Chapter 8 Sam #2
“Augh!” I backpedal awkwardly, my balance thrown off.
Silverstein grabs one of my windmilling arms before I can make a bigger fool of myself than I already have. “Samantha? What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“I’m fine!” At the rise of his eyebrows, I sigh and force myself to relax my limbs.
At eighteen, we don’t technically need an adult guardian to accompany us on Rook’s duels, but Silverstein’s presence in New York lends more credibility to our side of the show.
At the end of the day, an arcane master is still an arcane master.
And if nothing else, I respect the hierarchy of the magical world.
I amend my tone, and repeat, “I’m fine. You just startled me is all, Master Silverstein. I wasn’t expecting to see you.” Dryly, I throw in, “Please don’t take my clumsiness as a reflection on my abilities as a training partner to your active duelists.”
“Relax, kid.” Silverstein doesn’t even look offended. “And don’t be so jumpy about running afoul of an old man. Remember, I’m just down the corridor from you and Rook.”
I sigh. “I told you before we left. I don’t need help babysitting my champion. I can handle him, I promise.”
“It’s not just Rook I’m babysitting.” Silverstein peers at me. An odd pensive look sits behind his usually gruff-eyed gaze. “I worry about you, kid.”
Mortifying heat pinches me behind my nose and eyes.
I don’t remember the last time an actual adult—a real adult, the kind with a job and tax obligations and stuff, not just an overgrown kid who can vote legally—expressed worry for me.
My parents mostly just tell me how nice it is for me to have a “good head on your shoulders for your age” and trust me to do as I please.
I think they gave up on worrying about their kids when it failed to save my brother.
I can’t decide whether to be embarrassed or oddly touched that of all the grown-ass people in my life, my master instructor—scarred-up veteran of decades of magicians’ duels and all-around certified curmudgeon—is the one getting on my case now.
I say none of this aloud, of course. Instead, I force a smile as I hug my elbows. “I’m fine.”
The aforementioned curmudgeon snorts. “The hell you are. You look like crap, Samantha. When was the last time you slept?”
“Last night!”
“For longer than five hours?
“At least…six.”
“Jesus. You’re worse than your champion in some ways.”
I can’t help pulling a face. “Literally no one on the planet is worse than Rook.”
Silverstein chuckles. “I did warn you years ago that you wouldn’t want to be his second.” That odd look creeps back into his gaze. “Everything okay with you two? For a given value of ‘okay’ where Lysander is concerned, at least?”
I hug my elbows a little harder. “We’re fine.”
“You’re not a good liar.”
I’m a better liar than Silverstein thinks I am, actually.
Which is probably part of the problem. I’ve never talked to my revered master instructor about what really happened to my brother or who was responsible.
I’ve never shared the real reason why I fought so hard to become Rook’s second.
And I’ve definitely never revealed what I plan to make Rook do to Tamsin Blackwood in that beautiful New York City arena her father helped me book.
Maybe Silverstein would get it. More likely, he wouldn’t. I don’t think anyone can truly understand why I’m doing what I’m doing unless they’ve been in my shoes. Silverstein hasn’t. No one I know has. And I can’t risk Silverstein—however gruffly well-intentioned he may be—disrupting my plans.
Which means I walk this road alone.
“Maybe we’re not fine—not entirely,” I tell my master instructor.
“Rook and me, I mean. The pressure of the New York Magicians’ Arena is a lot for anyone to handle.
It would be weird if it didn’t get under his skin—or mine.
” I shrug. “But we’ve been through rough patches before. We’ll get through this one, too.”
Silverstein sighs. “You’re a good second, Chan. Sometimes, I wonder if that’s a bad thing in some ways.”
I laugh. “How do you figure?”
“You’re eighteen. It’s an age for growth. For figuring your own crap out.” He shakes his head. “It’s no time to tether yourself to another magician so entirely. And that’s what you have to do, as a second.”
I smile wide at Silverstein. “And I’ve been happy to do it for the past three years. No call to stop now.” I try to ignore the fact that Silverstein doesn’t smile back. “Rook and I will be fine, I promise. I’ll be at the hotel gym if you need me.”
I end up at one of the magicians’ training arenas attached to the hotel fitness center.
This time of day, it’s mercifully, blessedly empty.
As the door shuts behind me, I close my eyes and breathe in the familiar scent of sweat and rubber, mixed with that faint burning smell I’ve always associated with the aftermath of a spell being cast, like the remnants of a previous night’s campfire.
The scent of magic, still alive and well, even in this modern age of ours.
I set up my targets first. Whoever staffs the training arenas has had the good grace to provide their patrons with no shortage of stout canvas dummies.
The plain rubbery material covering the canvas surface has been cracked and torn at the seams—the obvious product of years and years of use without replacement or repair—but these tried-and-true dummy targets will do just fine for my purposes.
I set up four dummies, spaced evenly against the farthest wall of the room.
Then I retreat to the opposite end of the arena.
I shake out my hands as I walk. The energy coiled inside my body stirs, like a sleepy snake waking at last from a well-deserved slumber.
Muscle memory crooks my fingertips, itching to turn that energy into arcane power, to shape the spells I used to memorize every night, laughing at Jamie’s side.
Here, alone in a dusty old training arena—with no Rook, no Silverstein, no other magicians to disturb my peace—I can pretend, for a little while, that my brother’s still alive.
Jamie and I didn’t have much in common back when he was alive, truth be told.
He fit in everywhere he went, naturally gregarious, effortlessly handsome, and full of natural warmth.
As a shy, awkward kid, I thought my brother’s brand of charm might be its own kind of magic, with the way it bewitched people.
I tried to figure out how he did what he did, the way he could read a room and instantly know how to make every person in it smile.
I could never quite replicate Jamie’s magnetism, though.
It was this innate, unquantifiable social intelligence that I think—much like a certain degree of magical talent—you’re born with, or you’re not.
Whenever I tried to act like my brother, my words always got stuck in my throat, and I felt more awkward than ever.
So I watched my brother charm the world and gave up on having anything useful to say to him.
Until he fell in love with magic.
When Jamie fell in love, he fell hard. And I’d never seen my brother fall for anything the way he fell for magic.
It was the first time I really understood him.
I couldn’t charm a whole room the way my brother could, but I could do magic and do it well.
And the more I did it, the more I loved it, too.
Magic became the language Jamie and I spoke to one another during late nights up past curfew, trading grimoires back and forth under a blanket fort with a flashlight or watching grainy footage of duels between our favorite magicians before dinner while spoiling our appetites with the stash of chips and candy Jamie snuck out from under our parents’ noses.
Jamie, older than me by four years, knew more than I did, of course, but he was an eager teacher, and had an even more eager student in me.
“Beauty and terror,” he’d crow at me with a wink as he showed off some new spell.
“All great magic is beauty and terror. And we’re gonna master it all, you and me, together. Promise me, sis.”
I promised him, my heart full, over and over again. I didn’t expect him to renege on his end of the deal by dying three days after his eighteenth birthday.
I open my eyes and stare into the empty space of the training arena I’ve picked. “Beauty and terror,” I whisper to no one in particular. I bounce on the balls of my feet for a few seconds, shifting my weight around experimentally as I loosen my joints. And then I begin my sequence of spells.
I start with the Four Elements. It was the first real sequence of spellcraft—the kind that legitimate duelists use in the arena—that Jamie and I ever mastered together. The Four Elements may be basic, the kind of spells that even beginner magicians can pull off, but they work at the highest levels.
Fundamentals, Jamie called them. The kind of thing accessible to the most elementary of students but elevated into their finest and purest form by the great masters of the dueling arena.
The kind of thing you might learn in a day but spend a decade perfecting.
Rook turns his nose up at the Four Elements—they’re too routine, too elementary, too predictable, he insists—but what I’ve never told my own champion is that they’re my favorite magical sequence.
Not everything has to be flashy or complicated to be beautiful, after all.
I begin with the Spell of Water. Arcane energy coils down the length of my arms, wrapping lazily around my fingertips as I trace the familiar sequence. A wave of magic rises like an ocean’s high tide behind me, pure liquid power, higher and higher, until I can barely contain it.
I twist my hand, and the wave of magic crests, glittering white and blue, and breaks with a roar. I move with it, squatting low as I chase the wave toward its target, all the way at the opposite end of the room.