An Unkindness of Magicians

by Kat Howard

  “I’ll be sure to pass that along.” He didn’t bother with the smile. Whatever this meeting had been, it hadn’t been about making an alliance.

  As he left the room, Laurent texted Sydney, to let her know of Merlin’s interest.

  His phone lit with her response: Good.

  • • •

  They met in a park, both in peacoats, scarves wrapped around their necks against the oncoming winter. Ian arrived first, then Lara joined him on the opposite side of the chessboard. “I’m glad you finally decided to say hello,” she said. “I’d begun to think you’d turned your back on your entire family.”

  “You still live at the House. It’s not like I was going to stop by for dinner.”

  “Yes, but as you see, it’s quite possible for us to meet other places. I am your sister, Ian. I’m your family.”

  “Family,” he said, “is precisely why I left.”

  “And it’s why I stayed. Fine. Let’s not have that fight again. Lovely to see you. So glad you’re back. Now, are we going to play or just talk?”

  “To play.” Ian moved a white pawn to open the game, then hit the timer.

  “Dad’s convinced you’ll be sorry. That you’ll apologize and come back and be a Merlin again,” Lara said. She was bird-boned and sharp-eyed, a raptor with short, Ziggy Stardust–red hair. She made her move and hit the timer. “Or, better still, that you’ll feel bad enough about your—how did he put it? Oh, yes—your gross betrayal of House and family, that you’ll make up for it by sabotaging Prospero from the inside, preferably during a challenge.”

  “I’m not sorry for leaving, and I don’t plan to do any of that. I made a choice. One our House should have made a long time ago.” Ian’s hand hesitated over a pawn, then moved to a knight.

  “He named me champion. Heir for now as well, though I suspect if you do as you’re told he’ll bump me right out of that. He told me all this over omelets. Ham and Gruyère. Quite good, really. Dad has his issues, but he can cook. I am, of course, honored by the opportunity to represent the House. Which is good, as I wasn’t given a choice in the matter. Also, if you do that, I’ll have you in check in three moves.”

  “I haven’t beaten you at chess since you were nine, Lara. It’s not like I think today’s going to be my lucky day.” He knocked over a rook. It shattered into words on the board.

  Magic is failing.

  Lara’s hand paused, but only for a moment, before tipping a pawn.

  Dad’s fault?

  And that was the crux of it: Because of their family’s connection to the House of Shadows, because of Miles’ connection in particular, it could be. It was House Merlin that maintained the spell. A knight cracked and dissolved.

  Not sure. Ideas?

  She moved her bishop. Another pawn disappeared from the board.

  No. Will watch.

  “Our House—” Ian began. “If this is Dad’s fault, if that gets out, House Merlin will be unmade. Your magic could be stripped, Lara.”

  “I’m aware.” No change in her expression.

  “I’m just saying, maybe you ought to consider whether he’s worth your loyalty.” A castle melted into words.

  Be careful.

  “He’s going to ask me to kill you, you know.” Lara looked straight at Ian. “During a challenge. And I may well be better at chess, but I also know which one of us is better at magic. So maybe you ought to consider your loyalties, too.”

  Ian’s glance flicked down to the chessboard, but no secret letters spelled out an alternate message.

  “Because that is what he’ll make it come down to, Ian: Betray your principles or murder your sister. You forget—Dad’s even better at chess than I am.” Lara reached out and tipped over his king.

  • • •

  The Unseen World watched Sydney this time. The hall where the challenge was taking place was packed with people, most of them not even bothering to pretend that they weren’t staring at her or that it wasn’t her name that fell in whispers and speculation from their lips. Sydney kept her head up, her eyes bright and fierce, as she walked past them.

  They had begun to whisper the word “Shadow” when they saw her. Just whispers, just on the edge of things. As if there were something shameful—as if she were the one who ought to be ashamed. She had nothing to lose over what gossip claimed about her, particularly when it was so unimaginative as to think the truth was the worst possible thing, and she didn’t care if people stared.

  It was a nonmortal challenge, another magician from the fringes of Grey’s and Laurent’s crowd, Colin Blackwood, who had not been named heir of his House and who wanted the power that would have come with founding one on his own. Laurent recognized him from the Mages’ Club and leaned over to tell Sydney. “Plus, he was the youngest guy there, outside of me, by, like, a generation.”

  Her eyes, already alert, sharpened. “That’s interesting. Did Merlin talk to him while you were there?”

  “No, but he was only a couple of tables over. Easy enough to overhear. Do you think they’re allied somehow?” Laurent kept his voice low, close.

  “Is Merlin here?” she asked.

  Laurent, taller than Sydney, scanned the crowd. “Yes—in the corner on that side of the room, talking to Colin.”

  “Then yes, I do.” Possibly nothing more than just the normal alliances of a Turning, but it was too coincidental to ignore.

  The call for silence came, and the room was cleared. Sydney had chosen to cast second. She stood in the first row of the crowd so she could watch as Colin began his casting.

  It had been listed as a duel of shadows spell—the casting magician would create a simulacrum of their own shadow, and then duel it. Magicians were allowed any choice of weapon, but swords were popular—fencing was dramatic to watch. The idea was that in a well-executed version of the spell the shadow would have its own agency, its own actions, and not simply act as a mirror to the magician, and it was easier to see that when the weapons required skill on both sides. So there was no reaction from the watching crowd when Colin conjured up a foil, or when he gave one to his shadow. No one showed concern when the action of the duel carried Colin and his shadow closer and closer.

  Nothing appeared to be out of the expected until the shadow turned from Colin and stabbed his blade through Sydney’s shoulder.

  She reacted quickly—casting spells to destroy the simulacrum, wards to shield herself and those standing around her from Colin, who seemed determined to finish what his shadow had started.

  Through the pain in her shoulder, she heard a few voices calling out, declaring the challenge forfeit, due to the aggression of the other magician, calls for him to be disqualified from the rest of the Turning. She did not hear anyone casting spells to help her, to ward her, to bind Colin, who was still lunging at her, weapon in hand. Most of the people in the crowd stood silent, waiting. Watching.

  She spoke a word that sounded like glass shattering, and his sword snapped into pieces. Blood running down her arm from the blade still stuck in it, Sydney twisted shadows into ropes and tied Colin’s hands and feet. Only then did she pull the blade from her shoulder. She held it in her hand, in the opening line of engagement, as if she, too, would duel.

  Then Sydney cast her own version of the dueling shadows spell. The shadows of each of the magicians in the room separated from their originators and drew swords. “En garde!” she called. Then: “Prêt. Allez!”

  Sydney saluted, and the fencing shadows ranged around the room—in between people, around chairs, blades flashing darkness, the sound of their engagement like slashing scissors. As they fell, the watching members of the Unseen World felt their shadows’ wounds pass through them like phantoms. An ache in a shoulder, a tear in their chest. Some even looked down, pressed hands to their bodies to check, to be sure they weren’t really hurt, weren’t bleeding for someone else’s magic.

  The room grew quieter and quieter until Sydney stood at its center, alone and bloody. All of the dueling shado
ws but one had fallen. Her own. Then she raised the blade in her hand and stepped into a lunge, stabbing the remaining shadow through the heart, ending the spell. She snapped her blade, the one she had pulled from her shoulder, in two, dropped the pieces to the floor next to Colin, and left without looking back.

  • • •

  Sydney pressed the heel of her hand against the hole in her shoulder. She’d tried twice already to stop the bleeding, but her spells had proven only stopgaps. There was—she could feel it, grinding against bone—still a broken shred of shadow trapped inside. But she couldn’t get a grip on it, and the consequences of her own magic use were manifesting. Shudders racked her like fever spasms, and there was far more blood soaking her shirt than she felt comfortable with. Laurent had texted to see how she was, if she needed anything. She had lied and told him she was fine. It was only a small lie. Probably.

  She watched the numbers tick up in the elevator and hoped she hadn’t misjudged.

  Ian was waiting as the doors opened. He looked startled and then, carefully, blank.

  “I triggered your wards on purpose,” she said.

  “I never would have thought otherwise.” Ian slipped an arm around her, taking most of her weight as he helped her into his apartment. “You do know your blood should generally stay on the inside, yes?”

  “Normally I keep it there, but there’s a broken bit of magic that has other ideas. How’s your healing?”

  His hands tightened around her, then relaxed. “Good enough to help.”

  She eased herself down onto his bathroom tiles, closing her eyes in relief at their coolness. Ian’s hands paused on the hem of her ruined shirt. “This will be easier if I can see the injury.”

  “Can you cut it away?” she asked. “I don’t think I can move well enough to help you take it off.”

  He used the scissors from his medicine cabinet. Hissed out a breath when he saw her shoulder. Black mixed with red and wept from the wound like ichor. The surrounding skin was puffy and inflamed, the edges of the wound ragged. “This is likely to hurt.”

  “It hurts now.” She spoke through gritted teeth.

  “It’s going to hurt worse.” Ian set his fingertips in a star pattern against her shoulder by placing one hand on her chest and the other on her back, the wound at the center. Heat traced in outlines between them, constellations of magic blooming on her skin.

  He pressed hard. Spoke words sharp as knives, and the inside of her shoulder went white, pain in starbursts at the edges of her vision. She pulled in a breath, blew it out.

  A hiss and fizz, and shadows poured out of the wound, an infection clearing. The heat changed to warmth, star patterns knitting together pierced veins, torn skin.

  “You might have a scar,” Ian said, hands tender now, soothing.

  “I’ve lots already. Another won’t matter,” Sydney said. She sat straighter, rolled her shoulder to check the range of motion. “Much better. Thank you.”

  “So was that the result of magic gone wrong, or was it on purpose?” Ian began cleaning up.

  “Very much on purpose. He would have killed me if he could.” She closed her eyes against the shaking that still rattled through her. She had more control over the aftereffects now, but the blowback from her own spells had settled into her bones, made her joints hot and hollow. “Still, nothing I couldn’t handle. Can I borrow a shirt to go home in?”

  “Of course. You don’t have to leave though, if things like a shower or rest seem like a better idea. I know they’d seem good to me, after an injury like that,” Ian said.

  There was a piece of her that wanted to say yes. That wanted the animal comfort of a hot shower, clean skin, and a warm body in a bed. There were things that mattered more than what she wanted, however. “Just the shirt, thanks. And thanks again for patching me up.”

  “I’d say anytime, but I’d rather not have to do that again.” He handed her a shirt, soft and clean, from his laundry basket. “Take care of yourself, Sydney.”

  “Blood on the inside, got it.” She pulled the T-shirt over her head and left.

  • • •

  The House of Shadows breathed, and Shara lived at the center of inhale and exhale. She felt its breath like her own. When its heart beat, its pulse beat in time with hers. She knew its thoughts as she knew her own, and she felt its pain. She was its avatar, and it was the seat of her power.

  The House of Shadows was invisible, it was locked away, it was as forgotten as such a place could be.

  She walked the halls, footsteps punctuating her thoughts. Only her footsteps. The other residents of the House of Shadows were shut away, and there were no visitors here. There were never what might be called “visitors” here. Only those who came to pay their tolls, blank-faced and silent, or weeping and judgmental. As if it were Shara who benefited from their sacrifice, as if she had made their decisions for them. As if she were the one who benefited from what they—in the end—gave away willingly.

  The House sighed, rearranged itself. The hallway shifted beneath her feet, turning away from the rooms where the sacrifices waited, dreaming nightmares, and toward the great doors. To the outside world. The night was very cool, the lake quiet.

  The outside world. The Unseen World. They kept her hidden here, like a secret, like a shame. A thing unbearable to look at, when all she did was work to ease their pain.

  She walked closer to the waves, stepping forward until her feet almost touched them. Until the spell that bound her there, to the House, hooked into her, holding her in place. Her lips curled back from her teeth, and she backed away from the shore.

  Hidden away. Prevented from leaving. Made powerless. But she held the key to their power, and she intended to use it to claim power for herself. It was why she had sent Sydney out into the Unseen World. Shara had strategized and planned in the hopes that the end of the Turning would see Sydney in a position of influence in the Unseen World—perhaps even as the Head of a House. There were circumstances that would allow it, and she was pushing things as hard in the direction of those circumstances as she could. Magic would be stronger then, because of her. Shadows could grow healthy again.

  And when Shadows was healthy enough, strong enough, Shara would order Sydney to break the spell that bound her to this island. Then she would take her rightful place in the Unseen World, a Head of House like all the others, her presence there a constant reminder of where their power came from, of what they all owed Shadows, owed her.

  Shara walked back inside the doors.

  The House, the magic, wasn’t healthy now. Shadows was weak, and growing weaker. The balance was off; the spell had somehow gone wrong. It was unraveling. She couldn’t tell why or how.

  She couldn’t stop it.

  That was the pit in her stomach, the tremble in her step. There should be no magic here she couldn’t control, not in this place that she wore like a skin.

  Sometimes bargains needed to be remade, a name signed again and again on a contract.

  The sacrifice might not have been hers to pay, but she knew—oh, she knew—what it took to pay it. She also knew, knew in her bones, what the Unseen World did not. That magic was only truly yours if it came from your own pain, your own sacrifice.

  This magic was hers.

  In a room at the heart of the House of Shadows, Shara took a knife. She cut into her hand. She cut until she reached that bone, and she inscribed her spell, letter after letter, word after word.

  She cut and she cut and she offered her blood and pain as sacrifice—not to the Unseen World, but to Shadows. She cut, and she bled, and each was a prayer.

  • • •

  When Shadows’ doors had opened, Grace had been close enough to smell the cold of the air outside, the flat mineral quality of it, almost buried beneath the watery scent of the reservoir. Not quite close enough to see the waves that lapped against the shore, not quite certain enough to push her way through the doors and into the outside. Into freedom.

  She stepped back,
sinking herself further into the shadows, and watched.

  Each cut Shara had made into her own skin and bone had drawn itself across Grace’s arms, an echo of her own scars. An echo of wounds that she had seen made on limbs so small it seemed impossible that there was enough space for the glyphs to be carved, on bodies that had not lived long enough for the bleeding to stop and for scars to form.

  Grace fisted her hands, then opened them, stretching her fingers as far as she could, releasing the ache of the magic pooled there.

  She had tried, once, in her early days in Shadows, to offer comfort to the other sacrifices. A child with a soft fluff of white hair, like a dandelion, that she had picked up, held, crooned to through her own pain and terror. Everything that had been done to her would have been easier to endure, if she just could have helped someone else.

  She had felt the House’s glee as Shara took the child from her arms.

  Memories were merciful sometimes, and so she remembered that white hair and the red of her blood smeared on the baby’s skin from where her hands had held it, and not the next part. Not that. Not while she was awake, at least.

  Grace had never offered comfort again.

  But she bore witness: Someone should watch what it was the House did. And the House let her, because watching hurt. And she bore witness now, because Shara’s actions meant the House was hurt, and because Grace had, for just a moment, smelled the night beyond the doors. There was winter in the air.

  • • •

  Frost silvered over Central Park, and Laurent’s and Grey’s breath puffed into the air as they ran. “Is it just me, or is it getting cold earlier this year?” Laurent asked.

  “We’ll have to start meeting at the gym soon.” Grey sounded excited. Laurent was . . . not. Running on a grey piece of plastic that went nowhere while facing an infinite number of wall-screen televisions that all showed the same cable news channel was his idea of a level of hell in a modern take on the Inferno.

  They passed another quarter mile in silence. Then Grey said, “So how was your meeting with Merlin?”