the tank. “See?”

  Fish twitched a fin.

  “The matching one is on my finger.” Micah tapped his ring finger against the glass. “I made them so that they would pull toward each other. And if I give you one, then we can always find each other. So, when the time’s right—if it’s ever right—you’ll know where I am.”

  Before he could chicken out, Micah climbed on top of his barrel and tossed the tiny knot over the rim of the tank.

  Fish swished his tail and caught it the instant it hit the water.

  Micah, heart fluttering, waited to see if there was any reaction. Fish circled the tank at top speed and stopped again right in front of him, but that was what he always did lately when Micah gave him a knot.

  Fish didn’t transform, and there was no huge outpouring of magic. No flash of inspiration came.

  And later that night, Micah heard the news—Victoria hadn’t been caught in Peal. She had flown on, and in another town, more innocent people had looked up to see the sky darken, the sun hidden behind thousands of beating wings.

  * * *

  Victoria attacked another town two days later, and then another, four days after that. And rather than racing to meet her, Circus Mirandus kept up its usual work, just as the Lightbender had said it would.

  To the children who arrived in droves, Micah guessed it must seem that everything was as beautiful and fun as always. But he saw a different side of the circus.

  Porter had taken on the job of helping a select few magicians and members of the Sisterhood travel from battle to battle, and his warehouse had turned into a command center.

  When the flocks were big enough, the Sisterhood tracked them using radar. Those were the good fights, because the magicians could anticipate which town would be hit and arrive in advance. They would go through Doors and be on hand to meet the waves of birds, and they would fight or subdue them as necessary.

  But smaller attacks came, too—ones they couldn’t do anything about until after the fact. And on those days, everyone felt like failures.

  Victoria was traveling impossibly fast, in so many scattered directions that they could never completely anticipate her next move.

  Most days, the Strongfolk and the others met in the warehouse to discuss tactics. Micah went every chance he got, and as long as he stayed out of the way, nobody seemed to mind him listening in on their plans. At first, it was encouraging to watch them all set out—brave and ready for anything—but as the days turned into weeks, Micah began to fear that Victoria was too clever to be captured at all.

  Half the battle party was always dedicated to tracking down the Bird Woman, but she never allowed herself to be seen on the battlefield.

  “She’s a coward!” Pennyroyal shouted, stomping into the warehouse after a particularly frustrating day, her orange hair covered in feathers and bird droppings. “Or a genius! I’m not sure which. We’re running ourselves ragged dealing with swarms of pigeons while she keeps herself and the dangerous creatures out of the fight.”

  Micah didn’t tell Pennyroyal, but he was glad Victoria hadn’t risked her magical flock in any of the fights so far. He already spent his long hours in the warehouse trying not to stare at the space Rosebud had set aside for medical emergencies; he hated to think of the magicians dealing with even more danger.

  Just yesterday, Thuja had come through the Door with a bleeding Ten Hands slung across her shoulders. The juggler was an expert with his knives, and he had refused to be left out of the fighting.

  “It was a gigantic dire hawk that did this to me,” Ten Hands told Micah, pointing to the long scratches on his cheeks. “The size of a rich person’s house.”

  “Oh, was it now?” said Rosebud, rubbing the juggler’s arms with a minty-smelling potion. “You were fearless, I’m sure.”

  “Did it pick you up?” Micah asked.

  He had been trying to learn everything he could about Victoria’s most dangerous birds, and Porter had told him that dire hawks killed their prey by dropping it from great heights. He leaned in closer to examine Ten Hands, assuming there must be broken bones.

  “No. It was the kind of dire hawk that likes to scratch people,” said the juggler. “Very terrifying.”

  “It was seagulls,” said Thuja from her seat on top of a stack of doors. She was checking the fletching on one of her strange green arrows, and Micah was relieved to see that the tip of it wasn’t dirty with blood. The magicians were doing their best to fend off the birds without hurting them. “And a goose.”

  “Thuja,” Ten Hands protested.

  Thuja grinned at him. “A great many seagulls,” she said placatingly. “And a fearsome goose.”

  She stuck the arrow she’d been checking back in her quiver.

  Micah had asked the Strongwoman last week why her arrows were so big, and she’d given him a long look. “Sometimes the enemies of peace are big,” she’d said. “And when they will not be swayed by kind words and good reason, they might be swayed by something sharper.”

  Micah was a little alarmed by the archer, but he was glad, at least, that she was on their side.

  He wished with every bit of himself that he could join the fight in a more active way, but the Lightbender thought he was spending too much time at Porter’s as it was.

  “Even were you as strong as Bowler, we would not send you into battle,” the illusionist said. “Because you are eleven, and there are many other ways for you to be helpful.”

  He suggested that Micah start going with other magicians on supply runs into St. Albans and London. “There is absolutely no reason for you to confine yourself to the circus when Victoria remains an ocean away. I know how you enjoy field trips.”

  But Micah couldn’t let himself enjoy touring England, knowing that any day now, someone might go through one of Porter’s Doors and never come back.

  Instead, he came up with the idea of making unbreakable nets. His sleeping hammock was only a kind of net, after all, and the magicians needed some way of capturing and containing Victoria’s birds. So, he set out to tie nets that even the Strongfolk couldn’t destroy.

  Unfortunately, he was a little too good at the job.

  The knots that made up the nets were simple, and they came together quickly. Once he laid out the ropes on the floor of the warehouse and started tying, his magic did more than half the work for him. The strands twisted around one another obligingly, like they had minds of their own. And since the nets were unbreakable, they didn’t suffer from wear and tear.

  It wasn’t long before Pennyroyal, a little less polite than some of the others, said, “Honey, you’ve got to stop. The nets are fabulous, but we’ve already got more than we need.”

  Even as she said it, the Strongwoman was hauling nets full of shrieking crows and honking geese. All the birds they caught had to be released somewhere far away from civilization so that they could recover from whatever Victoria had done to them.

  Micah kept sneaking behind stacks of doors to make more nets anyway, just in case Pennyroyal was wrong. And when he wasn’t busy with that, he was trying to reach the overlay.

  He’d even gotten Jenny involved. They’d talked several times since the attack on Peal, and when Micah ran out of ideas for methods to try, she came up with some new ones.

  Closing his eyes, holding them open until he couldn’t stand it anymore, wearing tinted glasses, sleeping with his backpack full of knot bracelets on top of his face,
drinking six mugs of coffee, dangling upside down from one of Porter’s door frames so that the blood would rush to his brain—none of it worked.

  The last time they’d spoken, Jenny had crammed a book on meditation through the mail slot, in case that might help.

  “Thanks, Jenny,” he said. “How are things in Peal?”

  “Almost back to normal,” she said. “People aren’t even talking about it much anymore.”

  “Really?” Micah said, his mood brightening. The attack on Peal had been the biggest one. If his old hometown could recover, then maybe other places could, too.

  “Really,” Jenny confirmed. “And did I tell you I got a call from the Sisterhood the other day? Just out of the blue.”

  “What about?” Micah knew Jenny had met Pennyroyal, Thuja, and some of the others when they went to help Peal, but he didn’t know why anyone would be calling her now.

  “Apparently they fund educational programs for kids all over the world. The programs don’t have anything to do with magic, but they sound amazing. The Sisterhood even sponsors a summer camp. It’s not too far from here. They called to say if I wanted a scholarship, I was a shoo-in.”

  “Jenny, that’s great! Do you think your parents—?”

  “I don’t know,” Jenny sighed. “They were so mad about my trip to the circus last summer, but I think they’re over it now. And they appreciated how the Strongwomen helped us out.”

  “I hoped they would let you come back here this summer,” Micah admitted.

  “I guess we’ll see,” Jenny said. “What about you guys? Any luck figuring out Victoria’s master plan yet?”

  Micah shook his head. Nobody at Circus Mirandus could understand why Victoria kept up her attacks when they obviously weren’t luring the circus out of hiding. One theory was that she was just too hateful and too stubborn to give up. Another was that she had some scheme to find one of Porter’s Doors and breach the circus that way.

  “I don’t see how that would work,” Porter said when it was brought up. “It would be a suicide mission on her part.”

  It did sound far-fetched. The Strongfolk were always the first through a Door, so even if Victoria knew where one was she’d end up facing down Thuja’s bow or Bowler’s fists.

  And Porter had assured Micah that he could close Doors quickly.

  “It’s hard to hold them open,” he said. “They want to be closed, and I pity whatever, or whoever, is stuck in one when it does.”

  “What would happen?”

  “I’m not sure,” Porter had replied, gazing at the painted metal door they were using to reach the latest town under attack. “I’ve never hated anyone enough to try it.”

  LONDON

  As the end of March approached, the situation improved.

  The attacks became less frequent, and the flock Victoria called to each town grew smaller. In at least one case, she even lost control of her birds. A few minutes into the attack, they turned on one another instead of the people in the city below, then flew off, scattering in different directions.

  Despite these encouraging developments, Micah felt like Victoria was a stone laid across his shoulders, the weight of her growing heavier and heavier as the days passed. Nobody had come close to catching her. No one had even seen her.

  And though things were better, it only meant he had to wait for three days, or five, before hearing the same bad news all over again. Children were swarmed by ravens at a birthday party. Songbirds flung themselves into the path of floats at a parade.

  Micah was afraid Victoria would never be caught, that she would exist in the background for the whole of his life, vanishing for days or weeks only to return as soon as he let down his guard.

  He went to Porter’s every day to stare at whatever Door the response team had disappeared through last. Unless the Lightbender caught him before he got there. The illusionist would give him comic books to read and chores to do and gentle reminders that the world was moving on without him while he wasted away in a dark warehouse.

  “Why don’t you make friends with some of the children here?” the Lightbender said. “Or offer to give them tours of the circus! You have a unique perspective to share.”

  This last suggestion was almost tempting.

  Only months ago, Micah would have relished the chance to be a Circus Mirandus tour guide. And it wasn’t as if he could do it any time he pleased. He would be a poor guide once the circus moved on to a country where he didn’t speak the language. They’d only stayed so long in England because of Porter, who couldn’t move the whole circus and send groups of fighting magicians across the Atlantic at the same time.

  So, on one unseasonably frigid morning, Micah tried following his guardian’s advice. He collected a gaggle of younger kids and spent a couple hours showing them around, giving them inside information about every tent, animal, and magician they encountered.

  But he found he was awkward around them. They were so happy and wonderstruck, clapping their mittened hands at every new spark of magic they saw. And Micah was worried about so many things. It made him feel tired and somehow alien, and he worried he might say something to spoil their fun. He left them watching the shapeshifters and went again to the warehouse, hoping for news that would cheer him up.

  He arrived to find Porter huddled in one of the rocking chairs that usually sat in his living room, while Yuri tried to force-feed him a piece of baklava. The chef had been supplying the away teams with food ever since the attack on Peal. He seemed to be feeling every bit as frazzled and helpless as Micah.

  Yuri was always hovering around looking agonized, as if he expected dead bodies to fall through the Doors the second Porter opened them. When Porter inevitably got frustrated and pointed out that he was in the way, Yuri would apologize and leave, only to return half an hour later with a tray full of sushi or pot stickers or bread rolls stuffed with stewed lamb.

  As Micah approached, the chef dropped the baklava back on a tray and reached for a brownie. Neither magician had spotted Micah yet, and he froze a few yards away when Porter suddenly snapped, “Stop it!”

  Micah had never heard Porter speak so harshly. He was holding up his hand to fend off the brownie.

  Yuri drooped. His ponytail hung limp and tangled down his back, and he was shaking as he set the tray of food on the small table beside Porter’s chair.

  “I’m sorry, Yuri,” Porter sighed, rubbing his face with both hands. He hadn’t been shaving regularly, and he had the beginnings of a beard. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. Forgive me, my friend. But also, quit feeding me.”

  “I do not know what else to do?” Yuri’s shoulders hunched.

  Porter patted his arm. “I know,” he said. “But I feel like I’m being fattened for slaughter. You don’t have to cook or make excuses to stay here. Just take a seat and stop feeling guilty.”

  Yuri wrung his hands. “I should be helping the others with the battle?” he said softly. “My magic . . . I cannot manage it?”

  Porter rocked back in his chair. “You can,” he said. “You just need to practice. Hiding in the kitchen and talking in questions because you’re afraid of your power is no way to spend your life.”

  “How am I supposed to practice?” Yuri said, a note of deep frustration in his voice.

  “Carefully,” said Porter. “With a great deal of forethought and a willingness to make a few mistakes. It’s not as though you’re the first of us with a difficult and dangerous magic. You might talk to the Lightbender or Firesleight about the trouble they caused when they were starting out.”

  Micah really wanted to know what kind of mistakes a young Lightbender might have made, and he was more curious than ever about Yuri’s talent. But what kind of friend would he be if he found out this way?

  “Hi!” he said loudly, smiling and waving as if he’d just walked into the room.

  Yuri jumpe
d and spun around, gaping at Micah like he’d never seen him before.

  Porter didn’t seem surprised, though. “Hello, Micah,” he said. “You can’t be here.”

  “What?” Micah was startled. “But I’m always here.”

  “Exactly,” said Porter. “Rosebud and your guardian and the manager have come by this morning to make sure you aren’t moping around my warehouse. If you’re not going to attend lessons, we’ll have to find something else for you to do that doesn’t involve sitting here like an unhappy lump for hours on end.”

  Mr. Head had come by? Himself? Micah didn’t know whether he should be flattered or alarmed.

  Porter looked between him and Yuri. “Honestly, you two are turning into hermits. It’s been months since you left the circus, Micah. And it’s perfectly safe here in England, so you don’t have any excuse. And Yuri! You haven’t been anywhere in . . .” Porter trailed off, frowning. “Have you been anywhere lately?”

  “Yes?” said Yuri, sounding worried. “I went to Moscow to see my mother?”

  Porter stared at him. “That was four years ago.”

  Micah found himself staring, too.

  Of course, being younger than all the other adult magicians at the circus, Yuri must still have family and friends in the outside world. Micah couldn’t imagine going four years without seeing Jenny. And though he didn’t remember his own mother well, he was sure if she were still alive, he would want to visit her all the time.

  Porter stood up and pointed at the two of them. “Travel is good for the soul,” he said. “And it’s good for getting you two out in the fresh air. Have you ever been to London? It’s a great city. And here we find ourselves practically on top of it!”