An Unkindness of Magicians

by Kat Howard

  “See? I didn’t even need to read it—you’ve told me everything I need to know. And I hate the cold.” But she pulled off her gloves and handed them to Laurent.

  The day was bitter and biting, wind that whipped raw against skin, that seemed to seek out gaps between coat and skin, to insinuate itself into bones and joints. Not many braved it.

  Eliot Vincent wore no coat, no scarf, no hat, his lack of armor against the weather a subtle reminder that he was strong enough not to need it. He stood, calm and easy in the cold.

  Sydney removed her hands from her pockets and rubbed them together for warmth. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The challenge began.

  The snow beneath Sydney’s feet jerked and heaved up, flinging her off-balance. By the time she regained her feet, it had turned to a slick of ice. She hit it and fell, hard.

  “Oh, well done,” she muttered under her breath as it then cracked. Splinters and shards drove up, sharp enough to pierce through skin. She left blood in red smears across the ice and heard the reaction go through the crowd.

  “Right. That’s enough of that.” The ice around Sydney melted. Slow at first, but then all in a rush. The air warmed. Green shoots burst from the ground and grabbed at Eliot’s feet. His hands turned into twigs. Bark replaced his skin, and leaves burst from him. He became a perfect tree, a beech, in full bloom. Spring in the midst of winter.

  Sydney walked over to Laurent, who handed her a tissue for the blood on her face. “I was worried for a minute there.”

  “He was good. Good enough he should have gotten through this. The tree was as close as I could come to leaving some of him alive.” She reached out her hand. “Can I have my gloves, please? I really do hate the cold.”

  • • •

  Miles Merlin sat in a quiet corner of the Mages’ Club, Grey across from him. “Here is a thing I find very interesting. There have been a series of bodies found, throughout the Turning. Bodies upon which a number of spells have been performed, in the course of the killings. Most interestingly, in each case, the finger bones have been removed. It looks almost as if someone has been killing people in order to cut the magic out of them.”

  “That does seem interesting,” Grey said, his face blank. Under the table, he held his hands rigid in the opening posture of a defensive spell. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Miles cast, but he was the head of the House that led the Unseen World. He must be strong. Better to be ready.

  Michael Dee walked over, bourbon in hand. “So, what do you plan to do about the failures of magic, Merlin?”

  Miles turned on the charm, a politician at the negotiating table. “I’m looking into the causes, of course. And—forgive me, Grey, I know she’s your sister—but it does seem like Sydney’s presence among us may have something to do with them.”

  “Shadows ought to be kept in the Shadows,” Dee said, then laughed as if he found himself very funny indeed.

  “You’re exactly right,” Miles said.

  “Carry on, then.” Dee toasted his glass in their direction, losing a little bourbon over the rim in his enthusiasm.

  “Forgive me. I chose this table hoping to avoid interruptions. Now, where was I? Oh yes. The truly odd thing is that the girls who’ve been killed are all lesser magicians from lesser Houses. They barely have enough magic to remain in the Unseen World. Now, what I don’t understand is, if you’re going to go through the trouble of killing someone for their magic, scraping it from their bones, why go after someone who has so little?” Miles picked up his fork and tapped it against his plate, causing capers to roll from the top of his bagels and lox.

  Grey pushed his chair back slightly, giving himself room, just in case. “I’m not sure why you’re asking me this.”

  “An academic discussion, nothing more.” Merlin smiled and draped red onion on his salmon. “We spend so little time fully considering the sources of our power. If this is one, we owe it to ourselves—to magic—to think about the best way to use it. Because, as you know, there have been some recent problems with magic. Indeed, last night there was a complete failure of magic at a challenge.”

  “Complete?” Grey echoed.

  “I’m sure it’s part of the reason for Dee’s visit just now. Both magicians attempted to cast, and nothing—nothing—happened. And we’re all aware of other times when magic has misfired, or hasn’t been as strong as it should have been,” Merlin said. “And while these events have increased dramatically since Sydney appeared in our midst, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s taken magic from Shadows to help her performance here. It may simply be a sign that it’s time to look for alternate sources of magic. If something is happening, it’s best to be prepared.”

  Grey relaxed then. “I would think that, if you’re trying to make the collection, you’d choose people with less magic because you’d want to increase your chances of success. It’s like the sacrifices—they’re sent away when they’re small, before their magic is as strong as it might be, but that’s because it makes it easier to take it out of them. You don’t want someone who might be able to fight back.”

  “Well, that’s certainly something to think about, though I’m not sure it helps us deal with that woman who claims to be your sister. Whatever else she is, she is very strong magically.” Merlin shook his head as if this problem were a great sadness for him.

  “Do you really think she’s the reason for the failures of magic?” Grey asked. “That if her magic were taken—no, not taken. If her magic were returned to where it should be, would the failures stop? Would everyone else be stronger?”

  “I think,” Merlin said, “that there is a reason magic is failing. There does not seem to be the pool of magic there normally is, and, as I’ve said before, the biggest connection I see is that magic became weaker once Sydney began to participate in the Turning. Magic does not just disappear—it goes somewhere. If she has too much—”

  “Then someone ought to take it back,” Grey said.

  “You are aware, of course, that Houses whose members fall in the course of a Turning are exempt from the next required sacrifice,” Miles said.

  “I’m not sure how that applies here. I won’t have established my House until after the Turning is finished.”

  “It applies because the death returns their magic to that same pool of power that the magic of Shadows comes from. If Sydney were to fall in the course of a challenge, perhaps some sort of balance would be restored. It’s certainly something to think about,” Miles said.

  Yes, Grey agreed. It certainly was.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Grey sat at the corner of the bar farthest from the door. He liked to be able to watch the people, the girls, come in. He could tell, usually, who had strong magic and who didn’t—hell, half the time he knew which Houses the girls were part of and how closely related they were to the main families. And even when it wasn’t immediately obvious, being farther away gave him time to think, to consider. The corner seat meant he could watch, directly and in the mirror that hung behind the bar. No reason to waste an approach, no reason to make himself memorable if he didn’t want to be.

  He normally wouldn’t have come back so soon, not while he still had a supply, but the conversation with Merlin made him wonder if it wouldn’t be better to have more bones in reserve. Miles was powerful—if he was looking for alternate sources of magic, it might be a good idea to show him how effective the bones could be. Plus, if he was going to challenge Sydney, he needed to be sure she didn’t have any advantage over him.

  Even so, at two drinks in and no possibilities, he had just about given up and decided to leave when he saw her. Short dark hair, almost conservatively dressed, but still sexy. She looked like the sort of girl he might have said hi to at the bar if he were here looking for a date. Best of all, she was alone.

  He waited. He waited while she settled in, while she had a drink. He watched as her eyes scanned the crowd, but not like she was looking for someone she knew,
just like she was looking for someone. He watched as she didn’t check her phone.

  He didn’t recognize her. She wasn’t from any of the Houses. But she was here, which meant she had enough magic to find out about the place, enough magic to get in the door, and probably not much more than that. Perfect. There was no one important who would miss her.

  Grey signaled the bartender. “The woman at the end of the bar—if she orders another drink, I’d like to buy it for her.”

  The bartender nodded. Fewer than five minutes later, the woman sat down next to him, vodka gimlet in hand. “Thanks for the drink,” she said.

  “My pleasure,” Grey said. “Grey Prospero.”

  Her eyes widened, just a bit. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Harper.”

  • • •

  Harper’s lip curled as she looked at the man passed out on the bed. Then she set the timer on her phone so that she could be sure she was finished and gone by the time the spell wore off, and got to work.

  It had been the emailed wards and spells for the archive that had given her the idea—if it was possible for a magician to package magic in a way that would let mundane people trigger it, then she wanted some. And she guessed that if such things existed, that sex would drive their creation as much as it drove any other technology.

  She’d been right, and it had been the bartender who had hooked her up. She was a magician—Alanna Valentine—and when Harper explained what she was doing, that she was looking for the man who had been murdering women for their magic, Alanna said that she would help however she could. She’d had a cousin, she said, who’d disappeared in mysterious circumstances.

  She’d given Harper a lighter, one Harper had been carrying in her purse each time she’d come back to the bar. “Once you find the guy, just ask him to light your cigarette for you. When he clicks it—or anyone does, so don’t get confused and do it yourself—it activates the spell.”

  Harper didn’t smoke, but that was fine. It was easy magic, and it worked. Grey had become very affectionate and had been delighted when she’d suggested that they go back to his place. They’d barely made it in the door before he passed out. When he woke up, he’d be very confused.

  Very.

  Harper methodically stripped him of his clothes, tossing them around the room so that it looked like they’d come off in the heat of passion.

  Then she searched his apartment.

  She got lucky—if that could possibly be considered the right word in this situation—when she got to the final set of kitchen cupboards. They weren’t even hidden. She guessed that when he had gone through the spells to take down his extra wards when they came in, his lack of focus meant that he’d accidentally taken down all of the wards in his apartment.

  She found a tiny glass jar. Inside it, three human finger bones.

  Her eyes went from the glass and its terrible contents to the man on the bed. She thought about the women who had gone missing the past few months.

  She thought about Rose, whose bones hadn’t been stolen but whose hands had been carved into, cut open. Who had still had her life stolen from her.

  There was a block of knives just on the edge of the counter, and Harper’s hand ached with the desire to pick one up.

  Instead, hands shaking, she picked up her phone and took pictures—close up on the bones, then the cupboard, then the kitchen. Enough to put what she’d found in its horrible context. Then she grabbed her coat and her purse, and she got the hell out of there.

  • • •

  Grey paced around his apartment. It felt somehow unfamiliar to him. He’d woken up naked and alone in his bed. He didn’t remember fucking the girl, though he supposed he must have. He didn’t even remember bringing her home with him, and that was part of the problem. He never brought girls here. He never brought anyone here.

  Even worse, when he’d woken up, all his wards were down. All of them, even the ones on his cabinet where he stored his spare magic. Nothing was missing—it was the first thing he’d checked—but still. Something felt off, felt wrong. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the girl, whoever she was, had opened that cabinet, had seen what was inside.

  Not, he told himself, that anyone would believe her. Some nobody who wasn’t even part of a House. But still—he’d gone out looking for power, and instead of refilling his supply, he’d brought a girl back here and gotten laid. He thought. He scratched his balls, wishing he could remember.

  Better to be safe. With the wards down, who knew what she might have seen. Grey took the finger bones from their container and ground them to dust with a mortar and pestle. He added honey, and wine, and salt, and he drank all of it down. The magic burned going down his throat, burned as it traveled out through his veins.

  Now even if she did tell someone, even if they did believe her, there was nothing to be found, no matter how hard anyone looked. And he could always get more if he needed to.

  He glanced back at the rumpled bed and got dressed. There was something he needed to do.

  • • •

  Sydney was on the way to House Prospero. She’d picked up some clothes and food for Grace, who seemed to be settling in well, all things considered.

  “I feel like I’m okay while I’m here in the House, but I’m not quite ready to reintroduce myself to the Unseen World yet. Things are still—I don’t even know what things are, but you know how that place messes with your head,” she’d said when Sydney had called to check clothing sizes.

  Sydney did. “It takes a while, for not being there to feel—forget normal. For it to even feel possible. And even though the adjustment is to something good, it’s an adjustment. Give yourself time.”

  Grace blew out a breath. “Thank you. I’d been feeling like some kind of freak. Not that I wanted to be back in there or anything, but I felt like I should be running down the street singing my jubilation, and instead I’m tucked away in here reading every book in your library.”

  Sydney’d read a lot, too, when she’d first gotten out. It had helped her believe in the world outside. She wasn’t that far from McNally Jackson now. She’d stop by and pick up something for Grace to read.

  Her phone rang. Grace. “Hey, I was just—”

  “He’s here.” Grace’s voice a rough whisper.

  “Grey?” Knowing the answer as soon as she asked the question.

  “Yes. Trying to get in.”

  “Okay. Are you in a room with a mirror?” Sydney cast a summoning spell for a cab.

  “Yes.”

  “Ask the House if it can hold him there.”

  Sydney overheard the question as a cab stopped in front of her. “It says it will.”

  “Stay where you are. I’m on my way.”

  Grey was still there, hands anchored to the door, when she pulled up in front. She paid the driver quickly, but then took her time walking to the door. “So, were you planning to steal from the House, or were you going to leave something nasty inside for me?”

  “Let me go, you bitch. You have no right to hold me here.”

  “And you have no right to be here, or to do whatever it is you had planned. So let’s start over.” She smiled, raised a hand as if she might begin a spell, and Grey pressed himself closer to the door. “What were you planning to do here?”

  “I don’t have to tell you,” he said.

  “Fine.” She shrugged. “I don’t have to let you go.” She turned and started back toward the street.

  “Wait!”

  She paused.

  “I was going to leave a spell.”

  “I assume it wasn’t going to burst into ‘Welcome Home!’ balloons the next time I opened the door.”

  He glared at her.

  She leaned against the stair rail, pressed a few places on her phone’s screen. “The House took video. That fun little whooshing noise you just heard was me emailing the file to the entire Unseen World, and to my lawyer. So they all know you did this. They also know that it was this House—my magic—that kept
you out.”

  “And you think any of them will care? You’re an abomination,” he said.

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say to your sister,” she said. “Especially when she’s the only one who can let you go. They’re calling for snow tonight, had you heard?

  “Anyway, maybe they’ll care; maybe they’ll even agree with you. But they’ll know what you did. And how funny you look, hunched over here, stuck to the door.”

  She walked up next to him. “And speaking of knowing things, I know what you did to Miranda. Well, what you tried to do. The magic didn’t quite work, did it? You were hoping she’d be dead, not just magicless.”

  He glared. “No one will believe you.”

  “Do I have some sort of reputation as a liar? You seem very sure no one will believe me about anything. Though, even if you’re right, I bet they’d believe Lara Merlin. She figured out what happened that night and told Ian. She’s not really happy with her dad right now, either. I bet we could convince her to say something.” She cut the spell, and the sudden release dropped him to his knees. “Now get away from my House.”

  He stumbled away from the door and raised a hand.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Sydney said.

  “Bitch,” he called over his shoulder, and left.

  “Thank you,” Sydney said to the House, and rested her hand against the door.

  The door opened. Grace stood on the other side, fireplace poker in her shaking hand.

  “You do remember you’re a magician, right?” Sydney asked.

  “I hate him so much I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to cast. But I was sure I could clock him if I had to.”

  “Badass,” Sydney said. “Well done.”

  They gathered in the packages Sydney had dropped on the lawn. “This ice cream isn’t even going to make it to the freezer. I really missed chocolate-chip cookie dough,” Grace said.

  “Look,” Sydney said. “I don’t want to push on healing wounds. But do you have any idea of why Miles took you to Shadows?”