An Unkindness of Magicians

by Kat Howard

  “So how’d you figure it out?” Genuinely curious. There had never been a time when Sydney had not been at least as aware of her magic as she was of her skin. It had always been who she was.

  “I wished to meet a wizard. The next morning I woke up with an intense desire—like an itch in my brain—to go to the Rare Books room at the New York Public Library. Grey was the only one there—he’d warded the room so that no one without magic would be able to get in. When I did, he very kindly explained to me that ‘wizard’ was the wrong word.”

  “Very kindly,” Sydney repeated, climbing out of the window seat to pour herself more blood orange juice. It had been a breakfast meeting, and Laurent had provided a generous spread. “I’m sure.”

  “Well, for certain values of kindly. But he was the one who explained things to me, so I didn’t feel so weird. And then, when I decided I wanted to jump into all of this—which took me, like, five seconds, because what fourteen-year-old boy doesn’t want to be a magician—he was the one who introduced me to people, who made sure I didn’t sit by myself at lunch when I started going to school with all of them. He made me feel like I belonged here.”

  “All right, then. You do know I’m a better magician than he is.” She hadn’t seen Grey cast yet, but she didn’t need to. She knew what she was, what she was capable of. She wasn’t worried about someone who’d slid through life with the magical equivalent of a gentleman’s C.

  “I know. And if it comes down to it, I won’t ask you to hesitate or hold back, but—he’s like family. So I’d like to avoid it.” Laurent shrugged. “I mean, the best that happens is you knock him out of contention, and then I’m the one responsible for taking away something he really wants. And he really wants this—he’s been getting ready for a Turning since Miranda disinherited him.”

  “If a challenge becomes unavoidable?” No Houses were required to challenge each other, and in the early part of the Turning, before the duels became mortal, engagements could be declined, though doing so had dire consequences to the ranking of the House that did. The overall number of Houses generally held steady—there had been thirteen for the past three Turnings, and there were twenty-seven established and candidate Houses competing this Turning, so the rankings would matter in the early rounds.

  After that, staying alive would.

  Laurent blew out a breath. “Please keep the interaction nonlethal.”

  She nodded. Again, in the early rounds that would be easy enough. The challenges were staggered—the early ones being showpieces for magical ability, nuance, and finesse. Mortality could be invoked if both parties agreed beforehand, but only the last round required that it be. Sydney was sure Grey would fall out of competition by that point. And if he didn’t, well, she’d discuss that with Laurent when she had to. “Of course. As I said, I’m better than he is. Is there anyone else I should be similarly aware of ?”

  “No. All’s fair, right?”

  “Something like that,” Sydney said. “How are we starting?”

  “I challenged House Dee,” Laurent said. “It’s old and traditionally powerful enough that defeating them will make a nice splash. Strong enough magically that a victory will serve as a warning to anyone who sees me as an easy target.”

  It was a good strategy, the suggestion that she would have made herself, and for those precise reasons. “Do you have a preferred method of engagement?”

  “I’ll leave that to your discretion.”

  Sydney smiled.

  • • •

  As she walked home in the greying late-fall light, Sydney considered whether there was anyone in her life whose friendship she valued as much as Laurent valued Grey’s, anyone she would consider sacrificing her goals for.

  In her earliest days there, Shadows had lent itself only to survival. Friendship wasn’t even a word she knew, much less a concept she had felt. As she grew older, as it became increasingly clear that Sydney could take all the ways that Shadows tried to break her and transmute them into her own power, she became even more isolated, was kept separate from her fellow sacrifices. They were fodder. She would be a phoenix, made to rise from ashes.

  A phoenix was a solitary thing.

  A group of girls passed by her on the sidewalk, leaning into one another, as close as secrets. Laughing, smiling. Hands in each other’s pockets, arms slung around shoulders, heads tipped back, faces relaxed. No one wary, no one suspicious. The air between them soft and permeable, as if each of them might slip into each other’s life and rest there, safe.

  They were so beautiful, so happy, it ached to look at them, and so Sydney turned away, walked faster, her shoes loud on the sidewalk as she passed their tight knot.

  If that was what friendship meant, then no. She had never had it.

  • • •

  In a dark, quiet part of Central Park, one made darker and quieter through judicious use of magic, Grey stood over a body and curled his lip at the mess of it.

  The girl hadn’t even been that pretty when she was alive. Not that it had mattered. Grey hadn’t chosen her for her looks. He’d chosen her—sitting next to her at the bar, buying her drink after drink, pretending like he was interested in what she said, so that she’d lean close, hold his hand, leave with him—for the faintest hint of magic that ran through her blood. Just enough to keep her in the Unseen World, not enough that she was important to it.

  He’d learned the hard way that it was easier if they didn’t have a lot of magic. They tended to fight back, once they realized what Grey was doing, and the more magic they had, the harder they were to overpower.

  The first girl, the one Miranda had disinherited him over, she’d had more magic than he’d thought. She had fought back. Had gotten away. Told people. There had been consequences. Consequences that had been unpleasant enough that he’d waited almost a year before trying again.

  This one had not fought back. She had leaned against him, buzzed and smiling, as he’d kissed her in the park. Had giggled and pulled at his belt buckle as he’d moved her into the darkness, where they’d be less likely to be interrupted. Had blinked in confusion when his hands had tightened on her throat, when he’d spoken the words that pulled the darkness closer around them and kept them hidden, that kept her alive and immobile until the ritual no longer required that she be breathing. She was much less pretty, now that the ritual was finished.

  He knelt by her side and used a knife to slit open the skin of her hands. Then he reached through still warm blood and muscle and pulled out her finger bones, using the knife again when he had to slice through tendons. Magic tended to concentrate in these bones more than anywhere else since the hands were so often used to focus casting. The last thumb bone came loose with an audible pop. The empty flesh splatted to the ground. Blood and dirt spattered across his shoes and cuffs.

  “Oh, fuck this.” Annoyed, he brushed at his clothes, smearing the stains into the fabric. Whatever. It was dark. No one would see. He could wash them when he got home, throw them out if he had to.

  He finished gathering the bones, tucking them in a bag that he stuffed into his jacket pocket, then squeezed the girl’s empty fingers to be sure he hadn’t left any behind. He was fairly certain this would give him enough of a supply that he’d have power until the challenges turned mortal. He’d see how things went—he didn’t like not having some in reserve.

  Although—he could always get more. That was another thing he’d learned: There was always another girl no one would miss.

  He cut a door into the air and stepped through, leaving the dead girl behind him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The earliest memory Sydney let herself have was of learning magic, and the first spells that she remembered learning were for silence. After that, spells for obfuscation and deflection—things that would counterfeit invisibility, make people look away, not see, ignore, forget. True invisibility came later, but it was a soonish sort of later.

  After that, after she had learned the names of nine qu
alities and thirteen degrees of silence, after she had learned to wrap herself in shadows, or a fold in a wall, or step into a tree and pull its bark closed after her, only then did Sydney learn how to cast other magic. And it was always, always, cast alongside those spells designed to hide her, to render her not just invisible, but utterly disappeared. The Unseen World prided itself on its invisibility; the House of Shadows was the rumor of its secrets. Even after she had left Shadows, Sydney had been a kept secret, a hidden thing, made to wait until the Turning to reveal herself.

  Tonight, Sydney planned on being seen.

  The Turning always officially opened with a party. An excuse for the Houses and aspirants to mingle in an armed truce. The first duel would be fought there, but tradition held that it would be little more than friendly rivalry. Spectacle rather than spite. A feint to gauge the strength of possible opponents.

  Sydney didn’t believe in feints.

  She walked through the gates of House Dee in a dress the color of fresh blood, her lips painted to match. It wasn’t that no heads turned to take in her progress across the marble floor, that no eyes followed the bend of her wrist as she plucked a glass of champagne from a passing tray. It was that those eyes paid her no more attention than they would have given any other beautiful woman. For now that was fine. Proof that she had done her job so far. She’d provide a focus for their attention soon enough.

  House Dee in its architectural incarnation was old and elaborate, the kind of space meant to remind people that it, and its inhabitants, had been here a while and were likely to remain. Set-dressed to exude power and wealth, it was warm and baroque. Light glinted off crystal glasses and chandeliers. It shone on wallpaper rich in texture and color; it warmed the beeswax polish on the furniture. Establishment and tradition perfumed the air.

  Smile on face, glass in hand, Sydney passed through the crowd, pausing at the edge of a conversation to eavesdrop as the crème of the Unseen World, tuxedoed and begowned, arranged their faces in social masks and gossiped about her.

  “Some nobody, and representing an upstart House. Could you imagine if he’s hired an outsider? He won’t make it past tonight with magic like that.”

  “Beauchamps came from money, didn’t he? And is friends with the Prospero boy. You’d think he could do better.”

  “Not the Prospero boy any longer, remember. Miranda kicked him out, erased his name from the family tree. He’s an upstart this Turning, too.”

  “Really. What will Miranda do?”

  “Kill him, probably. She’s hired Ian Merlin.”

  That name an invocation strong enough to send whispers racing even into the corners of the room. Sydney placed her half-full glass on a passing tray. This would complicate things. The former heir of a House now allied with his father’s greatest rival. Ian Merlin had been worth watching even without that because of House Merlin’s connections to Shadows—but also because he was one of the few magicians strong enough that Sydney thought he might be an actual challenge. And now he had just gotten a lot more interesting.

  Shara would want to know about this turn of events, and Sydney would need to rethink her own strategies, but those were considerations for later, not for now. Now was for personal considerations.

  She continued to make her way through the crowd, looking for Miranda Prospero.

  There.

  Straight-backed and elegant, dark hair with one thick streak of white in it. Legend was that section of her hair had turned white overnight in the previous Turning, the night her husband had been killed, a sign of her grief. Diamonds dripped from her ears and sparkled like ice on her hands. She radiated power.

  Sydney stepped back, out of Miranda’s eyeline. Later would be soon enough for that particular introduction.

  Elizabeth Dee strode to the center of the room to officially open the Turning. “Thank you all for joining us tonight as we host the first duel and celebrate the spinning of Fortune’s Wheel.”

  Sydney let the speech flow over her, tuning out continuous mentions of Fortune’s Wheel and the saccharine description of the Turning as an event designed to ensure that the Unseen World was led by the strongest, most capable magicians. The Turning might be about many things—individual duels might even be decided by magical strength and ability—but finding the strongest and most capable magicians was certainly not its purpose.

  She refocused when Elizabeth spoke the words that officially began the duel: “House Dee accepts the challenge of the candidate House Beauchamps.”

  The type of spell had been negotiated as part of the offered and accepted challenge. Tonight’s was influence. As the challenged House, Dee had the right to choose whether to cast first or second. Not so critical at this early stage, with everyone expecting things to be simply a warm-up, a collective thrown gauntlet, but as things progressed, it would matter. One could always alter a spell after seeing what the opponent chose, to make it flashier or more beautiful, to fine-tune the response. Sydney had known Dee would choose to cast first, that they would be certain that a hired proxy for a candidate House would be nobody that they would need to concern themselves with.

  She wouldn’t need to fine-tune her response. She knew precisely what she was here to do.

  House Dee took pride in representing itself from within. Not through its heir, of course—there was no need to be reckless—but her younger brother. Bryce Dee stepped out onto the floor, removed his tuxedo jacket and cuff links, and rolled back his sleeves. The edge of Sydney’s mouth curled. He shouldn’t attempt showmanship if that was the best he could muster.

  Bryce raised his hands and squinted, and—as one—all of the waiters raised their silver trays of drinks over their heads. They looked right, left, stomped their feet. Bryce sent them moving through the crowd like a precision dance team.

  The challenge had been influence. The spell was adequate. Competent. It looked flashy enough, all of those sharp moves and percussive steps, and Bryce had been smart to use the waitstaff—the matching uniforms made for an arresting visual—but there was nothing beyond the surface. Plus, Bryce’s arms were trembling, and sweat stained the armpits of his shirt. Too much visible effort for such a simple spell.

  Sydney could see the other magicians recognizing that as well. Miranda Prospero wasn’t even bothering to hide her contempt.

  He really should have kept the jacket on.

  The applause, when Bryce finished, was polite.

  “The Challenger, representing the candidate House Beauchamps.”

  Sydney did not step forward, but curled the last three fingers on her left hand and rotated her wrist a quarter turn.

  An invisible violin began to play a waltz.

  Sydney moved her right hand, bending her fingers into sharp angles. She stepped twice on the floor with her left heel and spoke the word that unlocked the spell she had prepared.

  All of the assembled members of the Unseen World turned to the person next to them, and once partnered, began to dance.

  Everyone except Sydney, who smiled to watch the magicians move through her chosen patterns, and the man who walked through the crowd to her side. Dark-haired and sharp-featured, magic coiled beneath his skin. Ian Merlin. Interesting, that he had been unaffected by the spell’s influence. She had tailored it very specifically.

  “You seem,” he said, “in need of a partner.”

  Sydney looked at him. “I seem to be doing just fine on my own.”

  “They’ll hate you less, when the spell is over, if you’re dancing too.”

  “And why,” she asked, “would you care if they hate me?”

  “Because you seem interesting.” He held out his hands.

  “I suppose that’s a good enough reason.” Sydney stepped close and allowed Ian to lead her in the dance, an exact mimic of the enchanted magicians. He was a good dancer, graceful and confident. She could feel the warmth of him through his tuxedo, in his hand on the skin of her bare back.

  “They’ll be furious,” Ian said, looking aroun
d at the dancing magicians.

  “Most of them,” Sydney agreed. “They’ll also realize that I’m no one to be trifled with. They’ll pay attention to me—they’ll see me, and my magic.”

  “And why does that matter?” Ian asked. “You look like the sort of woman who gets noticed on a regular basis.”

  “Noticed,” she said, “is very different from seen.” The fingers of Sydney’s left hand fluttered against Ian’s back as she ended the spell.

  She ignored the fade of the music, the stunned hush of the room that turned into whispers that turned into noise. “Do you want to get out of here?”

  Ian took her offered hand. “Your magic was the only thing I came to see.”

  “I hope it was worth it.”

  “Very much.”

  She paused as they got to the street. “Just to be clear, I asked you to leave with me because I want take you to bed. How do you feel about that?”

  Ian swallowed hard. “Good. I feel good.”

  She smiled, and flagged down a cab.

  • • •

  Sydney slipped from Ian’s bed and into a bathroom down the hall, closing the door behind her. She pressed her back against the cold tile of the wall. The aftereffects of magic could only be delayed so long, and her spell had been big. The cost must be paid.

  Hot and cold flashed through her, shaking her until her joints ached. Blood dripped from her nose and trickled down the back of her throat. She reached over and turned on the faucet so that no sound of weakness might leak from the walls.

  She breathed in. Let the pain expand to fill her skin, let it become one with breath and bone, until it was nothing more than an ache—until the throb of magic was the same as the bruised pain in her feet from her shoes, as the blister coming up on one heel, as the much more pleasant ache in her thighs from the sex. One pain among others. It was nothing more. She wouldn’t let it be.