He glanced at Sloane. That was the word he had used the day before to explain why the siphon on its own wasn’t dangerous.
“Nailing down exactly what constitutes intent is the subject of the majority of magical theory,” Nero said. “But there is a reason it’s easier to teach someone magic if they’ve been learning since they were a child. Children don’t need explanations or details in the way that adults do—they can just want something . . . and do it. So I can’t tell you exactly how to have the right intent—you just have to figure it out. The less thinking involved, the better, at this stage.”
“This should be easy for Esther, then,” Matt said.
“Kindly shut the hell up,” Esther replied. She held up her hand in the siphon and whistled while flicking her hand in a dismissive gesture. Esther’s hair fluttered and she stepped back, eyes wide. A moment later, a grin crept over her face, revealing a small splotch of lipstick on her teeth.
“I did it!” she said in something like a shriek. The grin took years away from her face, so Sloane felt like she was looking at the Esther who had not been through the war, who had not fought the Dark One, who had not been caring for her sick mother.
Matt gave Esther a high five, and Sloane, not sure her congratulations would be welcome, opted for a smile.
“Yes, well done,” Nero said. “Now the rest of you.”
Sloane stared at her hand, sheathed in its siphon. Don’t think, she thought. She hummed and the oscilloscope read 175 MHz. Another hum got her closer to her target. Don’t think. Do a gesture that feels natural. She wasn’t sure that any gesture could feel natural with a metal glove on her hand. She tried flicking her first two fingers. That seemed simple enough.
Nothing happened.
Across the room, Matt was singing his “Ah” and waving his hand through the air like he was conducting an orchestra. She would have laughed if things weren’t so bad between them. Esther’s whistling was accompanied by a finger waggle, and she was holding the oscilloscope up to her face to read her pitch.
Don’t think, she scolded herself, and she hummed again. Intent, she reminded herself. Well, maybe that was the problem. She didn’t intend anything at all. She had no idea why a person would want to magically conjure a puff of air when you could just as easily make one with your mouth.
She closed her eyes and instead tried to think of how it had felt when she had faced the ARIS prototype in the Dome with the Needle halves in hand. The great yawn inside her, and then the gnaw of hunger, as essential to her body as the need for air or the lure of sleep. Sloane focused on that gnawing, not even knowing what she hungered for, with breakfast still sitting in her belly. The desire was shapeless still, but she felt it.
She always felt it.
She held up her hand and hummed. And then she felt it, at last, the first tingle of magic she had detected on Genetrix. A moment later, it was more than a tingle; it was as if she had opened a door a crack to see who was knocking and found an inferno waiting at her doorstep. Burning consumed her body, stinging her eyes, scorching her throat. She screamed and thrashed against it, but the burning kept coming.
She couldn’t see—her hair had blown across her eyes, and her clothes had pulled away from her; air swirled around her like a skein of silk at first and then like tight threads, binding her, lifting her—
A sharp crack sounded. The window that covered the oculus had broken, and glass was spilling down like a waterfall in the center of the room. Someone shouted, “Slo!”
Something hit her in the head, and the fire went out. Sloane fell back and landed hard on the tile; her head slammed into the ground, making her wince. Esther, who was also on the floor, crawled over to her, her hair clinging to her painted lips. Light was streaming into the room from above.
“You all right?” Esther said, pushing her hand under Sloane’s head to feel her scalp. “Shit, Sloane, you don’t do anything halfway, do you?”
“Essy,” she said, “Slo’s gonna vom.”
At least she had enough presence of mind to turn her head away from Esther before she did.
THROAT SIPHONS ARE HERE—BUT AT A COST
by Corey Jones
MagiTech Mag, no. 240
Ever since Abraxas (then operating under the name of its former parent company, IBM) first dipped a toe into siphon manufacture in the United States in the 1970s, it has dominated the tech sphere in North America. This latest release, the first consumer-focused throat siphon, is no exception—yet its prohibitive cost of more than $5,000 per unit has many complaining about the company’s priorities. They have left cost-cutting efforts to smaller, inferior manufacturers and instead focused solely on innovation. The narrowness of vision seems to have paid off. Abraxas’s presence in the market has never been greater.
Researchers at the Cordus Center have estimated that only 20 percent of the population possess the magical faculties necessary to make use of a throat siphon, so the development of the device has been controversial since its inception—it seemed unlikely that manufacturing them would be profitable for any company, large or small. But Abraxas’s current CEO and founder, Valens Walker, insisted. “We don’t need to sell every siphon we produce to every consumer,” he said in an interview with the New York Times last winter. “We just need to sell the best ones available.” So far, they do. MagiTech Mag’s reviews of Abraxas products have yielded As across the board, whereas the closest Abraxas competitor, Trench, averages a B-, with its startlingly cheap wrist siphon as its standout product.
So what about Abraxas’s throat siphon? Well, it came to me in a sleek gold box, so clearly Abraxas is playing up the exclusivity angle. The object itself is far from inconspicuous—it’s a seamless metal plate, copper in color, that’s engraved across the front with one of three patterns, floral brocade, herringbone, or damask. It’s two inches high, so there’s no way to hide it behind a collar; this thing is meant to be displayed, and I’m sure fashion designers will accommodate with neck-revealing clothing, as they did with shortened sleeves when wrist siphons were first released.
The look is a little bit much for me, to be honest, but it’s lightweight and adjustable, so I hardly noticed it while I was wearing it. As to its performance, though—well. If you’ve ever attempted a throat working before, you know why those who can, will, almost exclusively, use this type of magic. A throat siphon is particularly attuned to those who hum or sing their workings, being so close to the vocal cords; it picks up the vibrations from the skin, which means workings can be done quietly and discreetly; it doesn’t broadcast one’s intent with an ostentatious whistle, as other siphons do. And the range of what is possible with a throat siphon is, obviously, expanded. All the basic workings are effortless—opening doors, lighting candles, moving objects—and I finally performed some complex ones without being in a classroom. I set a timer on a working that kept my pencil spinning, with the help of an oscilloscope, in the privacy of my apartment.
That’s one of the downsides: the necessity of the oscilloscope. Throat siphons are more sensitive to minor deviations in pitch, so you have to be precise, and unless you have perfect pitch, you’re going to need extra equipment. If you want to set an indefinite clock, you’ll still need to find an assembly to support your efforts, but the force of your workings should mean the assemblies can be smaller and take less energy. If you’re doing a sequential working, you don’t have to break between pitch changes, as you would with a wrist siphon, but you have to be decisive about your shifts or you’ll end up with unexpected outcomes. As with any new siphon, the government’s going to be keeping a close eye on new users, so don’t try to raise your own undead army just yet. (That’s a joke, guys. One Resurrectionist is plenty, don’t you think?) But this tech could very well change magic forever.
Abraxas’s throat siphon 1.0 will be available on Friday, February 3.
20
SLOANE FELL ASLEEP almost immediately after the incident in the Hall of Summons, and when she woke up, it was the fol
lowing morning.
Matt and Cyrielle had helped her back to her room. She had counted their footsteps and tried not to think of the destruction she had left behind. All the siphons and oscilloscopes, scattered wide. Cold air rushing into the bared oculus. Glass strewn across the floor in blue, green, and red. Nero’s cape, blown free of its clasps, flapping on the floor. Cyrielle’s braided updo ripped from its pins.
They had sat her down on the mattress, and when Matt left to get her a glass of water, she looked up at Cyrielle and said, “What does it mean, that I did that?”
“I don’t know,” Cyrielle replied. “But no one was hurt. You’ll try again another time, and we’ll take . . . precautions.”
“There won’t be another time,” Sloane said, and she fell asleep without taking her feet off the floor.
She didn’t know what time it was now. She woke like someone who had been blackout drunk the night before, putting herself together in pieces. She sat up. Swiped her fingers under her eyes. Combed them through her hair. Straightened her clothes. Matt had set a glass of water on her low white bedside table and she drank it in a single gulp, searching the room for her shoes. Someone had taken them off for her and put them next to the door.
Sloane put them on, pulled the laces tight, and checked the hallway for any sign of the others. Their doors were closed, their lights off. They were still asleep. No one would notice if she stepped out for a while.
Aelia didn’t want them to leave the building, so naturally, that was exactly what Sloane had decided to do.
Sloane knew Nero had some way of checking up on them, but she didn’t know what it was. She couldn’t summon the elevator regardless, so she decided to take her chances again with the stairwell. If stealth couldn’t be her ally, then she would have to opt for speed. Sloane reached the end of the hallway, where she could see the stairwell door, and ran. She pushed through the door and took the stairs three at a time, then four, as she got her bearings.
She hadn’t gone for a run in a while, so the pounding of her heart and the ache of her limbs were a welcome distraction from everything that had happened. She was eager for cold, fresh air and the feeling of pavement under her boot soles. When she reached the ground floor, she noted the emergency exit, but the ALARM WILL SOUND sign put her off trying it. She went through another door to the lobby instead.
She had passed through it a few times with the others. It was a wide-open space that felt, with all its ornate decoration (Baroque, Sloane thought) and its flying buttresses (Gothic) and its hints of gilded geometry (art deco), like the sanctuary of a church. The heavy wooden doors leading outside only enhanced that feeling. Cameron would have approved, she thought. She walked straight toward the doors, her path, for the moment, clear of obstacles—
“Sloane.”
A man she didn’t recognize stepped in front of her. Military, she decided, judging by his impeccable posture, ample musculature, and—right, the uniform. Navy-blue pants, casual, tucked into his boots. Long-sleeved gray shirt, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. The same symbol that the others by the river walk had pinned to their chests was stitched on the right side of his chest.
She considered sprinting for the doors, but she decided the time wasn’t right for such an act of desperation—not yet, anyway. So she just made a show of not being intimidated.
“Listen,” she said, “the more determined you are to keep me here, the more determined I’m going to be to leave. So why don’t we skip the whole ramp up in tensions?”
“Okay,” the man said. “What if I told you that my job is not to stop you from leaving but to accompany you to ensure that you don’t get into any trouble?”
Sloane looked out the windows to the street beyond them, the view obscured by the thick ripple in each pane of glass. She could almost taste the air coming off the water of Lake Michigan.
“I should add,” the man said, “that if you don’t agree to let me do my job, there will be a lot of fuss and tedious arguing.”
“All right,” she said. “Fine.”
“My name is Kyros,” he said, offering his hand for her to shake. Firm grip, she thought. Not surprising. “I’m a captain in the new Army of Flickering. Not that that will mean much to you.”
He wore a siphon on his wrist, simpler than the ones she had observed thus far, just polished metal plates covering the back of his hand and palm but leaving his fingers free. The logo she had seen on the siphon she had used the day before—the creature with the head of a bird, torso of a man, and tail of a snake—was etched into one of the plates.
“Magic army,” she said. “Right. What makes it new?”
“The previous army was massacred by the Resurrectionist,” he replied. “Where would you like to go?”
Guess we’re just going to breeze past the massacre, then? she thought. “To the lake,” she said.
The lakefront had always been a kind of anchor for her; if she ever lost her way, all she had to do was find it, and she would know which way was east. She could name the streets that ran parallel to it: Lake Shore, Columbus, Michigan, Wabash, State, Dearborn, Clark, LaSalle, all the way to the river. Going there, to the water, might help her find something steady inside her, even in Genetrix.
Kyros flicked his index finger at the double doors, and they opened. His control, she noted, was impressive; the doors opened just enough for both of them rather than flying apart as they had done for Aelia. But regardless, it seemed like a frivolous use of magic.
“For future reference,” she said as she passed through them, “I can open my own doors.”
“My apologies,” Kyros said. “It’s just a reflex.”
A world of magic at your fingertips, she thought, and you’re using it to open a door.
Outside, they fell into step right away with the rest of the population on the sidewalk. Sloane noted their shoes—they favored pointed toes with hard bottoms that made sharp sounds, almost like tap shoes—and the heavy drape of fabric around their necks and shoulders, which left their throats bare to display throat siphons; the wide sleeves that stopped in the middle of their forearms to show off wrist siphons; the intricately braided hair that revealed bejeweled ear siphons, the most ornate kind, by Sloane’s observation. Across the street was the comforting sight of the Daley Center, a dark brown block of a building that had, evidently, made it through the splitting of their two universes. But across the street, where at home there had been a tall, modern structure with pale blue windows, there was a cluster of spires that reminded her of the church in Barcelona, La Sagrada Família, made of dense and ornate stone.
The thought brought a familiar pang. Cameron had once brought home a book on architecture from the library and he must have forgotten to return it, because Sloane had found it in his bedroom after he died, the pages with his favorite buildings dog-eared. La Sagrada Família had been one of them.
“So this Resurrectionist,” she said. “If I see him—and I assume I’ll know him when I see him—what should I do?”
“What you should do is learn basic defensive maneuvers with your siphon,” Kyros said. “There is a shield that is simple to learn that seems to buy people time when they face him. It keeps him from performing his favorite working.”
“And what’s that?”
“He collapses lungs,” Kyros said, in the same frank way he had told her about the army massacre. “It is difficult to get them to reinflate before a person suffocates, and they are unable to do it themselves since they can’t make noise.”
Sloane suppressed a shudder. “Okay,” she said. “So—shield.”
“Here,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
He put a hand on her elbow and steered her into an alley clogged with cardboard boxes and sacks of trash. She would have protested if she hadn’t been so eager to see the shield. Kyros held his hand out from his shoulder, palm facing Sloane, and whistled between his teeth at a pitch so high she clapped her hands over her ears. Sloane wondered how such a sound was possible unt
il she saw something glint in Kyros’s mouth. A false tooth? A piercing? She couldn’t tell.
Whatever it was, at its whistle, the air appeared thicker, the way it did when gas leaked from a stove. Sloane watched it ripple in front of Kyros with each exhale.
She reached for it, almost unconsciously, the child in her always eager to discover by touch. It felt viscous, silky, like still water.
“It won’t stop him,” Kyros said, his voice muffled by the barrier between them. “But it will delay him.”
“Too bad I’m such shit with siphons,” she said.
“You should endeavor not to be ‘such shit’,” Kyros said, a determined set to his jaw. “Or you put yourself and everyone around you in danger, particularly if you insist on leaving the safety of the Cordus Center unaccompanied.”
“Point taken.” She got the feeling Kyros didn’t like her very much.
Kyros dismissed the shield with a grave look, and they kept walking.
They passed some businesses that looked familiar: bakeries, sandwich shops, pizza places. It wasn’t until she walked past a coffee shop with a blue awning that she realized she was looking for a Starbucks . . . and wasn’t finding one. This place was called Jack’s Magic Beans, and the logo was, of course, the white outline of a beanstalk disappearing into a cloud.
At the intersection of Randolph and State, she realized the Walk signal was not the glowing white man she was used to but rather a piece of metal that flipped over every time the signals changed, displaying a series of layered circles. The Stop image was a solitary circle. She wondered how they were visible at night.
Chosen Ones Page 18
