Rafferdy’s smile went flat. He did not care for the look on Mr. Bennick’s sallow face. It was openly sharp: a blade drawn in plain sight rather than concealed behind one’s back.
“Is it true what I hear, Mr. Bennick?” Mr. Baydon said. Given that Lady Marsdel had forbidden broadsheets at the dining table, he was forced to interact with the rest of them instead. “Is it a fact that you believe our own Mr. Rafferdy could make himself into something of a magician? Mrs. Baydon tells me this is the case.”
“One cannot be made into a magician,” Mr. Bennick answered, swirling his glass, gazing at the red liquid as it moved in a spiral. “One either is or is not.” He raised the glass and took a sip.
“Then he is a magician!” Mrs. Baydon said. She turned to Rafferdy and touched his arm. “Come, Rafferdy, do an enchantment for us. Please! We so long for some amusement.”
Rafferdy shifted in his chair. Mrs. Baydon’s words vexed him; he did not appreciate them in the least.
“I shall do no such thing,” he said, not caring that he sounded petulant. “Even if I could work an enchantment, I would not. In fact, I am sure Mr. Bennick would agree magick should not be used for such a trivial thing as entertainment. That’s for the illusionists in their theaters. And even if I cared to indulge you—which I do not—I would fail in the task, for I have not the least idea how to work an enchantment.”
“I can show you,” Mr. Bennick said, setting down his glass.
Now Rafferdy was truly perturbed. He had thought his speech would put an end to this nonsense. Instead, everyone around the table was gazing at him.
“Oh, do, Mr. Bennick, do show him!” Mrs. Baydon exclaimed.
Mr. Bennick rose from his chair and moved around the table. Rafferdy renewed his protests, stating that he had no intention of making a fool of himself for their enjoyment, but the others would not relent. They wished to see him do magick; Lady Marsdel commanded it. Like the crowd in some ancient Tharosian arena watching gladiators battle, the guests at the dinner table would not be denied their spectacle.
“This is pointless,” he said in a low voice as Mr. Bennick stood over him. “I have no idea what to do.”
“You need only do what I tell you. Promise me only that you will do your best to follow my instructions.”
Rafferdy raised his hands in defeat. If a pain must be endured, better to be done with it as swiftly as possible.
“Mrs. Baydon, I noticed you wear a locket,” Mr. Bennick said, turning toward her. “Would you be willing to part with it for a few moments?”
Her eyes shone. “Of course.” She undid the chain and handed the locket to him. It was made of gold: oval-shaped with a tiny hinge. “But there’s nothing at all of value inside it. Just a snip of Mr. Baydon’s hair.”
Mr. Baydon gave her a dry look from across the table. “You seemed quite delighted to receive it at the time, as I recall.”
“You weren’t married then,” Lord Baydon said. “She didn’t know you very well. However, now that she has a good idea of your entire value, she knows what a small piece of you is worth!”
Mr. Bennick took the locket, then gave it to Rafferdy.
“Open it,” Mr. Bennick instructed.
Rafferdy did so, using a fingernail to prize it open. As Mrs. Baydon had said, there was a curl of brown hair within, tied by a ribbon.
“Now shut it again, and close it inside your fist. Yes, like that. Hold your other hand above, and repeat the words I say to you. They are in an ancient and unfamiliar tongue, a language older than all of history, so listen carefully—you must be sure to repeat them exactly as I say them.”
Rafferdy frowned up at the taller man. “What if I make a mistake?”
“It would be best if you did not.”
Rafferdy swallowed. He didn’t like the sound of that. “Don’t I need to draw some strange symbols or odd runes?”
“Not for such a small enchantment as this. Your hand will contain and direct the magickal energies. Now clear your mind of other thoughts.”
Before Rafferdy could ask anything more, Bennick uttered several strange words. They were harsh and guttural and in no language Rafferdy had ever heard. Indeed, he supposed they were in no language at all but were pure gibberish. However, when it was seen that this “enchantment” had failed to have any effect, Rafferdy would refuse to let the blame be placed on him; he would make no mistake in his recitation, and all would see it was Mr. Bennick who was the real fool.
The words, however, were oddly difficult to speak. His tongue, usually quick and glib, seemed to labor to form the sounds. His brow furrowed, and he had to force his lips to shape the words, as if they were alien things—sounds his faculties had never been designed to utter.
By the time he finished, sweat had beaded on his forehead, though the incantation had consisted of no more than half a dozen words. Nothing happened as the last syllable faded to silence. The candles did not gutter; there was no charge on the air.
“Well, that was entirely without purpose,” Rafferdy said, leaning back.
Mr. Bennick regarded him. “Was it? In that case, hand the locket back to Mrs. Baydon.”
Rafferdy did so, and gladly. His jaw ached, and his throat was sore; he took a sip of wine.
“Oh!” Mrs. Baydon exclaimed. “Something is wrong—I can’t open it.” She turned the locket around and around but to no avail.
“Well, it was quite easy for me,” Rafferdy said. However, when she handed it back to him, he found he could no longer open the locket. At first he took care not to damage it, but he soon gave that up and tried with all his might. However, the tiny hinge would not budge.
“You cannot open it that way,” Mr. Bennick said. There was a pleased look on his aquiline face. “No one at the table can. It’s been sealed with magick, and only magick can open it again.”
“Nonsense,” Rafferdy said, and kept trying to open the locket, though without success. “There must be some trick.”
“What trick can there be?” Lord Baydon said. “It was in your hand the entire time.”
“It’s true, Mr. Rafferdy,” Mrs. Baydon said, clapping her hands and laughing. “It had to have been magick that locked it shut.”
He scowled at her. “Magick, yes, but we already know who in this room was the real magician. You spoke the incantation even as I did, Mr. Bennick, and with more proper inflection, I am sure. It was you who locked it, not I.”
“I can prove to you quite easily that was not the case,” Mr. Bennick said.
“How so?”
“Do you recall the words of the incantation? Yes? Then hold the locket in your hand and speak them again.”
“I will not. I am finished with this ridiculous farce.”
“But we are not,” Lady Marsdel declared. “If you are so certain you cannot work magick, Mr. Rafferdy, what have you to fear? Now, speak the words! You are very clever—I have no doubt you can recall them.”
Calls of “Hear, hear,” went around the table.
Rafferdy glared up at Mr. Bennick. You have gotten your revenge against me again, sir, he wanted to say. First you cursed me with the wretched ring, and now you’re making a mockery of me.
However, he tightened his hand around the locket, then spoke the six words of the incantation. He did not know if it was from his prior experience or from the energy of anger, but this time the words were easier to utter.
“There,” he said, and thrust the locket at Mrs. Baydon.
She accepted it and put a fingernail to the thin crack where the two halves met. It opened easily under her touch.
“Marvelous!” Lord Baydon exclaimed.
Mrs. Baydon laughed, and Lady Marsdel applauded by striking a spoon against a dish. Even Mr. Baydon seemed amused.
Rafferdy, however, was not. It’s a trick, he wanted to say. Yet it wasn’t. He had handled the locket himself; there could be no other explanation. Somehow, Bennick had made him to do magick. But how? And moreover, for what purpose? The former magicia
n returned to his seat. His expression seemed neither surprised nor leering. His dark eyes were as unreadable as ever as he picked up a fork and ate his supper.
“You really did it, Mr. Rafferdy,” Mrs. Baydon said, smiling at him. “You performed an enchantment. You cannot deny it.”
“I must concede it appears so,” Rafferdy said grudgingly. “You’ve bested me, Mr. Bennick, though I have no idea how. Nor can I see what opening and shutting a locket has to do with real magick.”
“That is the very foundation of magick,” Mr. Bennick said. “It is the opening of things that are shut and the shutting of things that are open. It is also about the binding and unbinding of things. You should come speak with me sometime if you wish to learn more.”
“I don’t wish it, thank you very much.”
“Come now, Rafferdy,” Mr. Baydon said, scowling across the table. “Clearly you have a talent for this stuff. There are men who pay hundreds of regals a year to go to university in hopes of learning the smallest amount of magick, and here Mr. Bennick’s given you a lesson for free and offered you more. Surely you must want to know how to wield such power.”
“What I want is another glass of wine,” he said, and handed his empty glass to a servant.
“My offer remains open if you change your mind,” Mr. Bennick said.
Mrs. Baydon laughed. “You’re wasting your time, I’m afraid, Mr. Bennick. I fear magick seems too worthwhile. Our dear Mr. Rafferdy has never had an interest in anything that might be remotely useful.”
“Or perhaps he simply has yet to find the right use for it,” Mr. Bennick said. His glance went to Rafferdy’s hand and the ring there.
“Well, since you all want so badly for me to perform another trick, I will oblige you,” Rafferdy said.
“And what trick is that?” Lady Marsdel demanded.
He rose from his seat. “I shall make myself disappear.” And bowing to her ladyship and the other guests, he took his leave, retrieved his hat, and went out into the night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE BELLS OF St. Galmuth’s were tolling as Eldyn walked past Duskfellow’s graveyard and deeper into the Old City. He kept the shadows close around him as he skirted the ragged fringes of High Holy. It would have been safer to take a hack cab, but he would be spending too much as it was that night. He went swiftly, a wraith in the dark.
All at once the night air brightened, and Eldyn turned a corner onto the west end of Durrow Street. Despite the late hour, crowds of people moved up and down the street. Some went boldly, others furtively, all of them searching for the theater most likely to cater to their tastes. Music and laughter spilled out of the open doors, along with colored light that shimmered on the air like a glamour. Eldyn moved down the street, forgetting his stiff fingers and aching back, forgetting the dim apartment over the shoemaker’s shop and Sashie’s reproachful looks.
Over the last quarter month, since attending the performance at the Theater of the Doves, he had returned to Durrow Street several times. However, with no special coin to grant him admission, he had been forced to pay for his ticket like everyone else.
He knew that it was wrong, that it was frivolous, that he should save the money for his and Sashie’s future. Each time he walked home, he vowed he would not return. Only then would come a particularly awful day at Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle, or a quarrel with Sashie, and he would find himself here once again.
Like tonight. Eldyn walked past the theaters. A performer or two stood before each one, crafting illusions and conjuring phantasms. These were small things, meant to intrigue and entice and also to indicate the nature of the performance that would take place inside. The true wonders would be revealed only to those who entered.
In front of one of the theaters, a pair of illusionists tossed balls of blue and green fire back and forth. Beyond, a man, his face powdered, danced with a lithe figure swathed in a white cloth, then pulled away the sheet to reveal nothing but air. Across the street, a lady—or what seemed to be a lady—in a silver gown used a wand to draw glittering squares in midair, then pushed them open as if they were windows, revealing seascapes and mountains and sun-drenched fields beyond.
Eldyn watched each performer for a few moments, then moved on, trying to decide where to go. The second time he had come to Durrow Street, he had gone to the Theater of the Doves again. Since then he had gone to the Theater of Dreams, the Theater of the Veils, and the Theater of Mirrors. In each he had seen wonders and visions: confections of light and sound that, like sweets, only left one hungrier the more one consumed.
A man in a black suit beckoned to him. As Eldyn drew near, he saw that the other was unusually thin, and though his face was carefully powdered and rouged, it did not hide the hollowness of his cheeks.
“Look,” the man said, and with a palsied hand he gestured to a gilded cage that hung from a stand.
Eldyn looked into the cage, expecting to see a jewel-colored bird like those from the Theater of the Doves. Instead, on the perch inside the cage sat a creature the length of his hand. It was naked and looked like a tiny woman except for its gossamer wings, green hair, and curling tail. The creature let out a trilling laugh as Eldyn gasped. Its tail coiled around its body, caressing, probing; the creature writhed on the perch, eyes glowing red.
The man in the black suit gave a grin as skeletal as any adorning a tombstone at Duskfellow’s. “You’ll see the full-size ones inside, and more. Come, enter the Theater of Emeralds.”
Eldyn shook his head, then hurried down the street. There were many theaters that offered sights such as those at the Theater of Emeralds, and they did not lack for patrons. However, that was not the sort of performance Eldyn sought. It was the fantasias, the idylls, and the reenactments of myths of ancient Tharos that entranced him. As the illusionists worked their craft, the stage became like a door to another world. For a little while at least, Eldyn could be somewhere far away from Invarel.
“Don’t wish to be seen, do we?”
Eldyn turned around, startled. He had reached the last theater on that side of the street: a narrow edifice, rather plain and dilapidated compared to the others, being without gilt trim or lacquered doors. The columns along its facade listed a bit, and the only ornamentation was a sign above the doorway, a silver circle with black lettering. It read: Theater of the Moon.
“See?” the voice said again. “You’re not the only one who can do that trick.”
Eldyn looked around but saw no one. “Who’s there?” he said.
Laughter sounded next to him. “So you can be fooled by your own trick.” The air rippled like a dark cloth, and the figure of a man Eldyn’s age, or a bit younger, appeared as if stepping from behind a curtain. His features were finely wrought and pale, and his gold hair was tied back with a red ribbon, but the rest of him was clad in black.
“Now it’s your turn to show yourself.”
Eldyn belatedly realized that, as he fled from the Theater of Emeralds, he had gathered the shadows around himself. With a thought, he let them fall away.
The young man’s smile was a white crescent in the gloom. “There you are. You shouldn’t bother with shadows, you know. They won’t hide you from our eyes. Is this your first time to Durrow Street? But, no, that can’t be it. I believe I’ve seen you before. Which house do you work for?”
Eldyn shook his head. “Which house?”
“You must be even newer than me! Which theater do you perform at?”
Now Eldyn frowned. “I’ve come to see a performance. I don’t work at a theater.”
“No? I would have thought…that is, are you certain we haven’t met before?”
“I don’t see how.”
The young man gazed at him a moment, then shook his head. “Well, it doesn’t matter. If it’s a performance you wish to see, come no further. The Theater of the Moon is the finest on Durrow Street.”
“It doesn’t look like much,” Eldyn said, eyeing the slanted columns and the curtain covering the door, w
hich even in the dim light looked shabby.
“It’s not how it looks outside but what’s within that matters.”
“I haven’t even seen you work an illusion. Why don’t you show something of your play like at the other theaters?”
“Because I can’t. Even the smallest glimpse would spoil the wonder of what you’ll see inside. You cannot experience just a shard of it. You must behold it in the fullness of its splendor.”
Now it was Eldyn’s turn to laugh, and he crossed his arms. “How do I even know you’re really illusionists? You probably just have a few actors in ratty costumes hanging about on wires and pulleys.” Except the other was an illusionist. How else could he have so easily mimicked Eldyn’s talent with shadows?
The young man’s expression grew solemn. “You can’t know. That’s how illusion works. You can never really know anything; you can only believe.” He made a sweeping gesture toward the door.
Eldyn hesitated. Perhaps it was the other’s kindly face. Or perhaps it was that, somehow, he did look familiar. Whatever the reason, Eldyn reached into his pocket, drew out a quarter regal, and counted the coins into the illusionist’s hand. Then he stepped past the curtain.
WHEN ELDYN AGAIN stepped past the curtain, this time leaving the theater and heading out onto Durrow Street, he knew he was not the same person who had entered two hours before but someone—something—different. It was as if all he had been before, all he thought he had known, had poured out of him, leaving him an empty vessel ready to be filled with something new. Yet with what? He could not say, only that it had to be something better.
And to think he had nearly left the theater before the performance began! At first, upon taking a seat in the balcony, he had thought his fears had proven true. The chairs were rickety, the walls cracked and flaking, the cloth draped across the proscenium half-patched. A scant collection of people made up the audience, slumping in their chairs, loudly consuming nuts or tipping back bottles. Thinking the joke was on him—that the real illusion here was the way his money had been made to vanish—Eldyn had started to rise from his chair.
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