Chapter 4 Sam #2
“You?” Silverstein’s gray eyebrows sat just below his thinning hairline, arched as high as I’d ever seen them.
I forced myself not to scowl even though my ego was stung.
I knew what the old master was probably thinking.
When I first joined Jamie at Silverstein’s training arena, the cranky old bat insisted on calling me Kid Sister long after he’d learned my actual name.
Even now, when Silverstein sized me up as a magician, it was hard for him not to compare me unfavorably to my tragically talented—and very much deceased—brother.
I was about to change that.
“Rook needs someone,” I stressed, “who can bully him back a little. And before you say anything, yes, I’m well aware that I can’t beat him fair and square in a true magicians’ duel, not with the level he’s at.”
I took a deep breath. Here was the risky bit of my proposition.
“But I can hang with him. I know I can. You know I can. Better, at any rate, than your rookies. At the very least, I’ll be able to handle some sparring with him without leaving the arena in tears and threatening to sue the teaching staff. ”
Silverstein snorted. “You really need to work on selling yourself.”
I smiled. “That wasn’t a no.”
“I still think you’ve lost your mind, Chan.”
“Maybe I have.” Cheerfully, I winked at him. “But what have you got to lose?”
Silverstein grimaced. “I wish I’d thought to record this conversation,” he groused. “Then you wouldn’t be able to accuse me of failing to warn you.”
“Hey now,” I protested. “I signed a waiver, didn’t I? Should be insurance enough for you.”
He shook his head, sighing. “Well, I won’t stop you, if you’re this determined to get wrecked.” He jerked his head toward the hallway. “The prima donna will be running warmups over in Arena C. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Just try not to incur a hospital bill.”
“What are you thinking about?”
I brace my palms against my knees, trying not to hurl my guts out. “How we met.”
That’s only partially true. One piece of my brain is thinking about how we met, because it’s impossible not to remember how terrible my self-preservation instincts were at the time.
In fairness, not much has changed, because another piece of my brain is replaying the last forty minutes: I told Rook that we needed to work on cardio and endurance for his duel against Tamsin.
As it turns out, Rook’s cardio remains excellent. Mine, on the other hand, needs work.
Which brings me to the remaining third piece of my brain, which is focused on, in the following order: how much my joints ache, how tired I am, wondering if I’ve bruised my ribs (again, second time this month), and generally feeling quite sorry for myself.
Rook’s big, callused hand appears in my line of sight. Grumbling, I clasp it and let him pull me upright. “You going sentimental on me, Chan?”
“Never.” I try not to wheeze. I don’t entirely succeed. “Just reflecting on poor life choices.”
That at least earns me a snort of amusement. “I thought you were insane for wanting to join my training camp all those years ago.”
“So did Master Silverstein.” I spread my hands magnanimously. “And look at us now, princess.”
Rook casts an unimpressed eye around our practice arena.
Arena A is the smallest in the facility, which makes it a pain for group practices, but it’s perfect when you’re working one-on-one.
“Look at us now,” he echoes, his voice a little sour.
“Preparing for yet another spectacle as a performing monkey.”
I bite back a sigh. Rook gets like this sometimes.
Half the time, magic seems like his whole world.
Every time he wins another duel, he’s jubilant.
Ecstatic. His celebrations in the moment of victory are so expressive, they’re practically grotesque.
Some have complained that it’s crass, that he’s over the top, smug in his superiority, unsportsmanlike.
Some folks want a humble champion, even while his fan base basks in the fantasy that an eighteen-year-old boy could be so utterly confident in his own worth—and back it up every time.
But then there’s the other half of the time. When Rook decides that he’s sick of the adulation, the press obligations, the nitpicking from Master Silverstein. When he falls a little out of love with magic—and by extension, out of love with himself.
“You’re a lot more interesting than a monkey,” I tell Rook. “Not to mention prettier.” I wince as I crack my neck. “Not that it takes any power out of your left-side Rising Crescent Moon. I hate that spell.”
He almost cracks a smile, but that flash of an upturn vanishes from his mouth within seconds. “You’ll get better at countering it.” I’ve always found it incredible how easily Rook makes things that would otherwise be compliments sound like condemnations. “What if I don’t keep this up, Sammy?”
“Keep what up? Your ability to cast a Rising Crescent Moon off your southpaw side?”
“Any of it.” His voice has gone small. The merciless enfant terrible of the magical world sounds like a child.
The actual child that, I suppose, he never really got to be.
“The duels. The hype. The interviews where everyone wants to know, behind all those polite reporter questions, whether I’m finally gonna crack. ”
“You’re not.”
When he catches my gaze, Rook’s eyes are slits of blue practically buried beneath the jet-black fringe of his lashes. “Is that what you actually think? Or just what you want to think?”
I rub aching temples with my forefingers as I consider my response. It’s bad enough that Rook has to beat up my limbs with his magical thrashings on a regular basis. Now he’s slowly working his way into my skull. “You’re not going to crack,” I repeat. “I forbid it.”
Rook finally laughs, wagging a finger at me. “Now that, Sammy, I believe. Once you set your mind to something, heaven forfend anyone gets in your way.” He sits back on his haunches right there in the middle of Arena A and pats the space beside him.
With a sigh, I plop down next to him. He really is like a child sometimes. Right now, crouched like a gargoyle on the floor with his stupidly flexible hips, he looks years younger than eighteen. Curious. Innocent.
What a crafty illusion.
Rook looks at me. “That girl Bertha asked me out today.”
“We don’t know a Bertha.”
“She’s in some of your classes,” Rook insists. “Blond. Nice lipstick. Pretty,” he adds, practically as an afterthought. “Like, really pretty.”
A beat. “Do you mean Blythe?” I venture. My heart rate speeds up. “Blythe Davison.”
Rook shrugs, which tells me everything I need to know. “You know I’m no good with names.”
Privately, I’m pretty sure he just doesn’t like expending effort on anything that isn’t magic. “What did you tell her?”
“That she doesn’t want to date me because I’m nuts.”
I breathe a little easier, which immediately makes me feel stupid. “Did she agree?”
“She let it go after that. Didn’t seem too happy, though.”
“Uh-huh.” Against my better judgment, I press further: “Why didn’t you tell her yes?”
Rook blinks rapidly at me. It’s a remarkable effect, the blue of his eyes and the black of his lashes flickering at me like that. Small wonder Blythe tried to shoot her shot, despite my warning in the bathroom. “Why on earth would I want to go out with Bertha?”
“Blythe. You just said she was pretty!”
“So?” He shrugs. “What do I care about that? Dating a pretty girl isn’t going to make me better at magic.” His eyes narrow again. “And it certainly isn’t going to win me that prize money they’re putting up for the Tamsin Blackwood duel.”
“Life is more than just being good at magic.”
Rook actually laughs. Full belly laughs out loud at me. “Wow. That’s— Truly, the irony of hearing that coming from you, Sammy, that’s something.” He swipes an elbow across his streaming eyes. “I remember how we first met, clear as day.”
My heart starts pounding again. “You do, do you?”
“Absolutely.” He chuckles, still wiping at his eyes.
“You joined the cannon fodder brigade. Another disposable sparring partner. I thought you’d throw a few cheap shots, get embarrassed, and be done working with me inside the week.
And then, instead, you fought me like an animal.
Like the devil itself. I must have forced you to yield ten, twenty times that first day, and you kept coming back for more.
And then you did the same thing day after day, week after week. ”
“I know,” I tell him sourly. “I was there, remember?”
He doesn’t pay me any mind. “I’d never met anyone like you before,” he continues. “You were the first person I ever met, a kid my age, that I thought might get it.”
“Get it?”
“Magic,” whispers Rook. His gaze snaps toward mine abruptly. He waggles his eyebrows at me as he leans forward. “Hey, want a smoke?”
“You can’t smoke,” I tell him automatically. “It’ll destroy your cardio.”
“Bah, humbug,” Rook shoots back. He pulls out a long white cigarette, seemingly from nowhere, then a lighter. “I’ll be just fine.”
“Rook—”
“Come on, Sammy.” He’s practically whining now as he flicks the lighter on. “Tell me something, and tell me true: When have you ever actually seen me gas out during a real duel?”
I haven’t. I scowl at him. “It’s the principle of the thing.”
“Aha!” he crows. “See? ‘The principle of the thing’ is what people say when they’ve run out of actual useful arguments to make.”
“That is not—”
“Anyway, what was I saying?” He takes a long drag on the cigarette.
“Right, magic. You get it. You get that nothing else really matters, not after you’ve tasted real magic.
” He blows smoke at the ceiling of the arena.
“Our classmates can act like we’re crazy, but we know what’s up.
They’re the ones who have lost touch with what really matters. ”
“Magic doesn’t matter to everyone.” At least, not in the modern era.