Illusionarium

by Heather Dixon

  “But—Lady Florel, people are dying,” I stammered. “King Edward would pay you, I’m sure of it—”

  “I want payment from you, Jonathan. I want you to illusion for me.”

  I shifted uncomfortably on the chair and glanced at Lockwood. His narrowed eyes darted from Lady Florel to me.

  “Nothing difficult,” she assured me. “Something like what you illusioned in the Chivalry’s brig hall. There’s an illusionarium that begins in only a few minutes, and I want you to illusion for it. It won’t last longer than an hour, I swear it.”

  I frowned at the brown bottle, turning it from side to side. Payment? That didn’t seem like Lady Florel.

  “There are people dying, Lady Florel,” I said. “Even waiting an hour could kill them. Surely we could bring this to my father, and then come back? I’ll illusion for you then.”

  “There’s no time,” said Lady Florel. “If we go now, you’ll miss the illusionarium. But if you participate and do well, I’ll illusion the door and we’ll leave straightaway after. I promise.”

  I pressed the bottle between my hands. The glass cooled my skin.

  “You swear it won’t last longer than an hour?” I said.

  Lockwood made another feral noise. Lady Florel smiled.

  “Not even that long,” she assured us. “Last year, this same illusionarium lasted only ten minutes.”

  I stood.

  “Fine,” I said. “And if I make the illusion last a half minute long, we’ll leave after a half minute, right?

  Lady Florel beamed.

  “Anything you want,” she said.

  A regiment of the strange red-uniformed masked guardsmen arrived at the door, rifles in their hands. I drew back slightly; Lady Florel adjusted her gloves and said, “Excuse me,” and egressed with them, leaving me alone with L—

  Lockwood attacked. The room spun. In a flash he’d slammed me against one of the glass windows, wiping it with my face, and had taken and twisted my arms behind me like a pretzel, sending pain coursing up and down my shoulders and spine and rendering me incapacitated.

  A voice close to my ear snarled, “Do you know what this is, Johnny? It’s a Knutsen hold position number one, a military fighting technique that twists the arm far enough you could scratch the back of your eyeballs with your thumbnail. Position number two—”

  Lockwood adjusted his grip slightly, twisting my arm further and sending stars in my vision. Anger seared through my bones. Lady Florel was still talking to the guardsmen at the door, ignoring us both.

  “—may very well snap the nerves in your joints and possibly cause paralysis and you don’t want to know what position number three can do—”

  “What is your problem?” I managed to gag.

  “Hmmm, let’s see,” he drawled. “Maybe because you’re helping a ruddy murderer? Possibly?”

  “Oh, that’s right!” I snapped back. “You want Arthurise to die of the Venen, I remember now!”

  “I’m going to sort this out the right way, and I won’t make deals with liars and demons to do it!” he snarled in my ear. “I’ll find the way back home myself, Johnny, because if you think she’ll actually curtsy us into Arthurise, that makes one of us incredibly stupid and the other one incredibly dead—”

  “My dear lieutenant,” Lady Florel’s voice broke in. Lockwood’s pressure eased one iota; I managed a glance back. Lady Florel was smiling as her masked guard streamed around her to us, bearing hissing steam rifles, their emotionless, masked faces fixed on Lockwood.

  “I really think we’ve had enough of you,” she said.

  The meaning of her words hit me as the next two seconds . . .

  . . . happened:

  Lockwood released me, banging my head against the window. In a blur, he yanked a hanging plant off its chain and threw it at the glass. It smashed through the pane, shattering it as the masked guard seized upon him.

  —a strange, silent brawl—

  —that left three masked guards unconscious on the tile floor, the other guards tumbling back, their top hats strewn, and Lockwood had thrown himself out the broken window in a graceful arch. The brass buttons on his uniform glimmered in the sunlight.

  He fell.

  I raced to the window. The ledge below sported a pair of sooty footprints. Three stories below that, a wisp of blue uniform disappeared into a tangle of hedges. I peered through my broken glasses at the miles of broken hedges and buildings, massaging my arms as the blood returned to my fingers. Lockwood’s figure disappeared completely into the tangle of labyrinth.

  Lady Florel’s masked guard rose to their feet and gathered around me, picking up shards of glass piece by piece like a flock of crimson pecking birds.

  “Leave the glass,” said Lady Florel sharply. “Find Lockwood. Bring him back.”

  The masked guard dropped their fistfuls of glass. A pinging shower of shards at our feet was the only sound they made as they swept from the room. A moment later, they streamed out of the building’s entrance below, over the sweeping pavilion of marble and gardens, and into the maze. I bitterly rubbed my throbbing arms.

  Good riddance, I thought.

  CHAPTER 9

  Still disheveled and streaked with soot, I followed Lady Florel through the theater. That was what this building was, Lady Florel explained, leading me down an ornate hall and an elaborate staircase. A theater where the monarch—who was also the best illusionist in Nod’ol—and the lesser illusionists lived.

  And it did look like a palace. But a strange one. Everything had been decorated as though the builders had taken pieces of architecture from the past five hundred years, chewed them up, and vomited them into building materials. Carved cupids were everywhere.

  Lady Florel was quickly explaining the nature of the illusionarium I’d be participating in in just a few minutes.

  “It’s part of an annual festival we have here in Nod’ol,” she said. “A winter solstice festival. It’s called Masked Virtue.”

  “Masked Virtue?” I repeated.

  “Quite. This is the first illusionarium, and it’s a small one. It’s just for the miners. You’ll illusion with the only other two illusionists in the world. This world, at least,” she corrected. “They’re young, too. Your age, as a matter of fact. Each of you will illusion your own bit. If you do well, and it’s entertaining enough, the miners will decide to support your color in the festival, which begins tomorrow.

  I frowned up at a massive chandelier. I had no idea what I’d illusion. Gross incompetence hit me like an ocean wave. So far I’d only illusioned things like snow and arsenic. And temperatures. I’d done the Quickening Formula—that was a complex equation, right? It had flowed right from my fingers. And I’d transformed the corridor on the Chivalry. But was it enough to put an early end to the illus—illusiona—Whatever it was called?

  “Lady Florel—” I began.

  “Queen Honoria. Please, Jonathan.”

  “Right—that. Illusionarium. What is that, exactly?”

  “Ah. It’s when you—the illusionist—illusion with an audience. Illusionists are rare, which means illusionariums are even rarer.”

  The hall opened up onto the main level, with vaulted ceilings, a mezzanine and a large staircase. The theater’s lobby and reception hall. The wood floor gleamed below us. A ballroom, too. I’d never seen anything so grand. I tugged on my ear, thinking.

  “Lady Florel,” I began again.

  “Queen—”

  “Right. Queen Honoria,” I said. “Look, are you really the queen here? Whatever happened to King Edward?”

  Lady Florel smiled and descended down the staircase, which split into two and rounded to the floor. I hastily followed, wary of the time slipping away.

  “I am,” she confirmed. “Things are done differently, here in Nod’ol. The miners elect their monarch.”

  “They—elect? Really?” I said. “The miners?” Every miner I knew on Fata wasn’t exactly nobility.

  “Yes,” said Lady Flo
rel. “Here in Nod’ol, they control the airstreams, which means they control the orthogonagen fuel and the fantillium. Nod’olians are very fond of fantillium and illusions. I arrived here years ago, illusioned like a dream, enchanted the miners, and was elected.”

  “And since then, you’ve had one foot in Arthurise and one foot in Nod’ol?” I said, sorting it out.

  “Something like that, yes.” Lady Florel paused at the base of the stairs. Between her and the other staircase, almost in the center of the room, stood a display case. It was a round cabinet with glass around the sides, the display inside split like a pie into six sections, which were all locked and empty.

  Except for two. The first one held an airship ticket on a green velvet pillow. It read:

  PASSAGE TICKET

  Airship #278, Theater Station

  Destination: Sussex, dock 4

  The section next to it had nothing but a slip of paper on an orange pillow, with one word:

  ANNA

  And the section next to that, swathed with gold velvet, lay empty. Lady Florel unlocked it and opened the little glass door.

  “The antitoxin?” she said.

  I’d been holding the brown bottle in my hand so tightly that it had imprinted itself into my palm. My fingers automatically and painfully unclenched. The moment the glass flashed in my hand, Lady Florel had swept it up, laid it on the velvet, shut the case, and locked it.

  “Hold off!” I began.

  “These are the prizes each illusionist earns.” She cut me short. “You don’t need to win to get it back. You simply need to illusion well. There will be a large reception here after the show, and you can have it back then.”

  “What?” I said. “It doesn’t need to be locked away!”

  “Oh, Jonathan,” said Lady Florel, sweet as icing on a cake. “Yes it does. I’m afraid you won’t try hard enough if it’s not. You see, if you do well, the miners grant me more orthogonagen and fantillium. The theater and the airships are powered, and the masked guard is paid in fantillium. It’s the key to reclaiming this city.”

  “What about reclaiming Arthurise?” I protested.

  “Arthurise can wait a few more minutes, Jonathan. I’ve been working on this city for years. I’ve already rescued this theater—it used to be overrun by . . . decay, and everyone lived up in airships. Slowly, we’re spreading our tendrils of civilization. One day—one day—Nod’ol will regain its glory.”

  Lady Florel’s lined face had turned rather glazed and thoughtful, and she stared off into the distance. I followed her eyes to the wall above one of the arched glass doors to the courtyard outside. A rough, craggy patch marred the marble, as though it had been scratched and chiseled away completely. It did not match the lobby’s grandeur.

  She stared at this marred patch of marble with glistening eyes.

  Just as quickly, she snapped to.

  “Well, Jonathan!” she said, adjusting her sleeves and mask. “Let us haste. I want you to meet the other two illusionists before the show begins.”

  And haste we did, back up into the many floors of the theater, the seconds feeling like they lasted hours. The sooner I met the illusionists, the sooner I could get the illusion over with and get back to Arthurise. To my chagrin, it took ten entire minutes to reach the other side of the theater, at a backstage room of the main theater. It had a wood floor and mirrors for walls, glistening lamps, and spindly white chairs. It was beautiful and sparse. A girl’s voice rose from the inside of the room, delicate and chiming, and it made me pause a moment.

  “Queen Honoria says he’s good. Very good. She says he’s already illusioned the Quickening Formula.”

  They were talking about me. My haste faded a milligram as I listened at the doorway. Another voice, muffled and guttural, rasped, “He’s a scag.”

  The girl’s voice, impatient: “You think everyone is a scag, Conny.”

  “That’s because everyone is a scag, Divinity,” the raspy voice said. “And you’re the scaggiest of them all, you little piece of garbage.”

  I’d never heard anyone speak to a girl like that. Vexed, I followed Lady Florel into the room of mirrors. My reflection repeated in long rows of mussed, soot-streaked Jonathans.

  A . . . thing . . . stood in the center of the room. I could only tell he was human by the general form. He wore layers upon layers of leather and linen, all in varying shades of orange and brown, thick nobbled gloves, a long coat with a hood, under which peeked a mess of blood-red hair. He also wore a mask shaped like something between a jaguar and a wolf. His eyes shone black through the mask’s eyeholes, because over all this, he wore a fantillium mask. It buckled awkwardly over his mask’s snout.

  He seemed to be illusioning by himself. With quick, violent gestures, he was creating things I couldn’t see. Turning, he swiped his hand at a girl about my age, who lay on a white settee, reading a book. She shook her head and laughed a sweet chiming laugh.

  “Illusioned sticks and stones won’t break my bones,” she sang.

  They both noticed us enter at the same time, and the boy quickly stopped his gestures. The girl stood, and they both bowed to Lady Florel. Lady Florel raised a hand, and they straightened.

  I looked at the girl with the chiming laugh as she straightened, and couldn’t stop looking.

  Golden hair, with little diamonds in it, cascaded over her shoulders. She wore a strange combination of long green skirts and black corset and jackets in a stitched sort of piecemeal that, unlike Lady Florel’s, worked. She looked like a fallen queen. Her hair bounced as she straightened and smiled—at me!—with white teeth and deep red lips and long lashes and delicate features that put such a fizz in the air my knees nearly gave way. I’d never seen anyone so beautiful. I wanted to touch her, just to see if she was real.

  “Divinity and Constantine,” Lady Florel introduced us, “this is Jonathan. Our newest illusionist.”

  I held my hand out to the boy with two masks, Constantine, and smiled tightly.

  He didn’t shake it. Letting out a feral scream, he leapt and shoved his arms out in illusioned fervor, sending a blast of invisible, illusioned something at me.

  It was almost amusing. I didn’t move a hair. Constantine, breathing heavily, had landed in a crouch, his gloved hands outstretched. They had claws at the tips.

  “Sticks and stones,” I said coolly.

  “He can’t hear you,” said the girl.

  I glanced at her, then at Constantine, whose all-pupil eyes appeared to be staring straight through me, to the mirror on the wall behind.

  “In the illusion, he’s thrown you back against the wall,” she explained. “At least, I think so. That’s what he’s staring at. He illusioned something at me, too. That’s why he can’t hear me. I’m probably in pieces across the floor.”

  The girl laughed a bright, chiming laugh. I smiled weakly.

  “Watch,” she said. She swept to Constantine’s side in one smooth, graceful motion, dug her delicate fingers underneath his fantillium mask, and tore it from Constantine’s face, revealing his mask’s snout. It had rows of pointed teeth. We both jolted away sharply as he swiped, blindly, and the pupils in his eyes contracted. His eyes were bright orange.

  He lurched to his feet and lunged for me. I dodged. He careened past.

  “Constantine!” said Lady Florel quickly, hurrying to his side and halting his attack by weaving her arm through his. “Have I told you we found Anna? Tucked away in a corner of the maze, hiding from the Riven, poor thing. She won’t run off this time, I’m sure of it. You’ll see her tonight. . . .”

  Anna. From the slip of paper in the round cabinet. So Constantine’s prize was a person. Lady Florel led the hunched and growling Constantine out of the room, his long coat trailing after them. Whoever Anna was, I felt sorry for her.

  The girl behind me, Divinity, was laughing. I smiled sheepishly and shoved my hands into my pockets.

  “His eyes,” I said, nodding at the door Constantine had just exited. “Are they
really that color?”

  “No,” said Divinity, still laughing. “He has them injected with dye. It changes every day.”

  “Really!” I said, intrigued. “Is that medically possible?”

  Divinity giggled, scrunching her nose. If I had a cap right now, I’d have twisted the life out of it. She paced around me, her dress sweeping the floor, sizing me up and down with her glimmering green eyes. They reminded me of gems. I made an attempt to comb through my matted curls with my fingers. I looked a wreck and smelled of smoke. I vainly wished I had taken the time to wash up.

  “Queen Honoria says you’re from the far north,” she said, the gems glittering with delight at my disheveled clothes.

  “Oh? Ah! Quite,” I said.

  “How far north?”

  “Oh. Ah. Pretty far,” I said.

  Divinity wove her arm through mine, apparently not caring about my appearance. Her layers of silk brushed my skin, and her perfume made me dizzy.

  “Let’s sit down,” she said, dimpling.

  She led my completely unresisting self to a spindly sofa and nestled next to me, taking my hand and tracing her gloved finger over my palm as though it pleased her extraordinarily. It was like flying on an airship through a rainbow while the sun set during a hailstorm. . . .

  “Oh. Ah. So. What were you reading?” I said, hoping for a good long conversation.

  Divinity shrugged, released my hand,11 and strode to where she’d discarded the book on the floor. She handed it to me.

  “I can’t make heads or tails of it,” she said as I flipped through the pages of the tome, recognizing it as an old biology textbook. “I’m trying to study chemical structures,” she continued. “Well, there’s not a lot of books anymore that tell you how to illusion. They’ve disappeared over the years. So we’re stuck reading these awful things. Do you want to practice?”

  She nodded to Constantine’s fantillium mask that had been left on the floor. I distastefully shook my head, rather not wanting to share something Constantine had been breathing in.

  “Probably not much time for it, anyway,” Divinity conceded as the doors opened and several masked guards issued forth. Their numerous reflections turned them into an endless regiment of crimson. “Come with me—we’ll have you trussed up as well. You certainly look like you could use it.”