Much Ado About Magic

by Shanna Swendson

  But it wasn’t just familiar faces filling the hall. The place was packed, and I didn’t recognize most of those people. Many of them craned their necks, looking like sightseers, and I wondered if this was the magical trial of the century, something people attended out of curiosity.

  “Do you think Ramsay or Idris will show?” I whispered to Rod.

  “Idris, no. He was in legitimate custody and escaped. Ramsay, I don’t know. He lost his seat on the Council when he handed the company over to Merlin, so he has no official standing here anymore, though he certainly has kept his hand in the game.”

  “Speak of the devil,” I muttered as a stirring in the crowd heralded Ramsay’s arrival. It was like a cross between the pope and a popular politician as he made his way down the aisle. The people he didn’t shake hands with reached out to touch him, like they thought some of his magic might rub off on them. That charisma spell of his must have been a doozy, I thought. He nodded cordially to us as he took a seat on the front row on the other side of the aisle. I reminded myself that the way he’d arranged things, I’d only make myself look like a villain if I launched myself at him and knocked his lights out. That didn’t stop me from forming fists and fantasizing about doing so.

  Gloria elbowed me sharply in the ribs as a hush settled over the room. I turned to see that the Council members were filing in to take their seats.

  I wasn’t sure quite what to expect, since nothing in the magical world ever turned out to be what I expected. Robes would have been a good guess, maybe with stars and moons on them, like something out of a storybook, or maybe just solid black, like judges’ robes. Tall, pointy hats would have been appropriately magical. In short, they should have looked like Merlin’s “Merlin” outfit.

  Instead, it pretty much looked like a city council meeting, aside from the Old World setting. The Council members wore regular business attire, but with elaborate chains of office draped over their shoulders and floppy beret-like hats, like some faculty members wear for college graduation ceremonies. I was surprised when Merlin was the last one to enter. He paused to shut the door before taking a seat on that end of the table. I hadn’t realized he was also on the Council, but it did make sense, given his position in MSI, which was the commercial arm of the magical establishment, as well as the fact of who he was. They couldn’t possibly have a magical council without Merlin being on it. His being an actual Council member explained why Ramsay rankled him so much with all his talk about being privy to what was going on with the Council. I scanned the faces of the wizards on the Council to get a sense of the people sitting in judgment, but Merlin was the only who looked familiar or friendly.

  The feeling of magical power in the room intensified, and I got the impression the entire room was being put under a spell. That was confirmed when the man sitting in the middle seat stood, pounded a carved staff as tall as he was on the floor, and said, “This room is now sealed. No one may enter or leave until the proceedings are concluded, except by special escort, and the world outside is now separated from us. No one outside may observe or listen to these proceedings, and those inside may not speak of them outside these walls.”

  Well, except for me. And Ethan, I couldn’t help but think. I wondered if they’d bother with an oath to hold us to that or if they even realized there were magical immunes in the room.

  “This meeting of the North American Magical Council is now in session,” the wizard in the middle said with another strike of his staff on the floor. A large ceremonial gavel sat on the table in front of him, but it looked like the staff was the real sign of power. I’m sure Freud would have had something to say about that. “There has been a request to add an agenda item: A petition from Mr. Ivor Ramsay to grant a seat on this Council to the chairman of Spellworks and to reconsider the MSI seat, as that organization has failed to provide proper leadership to the magical world. We will address that issue after we deal with the primary matter that brings us together today. Now, bring in the accused.” He pounded his staff again.

  There was a shimmer in the air around the doors beside the Council’s table, and then the doors opened. The black-clad men came in, guiding Owen by the elbow. He was dressed in a dark suit, and if his hands hadn’t been bound behind his back, he’d have looked like he was having just another day at the office. Even the dark circles under his eyes were all in a day’s work for him.

  They brought Owen to stand in the middle of the circle in front of the elevated table, and he looked very young and very small with the Council looming over him. I’d seen what he could do using magic, and I still didn’t think anyone could imagine him to be a threat given the way he looked. The crowd murmured, like they were discussing Owen’s appearance, and I hoped they, too, thought he looked harmless. I felt Gloria tense next to me. She reached to take my hand and clutched it fiercely.

  Merlin stared Owen down with a glare that made me squirm uncomfortably, and it wasn’t even aimed at me. Owen seemed to be studiously avoiding looking at Merlin, but that wasn’t the kind of glare you could ignore for long. Even if he didn’t see it, he had to feel it. Once he finally caught Owen’s eye, Merlin’s expression changed. His lips moved ever so slightly, but I couldn’t make out any words. I couldn’t see Owen’s face to get a sense of what he was doing, but his head nodded a fraction of an inch before he turned away from Merlin. I got the feeling that something had been communicated between them, but I wasn’t sure how. They both had a tendency toward eerie knacks, but I’d never heard about either of them being able to communicate telepathically.

  The head wizard peered through his reading glasses at a sheet of paper he held and said, “Owen Morgan.”

  “Palmer,” Owen corrected, in a voice that rang through the room. “My legal name is Palmer. I was adopted by Stan and Lisa Palmer when I was an infant. Their parental rights were terminated and I eventually became a ward of this Council, but my name was never legally changed. As far as I know, there is no proof of my parents being the Morgans. That is merely an allegation. I have no record of who my birth parents were.” That was one upside of not having had the chance to get that envelope from the fire station, I thought. He could say with absolute honesty that he didn’t know his parentage.

  “Very well, then, Owen Palmer,” the head wizard said, “you stand accused of conspiracy to commit magical crimes, namely that you have engineered a variety of incidents around New York City in which magic has been used to cause trouble and create a state of fear among the magical population so that you can then come to the rescue and make yourself appear to be a hero. How do you plead?”

  “Not guilty.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “I thought that the way this court worked was that you had to have the grounds to charge me. We’ve had that in our law longer than it’s been the law of the land. After all, we’ve suffered too much from witch hunts to conduct them on ourselves. I don’t need grounds for anything. You have to present the grounds for the charges, and I must admit that I’m extremely curious to hear what you’ve come up with.” Owen sounded almost cocky, like Idris on one of his more annoying days. Merlin was fighting so hard not to smile that he ended up looking very stern indeed.

  “That is true, Rudolph,” a woman at the opposite end of the table from Merlin said. “Surely you had evidence before you had Mr. Palmer arrested.”

  “But we can ask you questions as part of these proceedings,” Rudolph said.

  From the way Owen’s shoulders shifted, I got the feeling that he would have crossed his arms in front of his chest if his wrists hadn’t been bound behind his back. He did lean his weight onto one leg and cross the other in front of him, in a fair approximation of the way he might casually lean against a wall. “Then ask me a question.”

  Ethan made a strangled noise, and I couldn’t help but glance at him. He looked like he had to bite his tongue to keep from shouting, “Objection!” My experience with the ordinary legal system was limited to jury duty a couple of times back home and w
atching the occasional episode of Law and Order, but even I could tell that there was something funny about the way this hearing was going. The low rumble of murmurs from the audience verified this.

  Rudolph let the crowd mutter for quite some time, possibly because he couldn’t think of a good question to ask. After a couple of minutes, he banged his staff on the floor to demand silence. Merlin caught Owen’s eyes and held them, then leaned forward and said, “I have a question for Mr. Palmer.”

  “Yes, Mr. Mervyn,” Rudolph said, sounding rather relieved.

  “Mr. Palmer, have you ever used unauthorized magic?” Merlin asked.

  I was fairly certain that this was part of whatever Merlin had planned, and that Owen was somehow in on it. Owen’s head snapped toward Merlin like he was shocked, but his posture looked far too relaxed. Someone whose mentor was questioning him about a crime should have been a lot more tense. He should have looked like he was barely holding himself back from jumping at the man.

  Gloria, on the other hand, went tense enough for both of them. “What does he mean by this?” she whispered, and she moved as though she was about to go after Merlin, herself.

  “I think Merlin’s up to something, and Owen knows what it is,” I said. “Look at him.” She stared at Owen’s back for a moment, then turned ever so slightly back toward me, one eyebrow quirked upward.

  Ramsay’s reaction was even more interesting. He actually twitched, probably from being torn between impulses. If Merlin went on the attack against Owen, it could undermine his attempt to make Merlin look like he was out of it, but if Ramsay came to Owen’s defense, that ruined his chances of setting Owen up to take the fall for killing Merlin.

  “Could you be more specific?” Owen asked.

  “You have used questionable magic in my presence. I don’t know that it is strictly illegal, but I suspect that is because no one believed it could be done, and therefore it hasn’t been included in the magical code of conduct. You have interfered with time itself.”

  That set the crowd going again. If this was part of a plan, I thought they were heading into risky territory, since Owen had interfered with time, and I knew it made Merlin intensely uncomfortable when he did it.

  “Nonsense! No one can do that,” the youngest-looking member of the Council said.

  “I have seen him do it,” Merlin insisted.

  Rudolph glared down at Owen. “Can you do it?”

  Owen stared back up at him, and he must have given a glare worthy of Gloria, since Rudolph pressed himself against the back of his chair, like he was moving as far as he could from Owen without getting up and fleeing. “You mean you can’t?” Owen asked.

  “Of course I can’t! It’s impossible.” Rudolph addressed the other wizards on the Council. “Can any of you?”

  They all shook their heads. I got the feeling that claiming the ability to do that time-stopping thing was the magical equivalent of a nonmagical person claiming the ability to fly or see the future.

  “Would you like me to demonstrate?” Owen asked, sounding too innocent for this to be good. If any of the Council members, aside from Merlin, had known him at all, they would have known better than to let this go any further. They’d have dismissed the trumped-up charges, issued an apology, and let him go. But they played right into Merlin’s plan. At least, what I assumed was Merlin’s plan.

  “The wards on the circle make a demonstration impossible,” Merlin said. “There is a reason we prevent the use of magic by prisoners.”

  “The wards on the circle would have to be altered for a demonstration, but we do have other security measures in place,” another Council member said.

  “It would definitively prove that he is capable of everything for which he stands accused,” Merlin said, as though he was being talked around to the idea.

  I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep from laughing out loud. They were seriously going to let Owen stop time in the room for everyone but himself? That was like the prison guard handing the keys to an inmate and wandering off. But they didn’t seem to believe it could be done.

  Rudolph stood and held his staff over his head. There was a shift in the sense of magic in the room, and then he said, “Now, Mr. Palmer, if you would demonstrate.”

  “I’ll need my hands free,” Owen said. After a nod from Rudolph, the guard next to Owen touched the silver cord around Owen’s wrists, and it vanished. Owen rubbed his wrists, then said, “Okay, here’s how the spell goes.” He knelt and put a hand to the ground before whispering a few words.

  I knew what to expect because I’d seen it before in a more impressive setting when he’d frozen Times Square. No one else in the room, other than Ethan, would even know what happened. The room went silent as everyone in it but Owen, Ethan, and I were frozen in time. Owen turned to look at us, grinned, and said, “That was almost too easy.” His grin faded, and he added, “Now comes the hard part.”

  “What will you do?” I asked.

  “Try to remain free long enough to figure something out. I’ll try to get to that fire station. I don’t stand a chance in this hearing. I just hope they consider the circumstances when this is all over. I’d rather not spend my life on the run.”

  “What do you need us to do?” I asked.

  He headed for the door behind the table, where the Council had entered—and where I’d have bet that Merlin had altered the wards—and with his hand on the doorknob, he said, “I’ll need a diversion for a second or two.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll figure out something. Now, the diversion?”

  “Okay,” I said. “But take care of yourself. On the count of three.”

  He opened the door, said, “One, two, three.” On “three” he broke the spell, and at that moment I faced the windows and screamed my head off.

  “What is that–that thing?” I shrieked, pointing toward nothing. “It came through the window. Can’t you see it? It must be veiled by magic. Someone has infiltrated this hearing!” I knew I was laying it on a bit thick, but most of the Council had never met me, so they didn’t know that I wasn’t the screaming, hysterical type.

  The reaction was a lot like what you’d get if you shouted “Mouse!” in a crowded room. People in the general vicinity of where I’d pointed scurried away, the guards ran toward it, and a lot of magic flew through the air. By the time the guards and the Council decided that the thing had gone out the way it had entered, Owen was long gone. It took a moment or two after everyone settled down for Rudolph to shout, “Where did he go?”

  Merlin pinned him with a glare. “You asked him to freeze time. And that meant freezing all of you, so that he was then able to escape.”

  “But he didn’t…” Rudolph started to protest, and then his voice trailed off as he caught on.

  Merlin nodded sagely. “Exactly. You wouldn’t notice if you were affected.”

  “But he can stop time?” the wizard sitting next to Merlin asked. “That makes him even more dangerous than we thought.”

  “And he has just proved that these charges were valid,” Rudolph said. Then he pounded his staff on the floor and added, “This hearing is dismissed and will reconvene when the accused has been returned to custody.”

  Merlin caught up with us outside the headquarters building as we left. Gloria whirled on him, and for a moment I thought she’d hit him with her purse. “That was the best you could do, accuse him and then turn him into a fugitive?”

  “We could not have won today,” Merlin said grimly. “I’ve bought us time. And now we should make use of that time. Miss Chandler, you are best equipped to find Owen. Any illusion he hides behind won’t work on you. Then find out what his mother left at the fire station as soon as you can.”

  I wasn’t sure how to go about doing that, but I had time to think while Ethan gave Rod and me a ride back to the city. Owen had a head start, but not a huge one, and if he’d managed to disguise himself, he might be able to stay undet
ected for a while. I’d likely be watched, though. That meant that I’d only put him in danger if I found him. I’d have to be careful.

  By the time Ethan dropped me off at my building, I had an idea of where to look. I changed into jeans and sneakers, wandered the neighborhood for a while to see if I noticed anyone following me, then took the subway to Grand Central. I milled around the main concourse and flowed with a crowd toward a platform. Then I slipped away into the darkness at the end of the platform, toward Owen’s dragon lair. He was supposed to have sent the dragons to a sanctuary after the conference demonstration, but there weren’t too many people who knew about this location, and he knew that I knew.

  Without the dragons, it was dark and quiet in the unused tunnel that opened to the side of the underground rail yard. I probably should have brought a flashlight, I thought, but since I was here without anyone magical to hide me, I’d worried it might draw unwanted attention.

  I thought I saw a glint of light ahead, and I flattened myself against the wall. Was it a railroad worker, an untamed dragon, or something else?

  And then I realized that there was someone next to me. I didn’t plan to scream because that wouldn’t do any good and would likely draw unwanted attention, but whoever it was got a hand over my mouth anyway while wrapping his other arm around my waist.

  Chapter Twenty

  “It’s okay, it’s me,” Owen’s voice whispered into my ear.

  He removed his hand from my mouth, and I said, “I know. And I wasn’t going to scream.” Then I turned to face him and threw my arms around him. He hugged me in return, holding me like I was a lifeline.

  “That must have been a good diversion,” he whispered as his lips brushed my temple.

  “It was a real scream. So, now what?”

  “We need to get to the fire station, but I’m being followed. I gave them the slip inside the terminal, but they’re probably still waiting for me to leave.”