An Unkindness of Magicians

by Kat Howard

  Nothing. Not even a hint of magic remained, not that she had expected otherwise. If a magician didn’t want to be seen by mundane eyes, they wouldn’t be. And for all Harper had brute-forced her way into the tiniest bit of magic use, she was definitely mundane. She turned in a circle once more, looking carefully, just in case, then walked down the steps to Wall Street station, into the rattle and roar of the subway.

  Close. She had come close. If she could just get a little bit closer, then she’d be able to find her way into the Unseen World. Then she’d be able to keep her promise.

  • • •

  As Sydney crossed the threshold of her building, the veil of magic she had draped herself in sloughed off, and she was again visible to the world around her. “Any messages, Henry?” she asked the doorman.

  “Not today, miss.”

  She smiled her thanks and took the elevator up to the seventh floor. Sydney lived in a mundane building on purpose—no one from the Unseen World would think to look for her there. The snobbery was as useful as it was predictable—she had set up a series of wards when she’d first moved in six months ago, and they’d never even been tested, much less crossed.

  She closed her door, locked it behind her, and stepped out of her shoes, rolling the aches from her arches. Pulled her phone from her pocket and texted her acceptance to Laurent.

  Done.

  Barefoot, Sydney walked to her kitchen island and poured a glass of dark red wine. She had set the wheels turning. Not Fortune’s Wheel—she had little enough patience for the trappings of the Unseen World—but her own.

  She drank, savoring the curl of the liquid down her throat, enjoying the richness of it. Being able to indulge in pleasures, even ones as small as a glass of wine when she wanted, was still something new. Something she’d worked hard enough for that she still luxuriated in the indulgence of it.

  Working with Laurent would be good. She’d wanted a candidate House, hoped for an outsider. Someone unestablished, less likely to have accepted all of the Unseen World’s dirty little secrets as gospel. Someone who might come to see things as she did, might even be an ally.

  She planned to drag all those dirty little secrets out of the shadows and into the light, and if necessary, the light would be cast by the flames she had lit as she burned the Unseen World to the ground.

  She raised her glass, toasting its destruction.

  Tremors racked her. The wine sloshed over the rim of the glass, spilling drops as red as blood. A dull knife of pain took up residence in her wrists and shoulders, and she felt herself hollow out, as if she were caught in the grip of a fever. Sweat beaded up on her skin.

  This was the price for today’s magic.

  Sydney set her glass down and breathed into the shaking, the ache, the hollowness in her bones. She centered herself in it until she was steady, the pain not gone but acknowledged. She was used to acknowledging pain. It had become, over time and trial, rather a specialty of hers. She raised her glass again, held it steady, her hand unshaking.

  She drank.

  CHAPTER TWO

  At 12:01 a.m., her celebratory toast nothing more than a glass upended on a drying rack, Sydney stood on the southern shore of the Central Park Reservoir. She lit matches with the flick of her thumbnail. One, two, three.

  Before the smoke of the last had faded, a wooden boat rose through the dark water. Old and worn, it seemed as if a touch might scuttle it. The boat bumped gently against the shore, waiting.

  Sydney stepped on board. It creaked and swayed beneath her feet as it moved across the water.

  She rode standing. The magic that propelled the boat did not extend to drying the seats, and she didn’t like using her own here where the House might notice. And the House would notice. The House noticed everything.

  The darkness thickened before her and resolved itself into the House of Shadows. Low and secret, it sat on the water like a toad, crouching upon an island made of bones and misery, hulked atop a place that should have never been. That place had been her home from the day she was given to pay someone else’s price until the day she had grown powerful enough to open its doors and walk out of them.

  Sydney hated it.

  The boat fetched up against its steps, and Sydney went inside.

  Cold. The kind of cold that seeped up through the soles of her shoes and sank into her bones until they ached. She could use no magic the House didn’t permit while she was inside its doors, not without fighting the House for the privilege, and she had learned long ago that it would deny her comfort. It had become a matter of pride not to ask. Back straight, head up, she refused to let herself shiver. No weakness.

  She would give the House nothing it did not take, and it had taken enough already.

  Dim lights flickered on the walls. Fireflies underwater, luminescence below glass. The only sound the muted echo of her footsteps.

  The House could have brought her to Shara directly. Could have arranged itself so that she stepped into a warm, well-lit room. Could have done any number of things to make Sydney’s life easier.

  Of course, it could also hold her here, behind its doors, rearranging itself like a labyrinth until she dropped dead of exhaustion, could open its floors over an oubliette and seal her in it, could offer any number of other fatal unpleasantries. It could make her walk past the rooms where magic was extracted from the less-lucky residents of the House, the ones who would be used up and cast aside, who would never leave. Could make her listen to the screams, the sounds made by throats torn raw, the pleading. Could bring the scents of blood and fear to her nose. Could force her to stand and watch, to see and feel again what she had been made to endure.

  Her earliest memories were of those rooms. Phantom scars ghosted across her skin. Echoes of past screams rose in her throat.

  She swallowed hard. A long walk in the cold dark was nothing.

  “You’re late.” Shara’s voice appeared before the light did. The light was a watery blue, cold enough to burn, making the shadows knife-edged. The House was in a mood tonight.

  Sydney said nothing. No matter that she had lit the matches at precisely the appointed time, no matter that it was the House’s mood that had made her late. This was neither the time nor the place for small talk.

  “I trust you haven’t failed in any other ways today.” Shara’s face as marble-cold as her voice. Fish-belly pale from having lived her whole life in Shadows, she wore her hair as long and tangled as a medieval sorceress and a dress that might have been woven from the shadows she ruled. Her eyes bright blue, lights in the darkness. Sydney had never once heard her speak kindness. “What do you have to report?”

  “As you instructed, I am contracted to a House for the duration of this Turning,” Sydney said. There was a plan, and this was its beginning.

  “Which House?” Shara walked closer, her shadow elongating behind her. It flickered in the changing light, but it was smooth at its edges. Whole.

  “Laurent Beauchamps.” Sydney’s hands ached, and she could feel frost gathering in her hair. Shara, of course, looked perfectly comfortable.

  “A candidate House. Interesting choice.”

  Sydney held her silence. If Shara wanted a disagreement, to scold Sydney for one thing or another, she would make that clear soon enough. But without a reason, Sydney did not want to say anything she would come to regret. There were secrets that needed to be kept, even here.

  Especially here.

  “Very well. Continue to proceed as we discussed. There’s nothing else at this time.”

  Sydney turned on her heel.

  “Except, of course, the contract.” Shara’s voice sly and pleased, almost happy for the first time in the conversation.

  Except. Of course.

  Long before she had contracted herself to Laurent to help him win legitimacy in the eyes of the Unseen World by founding a House, Sydney had been contracted by the House of Shadows. It made no matter that she had not entered into that contract voluntarily. The House kept c
areful records of debts. She was a long way from paying hers.

  On a table by Shara, a pen, the contract, and a knife, bone-handled. Its blade as dark as shadow, its edge as sharp and fine as truth.

  Shara picked up the knife. She gathered Sydney’s shadow into her hand. The sensation was the crawling of skin, her flesh rising into goose bumps, but she felt it inside, like needing to shudder and vomit all at once.

  Shara sliced, cutting away enough to curl into the barrel of the pen to use as ink. The cut was the flaying of an already raw nerve, salt in a wound, fire on her soul. It was nothing that had not happened before and nothing that would not happen again, and it was that—that ever and ongoing debt—that was the worst of it.

  Sydney forced her mind to blankness and, once again, signed her name. As she re-signed her name every time she was summoned here, as she would again and again until she had balanced the weighted scales and was free. Shadows would decide when that was—Sydney couldn’t even count the days.

  The day that she had first signed that contract, she had thought the ritual would become easier, that the pain would grow less. She had been wrong. At least she had learned to keep her hand steady, she thought, as the tears that had broken through her lashes froze on her skin.

  “You will be called for again when you are required, and you will not be late,” Shara said. “That will be all.”

  Sydney did not look back as she left. The House opened immediately to the outside, to the half-flooded boat that had carried her across the water. She stood, hands clenched so hard her nails pierced her skin, focusing only on those bright, sharp cuts, not on the fresh and weeping wound in her shadow, not on anything but the wood and water beneath her feet, the night air against her skin, until she fetched up on the far shore, until the boat faded back into night and shadow.

  Then, as she walked, she let her own plans fill her head. The ones that began in the same place as those of Shadows but ended somewhere far different.

  • • •

  Deep inside the belly of the House of Shadows, Grace Valentine lay in the cold, in the dark, and waited for the blood on her hands to dry. She flexed her fingers, wincing as some of the unhealed cuts reopened.

  The hands were the worst—the pain lingered there, like the magic. Plus, the cuts were a reminder of how she had come to be in here in the first place, a reminder that set her hands to bleeding again, as her clenched fists reopened the rest of the damage.

  Still, the carving of her hands had been the only thing she’d been made to endure today. It had seemed like in the past few . . . weeks? months?—she was never really sure how time passed in here, even when the House wasn’t altering her perception of events to make things hurt worse, or for a longer time—she had spent less time having her magic taken, having pain inflicted as a way to increase that power in what was collected, and had spent more time learning the magic that was unique to Shadows.

  That still hurt, of course. Everything here did, sometimes even breathing. But it was a better kind of hurt. Because if she could endure that new kind of hurt, the one that had power underneath it, if she could learn what Shadows was teaching her, then she could use that magic to leave.

  She had heard of it happening, once, long before she was hidden away in here. She had felt the ripples through the House—seen it bleed—when someone else had managed it. She locked the possibility in her heart, the darkest of secrets.

  Hidden away and forgotten, Grace Valentine lay in the darkness of the House of Shadows. As the blood dried on her hands, she counted scars to fall asleep. She dreamed revenge.

  • • •

  Miranda had chosen to interview candidates for House Prospero’s champion in person. Flashy magic was all well and good, and she would certainly require a demonstration of ability before she made a decision, but the fact of the matter was the champion would represent the House. She wanted to be sure the House liked them.

  She also wanted to be sure that she was able to—if not like—at least respect them. They and their magic would represent Prospero, would be the face of the House. Power, ability—those mattered, but character did as well, particularly as the champions’ decisions during a challenge were final. There was always the risk that someone whose goals did not fully match with hers would choose poorly, or in service of their own ends. And once the challenges turned mortal, she was asking someone to potentially die for the House. She wanted to be sure they would.

  As her final preparation for the morning’s interviews, Miranda gathered defensive magic, spindling the power around her fingers, then releasing it into an empty ink bottle for storage. Knocking the bottle over would trigger the spell. It was unlikely that she’d need to use it at all, but there was always the possibility that someone would move against House Prospero before the duels began. Better to be prepared.

  She glanced at her office once more, her eyes measuring the alignment of the items on her desk, the bloom of the flowers—all white, green accents, and none with overly heady fragrances—that stood on a side table, noting the angle of the light that streamed in from the windows behind her. She moved a letter opener a fraction of a centimeter to the right, then nodded.

  “All right,” she told the House. “Send in the first candidate.”

  He is an addition to your schedule.

  The House didn’t actually speak with a voice. Rather, Miranda had made a series of spelled mirrors when she became its Head. They were keyed to her voice and presence, and if the House wanted to say something to her without being addressed first, the words that appeared on the mirror’s surface would be accompanied by a faint chime. No one else in the room would see the words or hear the chime ring. The spell also allowed her to respond mentally, thus enabling a completely secret conversation, if necessary.

  Miranda raised an eyebrow at the House’s boldness. Then Ian Merlin walked into her office, and she moved her left hand to rest on top of her desk, near the magic-filled bottle.

  “Madame Prospero.” He inclined his head to the exact correct degree. He’d dressed politely as well—a black-on-black suit, well cut and quiet. It wasn’t the sort of detail that would have mattered to everyone, but it did to her, and she appreciated the effort.

  “Ian. Did we have an appointment?” She allowed a hint of mild curiosity into the question.

  He folded like a knife into an antique chair. “I heard your House required a champion. I’d like to convince you it should be me.”

  She’d seen his magic before. There was no need for her to require a test of his abilities—if the magician existed who was better, Miranda hadn’t met them yet. “Forgive me for stating the obvious, but you’re the heir to House Merlin.” It didn’t mean he couldn’t represent another House, couldn’t strike out and attempt to found a House of his own, but such a choice wasn’t usual. “And you haven’t been much of a presence in the Unseen World recently. So I am a bit surprised to see you here.”

  “You still have your gift for understatement,” Ian said. “You should know that I’m not the heir to House Merlin. I renounced all claims when I left. My father hasn’t named my sister heir because he hopes I’ll change my mind, something I have no intention of doing.”

  “I see.” Miranda straightened in her chair as she considered. Hiring him would be a coup, but she still wasn’t sure what he had to gain by contracting himself out. “Why House Prospero? Why not take advantage of the Turning and try to establish your own House?”

  “I don’t like how the Unseen World runs. I’d like to change it, and it will be easier to do that from inside of a powerful, established House.

  “Also, my father doesn’t like you, and I’m in the mood to aggravate him. Helping you win the Turning—winning the leadership of the Unseen World away from him—would do that nicely.” He paused. “Forgive me for being blunt, but it seems better to be honest.”

  Miranda tapped the fingers of her left hand on her desk. It was a reason she could appreciate. “I don’t much like Miles, either,
and I like the way he’s been running things for the past thirteen years even less. But I like to know what I’m supporting. What, exactly, are you hoping to change?”

  “The reliance on the House of Shadows. If you hire me, and if House Prospero then finds itself leading the Unseen World at the end of this Turning, I want your support in ending it. You understand why I want the outside support.” It had been House Merlin, Ian’s great-grandfather, that had founded the House of Shadows, that had begun the spell that allowed members of the Unseen World to draw on a store of collected power, to use magic at no personal cost, beyond that of a House sacrifice once a generation. Though Fortune’s Wheel did turn, House Merlin had been in power ever since.

  Miranda kept her voice neutral. “I believe I could be persuaded to do that. Is there anything else you want?”

  “No,” he said. “Only the support, and only under those conditions.”

  “Then I accept your terms,” she said. “Do you have any questions?”

  “I saw Grey’s name on the list of candidate Houses. How do you want me to deal with him in a duel?” His question and tone were both carefully neutral.

  Miranda didn’t even blink at the confirmation that Grey would be participating in the Turning. It was what she had expected from him. “Should he challenge the House, deal with him as required by the terms of engagement.”

  A very polite call and response that meant that Ian could kill Grey in a mortal challenge if one was made. Ian waited a beat. When Miranda said nothing else, he continued. “All right. Do you require a demonstration of magic?”

  “I’ve watched you grow up, Ian. I’m quite satisfied with your magical abilities. I’m happy to sign the contract if you are,” Miranda said.

  “I already have.” He smiled then and opened his right hand, spreading the fingers. The top drawer of her desk opened.

  She pulled the thick sheet of paper from her drawer. The standard agreement, modified for his terms for payment. His signature at the bottom, the ink still drying. “And if we hadn’t reached an agreement?”