Chapter 6 Sam
Sam
The slack-jawed expression sitting on Tamsin Blackwood’s face is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen all week. I give myself a few seconds to drink it in.
I really didn’t think the daughter of Mateus Blackwood would be such an easy mark.
Tamsin walked into Agatha’s looking so perfect, so effortlessly put together.
Even now, with horror slowly filling her eyes, she still looks like an off-duty ballerina—but the fun kind.
She’s wearing one of those sleek little mesh shrugs and a deep blue crop with princess seams that that hug all her generous curves, but she’s paired the elegant top ensemble with a pair of high-waisted, very comfy-looking gray joggers.
A cheery petal-pink scrunchie sits in her hair, pulling half her curls out of her face but leaving the rest loose, cascading over her royal-blue shoulders.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting across from her in one of Rook’s old hoodies, sporting a pair of leggings with a hole in one knee. Yet Tamsin Blackwood is the one of us who looks like she might fall apart at any moment. I’ve got to savor this, just a little.
When she finally speaks, I’m braced for her fury. Instead, she says in a very small voice, “I’m the one who owes you an apology. I should have recognized you, too.”
I blink a few times. I thought Blackwood’s daughter might shout at me or accuse me of tricking her (which I guess I technically did, but whose fault is that?), or beg me not to go public with her many, many daddy issues—particularly the juicy little tidbit that might get her disqualified from dueling in the New York Magicians’ Arena entirely.
I did not expect, of all things, an apology.
“Uh, it’s okay,” I say, and god help me, in my moment of triumph, I still just sound so awkward. “I don’t really have a super active social media presence.”
Not under my own name, anyway.
I consider what comes next. I was right on the money with the daddy issues, sure, but Tamsin’s given me far, far more than garden variety family trouble.
If I want her disqualified and dishonored before she even enters the dueling arena, I can make it happen.
For a moment, I’ll admit, I do savor the possibility: cutting Tamsin’s legs out from under her before my champion even touches Mateus Blackwood’s darling daughter.
I could keep her talking, record this conversation, and send it to Master Silverstein, who’d send it to the New York City Magicians’ Arena commissioner.
I might be able to end Tamsin’s career right here, at Agatha’s.
But would it be enough?
I already know my own answer before the question crosses my mind.
No. As tempting as the easy route is, the Blackwoods have taken too much from my family for me to pay them back in anything other than bloodshed.
None of this ends before Tamsin gets at least a taste of what happened to my brother on the night he died.
For her part, Tamsin just stares at me in miserable silence while I silently contemplate her destruction. I guess that’s fair enough. I probably wouldn’t know what to say to me right now, either.
I finally take pity on her. I’ve decided that I can afford to be magnanimous right now. “Look, this is really no big deal. We’ve never actually met in person before. How could we be expected to know each other on sight?”
“Well, it’s not like I gave you the chance to introduce yourself.” Tamsin’s voice is bitter, laced with humiliation. “I was too absorbed in regaling you with my sob story. This is what I get for turning a friendly stranger into a free therapist without consent.”
“Hey now, that’s a little harsh.” Impulsively, I reach across the table to pat her hand.
She never shook mine when I offered it—which again, totally fair—but her fingers are outstretched halfway between our plates, still frozen in place.
They’re warm when I touch them. “I told you I was willing to listen. I meant it.”
The way Tamsin’s gaze locks on mine—wary, yet desperate with hope—makes my insides twist for reasons I don’t fully understand. “About my dad’s…suggestion,” she begins gingerly, “about how I should handle the match with your champion—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her immediately. I’ve earned the upper hand here. I get to play the gracious sportsman now. “I’m not going to tell anyone about what your dad asked you to do. I promise.”
Tamsin continues to look suspicious, so I add, “Anyway, it’s not like you would actually go through with throwing the duel against Rook.” I hold her gaze. “Right?”
Because now that my decision is made, I do actually need Tamsin to stay in this duel. I need to deliver my sheep to the slaughter. It simply won’t do for her to bow out before then.
Blood needs to be repaid in blood.
Tamsin averts her eyes for a moment. “Why did you pick me?”
I blink a few times, surprised by the subject change. “What do you mean?”
“You’re Lysander Rook’s second. You help him choose his challengers. You invited me to duel him. I remember your name, signed off on the message. Not his.” She meets my gaze at last, steady eyed. “So I just want to know. Why did you pick me?”
Well. I guess Blackwood’s daughter has some of her old man’s steel in her after all. I’m oddly pleased by this.
So I grace her with the truth. At least, a partial truth. I’ve decided she deserves that much.
“Everyone is afraid of my champion,” I tell Tamsin.
My tone is blunt, so she can’t mistake my meaning.
“Facing Lysander Rook in the arena means both certain fame and near-certain ruin. He’s cleaned out prospective up-and-comers in the arcane world so thoroughly, it would be funny if it wasn’t also such a massive headache for his go-to promoters.
“I needed to find someone who’d be willing to challenge Lysander who wasn’t also completely insane.
I could find plenty of one but not both—anyone good enough to give Rook a run for his money in a duel is too sane to risk both their career and their bodily longevity, and anyone insane enough to take the risk is a desperate try-hard with little to no real skill.
” I chuckle as my gaze flicks up to meet my mark’s. “Except, it seems, for you.”
Tamsin Blackwood’s face makes an interesting series of minor contortions.
If I had to guess, I’d say the expressions go in roughly this order: surprise, pleasure, and finally, interestingly, fear.
“You don’t think I’m an insane try-hard just coasting into the New York Magicians’ Arena on my father’s name? ”
There’s so much that I could say to that if I were willing to show my full hand.
I think you’re a great magician, but an easy mark.
I think you seem like a nice enough girl, but alas, destroying you is the only way to destroy Mateus Blackwood, so it’s a lucky thing you turned out to be a half-decent duelist, too.
I think that you’re your father’s daughter—and your father’s a bloodthirsty monster, just like Rook, so let’s let a monster duel a monster, why don’t we?
I settle, at last, on “Being a nepo kid doesn’t mean you lack for talent. Your dueling record speaks for itself.” I smile. “And, as it turns out, you’re not a coward.”
I’m getting better and better at telling the truth without revealing the whole of it.
“I don’t know about that.” Tamsin looks down at the remnants of the sandwich on her plate. “I might be a coward.”
“A coward wouldn’t have said yes to my invitation. Not against Lysander Rook. Not during a marquee event at the New York Magicians’ Arena.”
To her credit, Tamsin doesn’t blink. Instead, her gaze narrows, going cold, and for a moment—just a moment—the pretty little off-duty ballerina with the cute pink silk scrunchie is gone. For a moment, all I see sitting across from me is Master Mateus Blackwood reborn.
Excellent.
“Did you mean it when you said yes to me?” I ask Blackwood’s daughter.
Tamsin stares me down. “I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I believe I can win.”
I smile at her. “Then let’s shake on it.”
Uncertainty creeps back into her eyes. “Shake on what?”
“A promise.” I offer her my hand once more.
“Promise me that you won’t throw this duel.
Promise me that no matter the outcome, when you stand across from Lysander Rook in that arena three weeks from now, you’re going to give it your all.
Promise me that you’re going to show me some beautiful, terrifying magic. ”
Tamsin’s gaze flickers toward my outstretched hand then back up to my eyes. That coldness—the coldness she shares with her father—holds steady behind her stare when her fingers close around mine, her hand still incongruously warm.
“I promise,” she tells me. “You’re going to have the duel of your life on your hands.”