Chapter 2 Sam
Sam
Lysander Rook is the perfect magician.
For the hundredth time, I review my champion’s profile, flicking through the talking points I’ve compiled in the notes on my phone.
The obvious high-ticket sellers are all there, of course.
Lysander Rook, the belle of the ball and l’enfant terrible, seamlessly combined in one pretty package.
Entered the senior circuits at the tender age of fifteen.
Undefeated on both junior and senior circuits.
Virtually flawless magical technique, even in the pressure cooker of the dueling arena.
It’s been great for branding.
Talent alone might have turned promoters’ heads anywhere across the country—but Rook’s not just talented.
He’s pretty. A pretty face always helps with these things, and a pretty white boy’s face?
Better still. I took all that into account when I picked him.
That was important. Hopefully, the Blackwoods will see it that way, too.
I tap my foot. I’m trying not to display obvious impatience, but Mateus Blackwood makes it hard. He’s already more than five minutes late.
God, I hate when these guys are late.
I set my phone aside, settle back into my seat, and try to make myself comfortable.
Mateus Blackwood agreed to meet me at an upscale coffeehouse in the city, which at least means I’m not stuck slipping a fake ID to some self-important bouncer at a dive bar.
Thank god for small blessings. Half the champions’ seconds I’ve dealt with seem to think dueling contracts can only be finalized in the sleaziest twenty-one-and-over-style venues.
As if signing dueling agreements while leering at exhausted cocktail waitresses in skimpy outfits is the only way to prove you’re a hardcore negotiator.
Still, I would have been happy to seal the deal over a video chat or a phone call, like a normal human being living in the twenty-first century, but these old-school magicians are always a little, well, old-school. And Master Mateus Blackwood is as old-school as they come.
I should know. I’ve been watching him for long enough.
“Samantha Chan?”
Well, it’s about time.
I turn and greet the man at my table with the best smile I can muster. I may not have Rook’s camera-melting star power, but I can manage an old man. Even Mateus Blackwood.
“Sam is just fine,” I tell Blackwood, offering him a hand to shake.
For a few seconds, Blackwood just squints at me through those glasses.
My heart thunders against my ribcage. He has no reason to recognize me.
We’ve never seen each other in person. And Chan is a common enough surname.
There are thousands of families just like mine across the country.
For all I know, Blackwood broke more than a few of those families too, just like he broke mine.
To Blackwood, I’m just another teen magician with a forgettable name.
I hope. Otherwise I’m screwed.
After what feels like an eternity, Blackwood chuckles and takes my hand. His grip is firm and callused. I breathe again. “You sure you’re old enough to be a magician’s second on the senior circuit?”
I keep smiling. “You’re not the first person to ask, Master Blackwood. Don’t worry, I’m eighteen. Want to see my ID?”
“That won’t be necessary, my dear. Though if my information’s correct, you and your champion entered the senior circuit as children, still.”
I shrug, deliberately nonchalant. “We wouldn’t be the first. Rook’s parents don’t care. And my parents signed off on it because I was with Rook.”
“How understanding of them.”
My smile widens, sweet as pie. “I have a supportive family.”
I’m offering Blackwood little nuggets of truth. The truth is useful in a negotiation, up to a point. I need Blackwood to trust me. I’ve worked too hard, for too long, to blow my plan up in an overpriced cafe.
But if I want the plan to work—if I want Blackwood to agree to my terms—I can’t give him any reason to suspect I want anything other than a perfectly ordinary duel between two promising young magicians. A mutually beneficial arrangement, favorable to both his champion and mine.
“A supportive family is a wonderful thing.” Blackwood’s answering smile is surprisingly genuine. “Your parents must be proud of you. Are you their only child?”
My heart skips a beat. I need to tread carefully here. If Blackwood figures out who I really am—if he deigns to remember what happened four years ago—then I’m cooked.
I spread my hands like I’m presenting myself to a crowd. “The one and only child under the Chan family roof,” I tell Blackwood, breezy-voiced.
Also technically true, if we’re talking in present-day terms.
“Ah, an only child,” says Blackwood, which is exactly the assumption I was hoping he’d make. “The apple of your parents’ eye, no doubt.”
“It’s a lot of pressure to succeed,” I agree without correcting him. “My parents aren’t magicians, but they know how good Rook is. They think it’s an honor that he chose me as his second.”
“I’m sure they do—it’s true.” Blackwood’s got a distant look in his eye. “Only children are so precious. I’ve given my Tamsin everything.”
Ah, and at last, we’ve arrived at the main battleground for this meeting. “Your daughter.”
Blackwood’s gaze flicks back toward me, dagger sharp. “My champion,” he corrects me, then relents after a moment. “But yes, also my daughter.”
Well. That tells me everything I need to know about this father-daughter pair. Or, more accurately, confirms what I’ve already guessed from the years I’ve spent researching these two.
“Is it ever difficult?” I wonder. “Being both a parent and a second to her?”
Blackwood looks amused by my question. “I don’t believe there’s a difference.”
“Isn’t there?”
“Like I said, I’ve given my Tamsin everything.
You’ll understand one day, if you ever have children.
” He laughs at the look of distaste I’ve probably failed to mask.
“Or not. But I’ll tell you this much: I’ve been called one of the most accomplished magicians in the history of modern dueling—that’s not bravado or ego, my dear, that’s a direct quote from a profile piece in the New Yorker.
I was named to the Magicians’ Hall of Fame before I turned forty.
I have, on an objective and measurable level, accomplished more in the art of magic than most accomplish in any field in a lifetime. But my Tamsin?”
I lean slightly forward. “What about her?”
The look on Blackwood’s face softens. He’s a naturally hard-edged man, the sharp-cut planes of his face better suited to tossing shit-eating smirks to a camera than fawning over anyone or anything.
The softness of his expression now looks so at odds with the way his face naturally moves that the effect is actually kind of jarring.
“Of everything I have accomplished in the course of my life,” says Blackwood, “my daughter—my champion—will be the greatest of them all. I swore that much on the day she was born. She’s going to do great things.”
My heart swells. Blackwood is a brutal and brilliant showman—famously so. But in this moment, he’s not lying or embellishing. He’s as honest as I’ve ever seen a man. Raw. Vulnerable. He can’t cover up how he feels about his kid.
This is perfect. Tamsin Blackwood is everything I need for my plan.
“I’m sure she’ll be a real credit to your legacy.” My voice is smooth. Businesslike. I don’t let the triumph I’m feeling show. I can’t give myself away this close to the finish line. “Which brings us to my proposal.”
“Ah yes, the duel between my Tamsin and your young Lysander Rook.” Blackwood cuts me an appraising glance. “I’ll say, I was surprised that you approached my champion directly instead of talking to me first.”
“I’m sorry if you felt that I overstepped.
But before talking to her father—her second—I needed to know that your champion is game.
” I meet Blackwood’s flinty dark gaze without blinking.
I’m not quite staring him down, but I’m not looking away either.
“You get what I’m saying, right? You must. You were a duelist yourself once. ”
“I was.” Blackwood folds his arms with a thin smile. “But do enlighten me, my dear.”
“It doesn’t matter what the second says, if the magician themself isn’t all in—and I really do mean all in.
A duel with stakes like these only works if both champions are completely committed to putting on a show.
And the only way I could ensure that I got an honest answer out of Tamsin is if I asked her directly. ”
“And you were satisfied with her answer, I take it?”
“Very.” I grin at him. “Like father, like daughter, right?”
This, at least, seems to please Blackwood. The thin smile grows into a grin that matches mine. “I’d expect nothing less of my girl. You have the contract terms on hand?”
Check and mate. I produce the paperwork from my messenger bag. “Naturally.”
All in all, it’s one of my shorter negotiations.
We debate the usual terms: location (the New York Magicians’ Arena, naturally), dates (we choose October, right before Halloween weekend), and ruleset (ten minutes of allotted time, all curses permitted, winner decided by either loser’s voluntary yield, physical inability to continue, or, if neither of the first two options come to pass, a judge’s decision).
It won’t go to a judge’s decision. It never does when Rook stands in the arena.
By the time we shake and finalize the contract on behalf of our champions, the legendary Master Mateus Blackwood is practically salivating.
Some magicians don’t know when to quit the dueling circuit.
They duel into their midforties, even their fifties, unable to leave the arena behind, even when the hungry young twentysomethings are beating them to a pulp on a regular basis.
Once upon a time, Mateus Blackwood was almost one of those magicians.
He hadn’t quite stumbled onto a losing streak, but he was close to it.
Commentators and analysts on the dueling circuits clucked their tongues and spoke wistfully of Blackwood in his prime: the beautiful, terrible boy he’d once been.
But he couldn’t quit. Like so many other champions, he couldn’t give up the picture he carried around inside his head of the magician he’d once been.
The magician he’d never be again. The magical world had been half convinced he’d be carried to his grave on a stretcher after one too many duels gone bad.
Then Blackwood’s daughter began winning duels. And everything changed. Blackwood finally retired. And everyone who’d worshipped at Mateus Blackwood’s feet began calling Tamsin Blackwood the second coming of Master Mateus.
It was all hype, of course: a good story and a nice marketing spin to sell another pretty young face to an audience eager to consume violence and beauty in equal measure.
But pretty soon, Master Mateus himself started believing the hype, too. He became his daughter’s magic teacher, then her second. Eventually, you couldn’t book Tamsin Blackwood on a magic show without her father following in her wake like the world’s most obsessive stage mom.
So, when I offer Mateus Blackwood the opportunity for his daughter to duel the youngest, most popular magician of our generation in the biggest magicians’ arena on the East Coast, for an astronomical amount of prize money, he doesn’t see Tamsin.
He sees himself. All that glory, all those accolades, they’re all for him. They’re all within his reach. That makes him hungry. Greedy.
And that greed is all I need to destroy him.
Rook calls me as soon as I leave the coffeehouse. “How did it go?”
He sounds artfully disinterested. I can picture him lying on his back in the middle of the training arena at Master Silverstein’s, a towel tossed over his dark curls. He’s got the whole act of the troubled genius—the too-smart bad boy above it all—down to an art.
“You’ve got yourself a duel,” I tell him. “Tamsin Blackwood, just like we talked about.”
Rook whistles low. “You roped in daddy’s little girl, huh?”
“It wasn’t a hard sell. Your promoters are offering a king’s ransom to anyone willing to risk life and limb in the arena with you.”
“And Tamsin’s daddy is willing to take it?” He makes a mocking sound of disapproval, like an old auntie clucking at a misbehaving toddler. “I didn’t realize the great Master Mateus was so hard up.”
“Correction: Tamsin’s the one who wants to take it. And as for her father, I don’t think he’s in it for the money.”
“No? What else is there?”
I hesitate. I know Lysander Rook better than anyone in the whole world. But I’ve never let him know me the same way. Not all of me. I can’t risk that. Not when he could get in the way of what I really want.
“He just wants to live vicariously through his daughter,” I say at last, which is true. “He wants a taste of glory. You know how these old timers on the dueling circuit get—they miss who they used to be, and their kids are the closest they’ll get to having their youth back.”
Rook makes a derisive sound on the other end of the line. “Pathetic.”
“Maybe. But it’s getting you a duel with a willing opponent. One who actually cares about winning and isn’t just terrified of you. That’s what you wanted.”
“Oh, my,” drawls my champion. “Are you saying that Tamsin Blackwood isn’t terrified of me? Maybe I’m losing my touch, Sammy.”
“I think Tamsin Blackwood is smart enough to know she should be scared of you.” I glance back over my shoulder at the coffeehouse.
Mateus Blackwood has long since departed the premises, but there’s something of his aura that hangs over the place, dark and proud and viciously hungry.
“But I’ve got a hunch that there’s something else that she finds even scarier than you. ”
“And what’s that?” Rook chuckles. “Maybe you can book a duel for me with them.”
“I don’t know yet,” I confide. “But I’ll find out.”
It’s a promise, even if it’s not for the reasons Rook probably assumes. For all he knows, I’m the loyal second, dutiful to a fault. Everything I do, I do for him, to make him better. And for what it’s worth, he’s not entirely wrong.
I need Rook to perform at his best if he’s going to beat Tamsin Blackwood—not just beat her but break her completely, the same way he broke those five magicians whose careers ended in his arena. I need her utterly destroyed, in body and soul.
It’s only fair, you know. Her father destroyed my family once. And come October, beneath the bright lights of the New York Magicians’ Arena, I’ll finally see that debt repaid.