9. Lily
LILY
Allsaires looked slightly green beneath his helmet. His normally warm skin had a sallow tinge that clashed against the navy of his plastron. Gemma, it seemed, had done a number on him. The snide voice inside her chuckled.
“Interesting place to be doing homework.”
Lily looked up at Professor Chant. He was wearing jeans and a fashionably faded, well-fitted T-shirt for a band Lily had never heard of. Blinking, she shut her book.
“Well, that’s terrifically diligent of you.” He grinned, eyeing the book, one he’d assigned. “How are you finding the Jung?”
“Um.” She had no idea what to do with a professor making small talk with her at a Cantrèa match.
She’d chosen the back row for the solitude and the view, and now both were ruined.
Well, partly ruined. Chant looked as good in casual as he did in a corduroy blazer.
“I think tying the alchemical process to the psychological one of individuation is pretty…brilliant. But assigning works by a mundane philosopher could be seen as magical heresy, depending on who you asked.”
“Mind if I sit?” His mouth twisted up.
Lily shoved the book in her backpack and kicked it under her seat, suddenly very glad she’d showered after practice.
“Quite a view from up here.”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
He waited for her to continue, and when she didn’t, he cleared his throat and rescued her in a decidedly British sort of way.
“Heresy or not, Jung had the right idea. Of course, being non-magical, he only had half the equation. If you were operating in a dark world, one without the existence of Magic, his illumination of alchemy is the only one that makes sense. A brilliant interpretation of the side effects of the AEtheric arts, mundane or not, I’d say. ”
“To engage in the work of transformation, one must transform oneself?”
“It’s true across disciplines. Magic is so much more than charts and rituals and fiddly equations. But of course you already know that.”
Lily had nothing to say to that, so she watched the judge enter and cross to zone one.
The Cantrèa ring was a circular field of about fifty feet in diameter and consisted of two concentric circles and triangles each.
Allsaires and Everton, the younger, lesser Braithwhite, joined him in the triangular zone at the center.
“He’s quite good, yes?” Chant glanced at her, then added, “Allsaires.”
She wanted to say, “he’s fine,” or “something like that,” but the insincerity died on her lips, and she said, a little hoarse, “He’s the best.”
They watched the judge inspect and hand back each player’s Orb and foil to ensure that the spells contained within were legal, but she could feel Chant’s eyes on her.
The impossibly thin looping filaments that filled each orb and helped to store spells in each Orb sparkled under the lights.
AEther was always seeking channels and pathways.
It loved anything it could flow through, and it especially loved a contained and complex system.
What were human bodies, or trees, or computers if not beautifully closed networks full of loops and reservoirs?
The more intricate a system, the more magic it could store.
“I used to be something of a fair player myself. I’m excited to see what he’s made of.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
Chant raised an eyebrow. “Solely for the love of the game. You?”
“The same.”
Both of us are lying.
On the far side of the bleachers, Conrad Hawleyhurst sauntered down the stairs, golden hair conveying its own light, white T-shirt stretched taut over his chest. Lily saw Allsaires’s chin jump in his direction, as if Hawleyhurst possessed the gravity of a neutron star.
She watched as he froze, then shook his head almost imperceptibly.
Next to her, Chant was noticing the same thing.
The judge dropped his hand.
The match began.
Both players flicked their foils out in near unison, and Everton Braithwhite jumped forward, going for Allsaires’s Orb.
It was a move so dumb that it possessed a certain brilliance against someone like Allsaires.
The game ended only when one player’s Orb was smashed.
Doing so conveyed only a single point, but a single point win against the favorite for this year’s collegiate championship was better than a crushing defeat.
Allsaires dodged backward into circular zone two, then triangular zone three, and finally the second circular zone—zone four—Orb tucked safely behind his back.
* Spells could only be cast in the triangular zones, and physical hits only doled out in the circular ones.
With the rules stating that physical hits could commence only once the first spell had been cast, Allsaires was safe until Everton forced him into a triangular zone.
It was an obvious move, a safe move; a move very unlike Sebastian Allsaires.
The younger Braithwhite stood in the central zone, contemplating this development, but contemplation had never been a strong trait in the Braithwhite stock, so nearly immediately he used his only environmental spell to bring his Orb forward and ice the ground beneath Allsaires.
With Everton in a magical zone, and his Orb unprotected in front of him, Allsaires used his own Orb to fire Fateful Lightning at Braithwhite.
The beam cracked through the air and hit Braithwhite square in the chest, at the same time that the ground slicked beneath Allsaires.
He stumbled, arms windmilling furiously, his Orb nearly flying out of his hand.
A gasp hissed through the crowd. By the time the scoreboard registered the ten points for Allsaires’s valid magical hit, he had retreated to dry ground, his Orb safe once again.
With that, the spell-seal was open, and the game could really begin.
Allsaires collided with Braithwhite in zone two, his foil so fast it blurred in Lily’s vision as he scored two quick physical hits for another four points, with a slash to the bicep and a lunge to the ribs.
But he barely ducked in time as Everton cut for his shoulder, and the blow caught him upside the head.
It was an invalid hit, but Allsaires staggered sideways, opening himself and allowing Braithwhite to land one directly on his chest, above the Windermere crest on his uniform.
Lily snuck a glance at Professor Chant. Like her, he was leaning forward, elbows on knees, and like her, his lips were pursed in disappointed concentration.
This was not how Allsaires played. Lily couldn’t believe that a hangover, or bad sex, or no sleep—no matter how awful—could be the source of such atypical play. When Braithwhite landed his first spell mere moments later, Lily’s face went hot with empathetic shame.
She tried to process it in the back of her mind as she watched the unraveling match.
She didn’t know Sebastian Allsaires; she disliked him, and yet here she was, embarrassed that he was losing.
The player she was watching now had almost nothing in common with the one she’d seen win the Junior Championship five years ago.
Sebastian Allsaires had everything, everything she didn’t have, everything she would never have, and yet she was terrified to watch him lose.
In the ring below, sand sprayed as Everton Braithwhite landed the second of his four possible magical attacks and pulled ahead. Lily’s fingernails pressed red marks into her sweaty palms.
What is happening?
* For further reading on the history and gameplay of Cantrèa, including court schema, please refer to Appendix B: The Game of Cantrips.