Chapter 9 Tamsin
Tamsin
Let me just open by saying I think I deserve a decent amount of credit for the sheer amount of effort I put into trying to forget about Samantha Chan’s Four Elements.
Any magician worth their salt can perform a half-decent Four Elements.
But never in a lifetime of studying magic have I seen a Four Elements performed quite like that.
With talent like that, Sam’s way too good to just be someone’s second, even if that someone is Lysander Rook himself.
I know respected magicians on the dueling circuit—all of them with major wins in the arena—who would kill to be able to pull off a Four Elements sequence so smooth, so precise, yet so casually powerful.
Samantha Chan should be a duelist. So why is she content to play second fiddle to Rook?
I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I tell myself that I need to quit thinking about Rook’s second and think about the opponent right in front of me.
I’m not the one dueling you in a matter of weeks.
Sam said it herself. She was, in fact, very pointedly, politely unfriendly when she said it, so she probably wants nothing to do with me at all, if she can help it. That shouldn’t hurt. That shouldn’t matter to me in the least. Who is she to me, except my opponent’s second?
Nobody. Nobody at all—except, apparently, for a damn good magician.
Besides, Samantha Chan clearly wants me to forget what I saw. And given that she’s been gracious enough to forget—or at least pretend to forget—my father’s plans to rig the betting odds on this duel, the least I can do is erase her from my mind.
So I distract myself productively: by studying tape on her champion instead.
I’m definitely doing it in order to better understand my opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.
I am definitely not watching these videos to search for some sign of what makes Rook special enough for a girl like Samantha Chan to forsake her own opportunities in the magicians’ arena.
And I’m absolutely not watching grainy old footage of his duels for a glimpse of his second, slouching in the corner, slinking around at the edges of the camera shots, just barely out of focus.
Rook’s incredible, obviously. His style of magic is relentlessly aggressive, a dynamic display of power that implements curses so nasty and so complex that I can barely follow what’s happening in some of his duels.
The way he chains spell to spell to spell, from hex to curse, as arcane energy bends and twists with his body, it’s like watching the principal dancer of a ballet.
He’s beautiful, the way he performs in the arena.
He’s pure art in motion. He devastates his opponent, destroys them, and he makes it look beautiful.
He makes you want to cheer him on as he tears another human being limb from limb.
But he’s not Sam.
It’s infuriating. I watch my opponent string together an ingenious series of curses—each more intimidating than the last, some of which I’ve never even seen magicians pull off in the dueling arena before—yet my mind keeps wandering back to the Four Elements.
The fundamental Spells of Water, Air, and Earth are simple, almost laughably so, compared to what Rook does to the magicians who cross him.
Yet it’s Samantha Chan’s magic, not Lysander Rook’s, that’s enchanted my mind. This is a problem.
Time starts to trot by: hours, days, and then, eventually, a full week. The night of the duel draws closer and closer. But the problem doesn’t go away. I try to solve it with long hours in the hotel gym or the training arenas. I definitely don’t hope for another glimpse of Sam every time I go.
Dad schedules me for a press event opposite Rook. It’s supposed to be this big thing for our fans, a chance to see us meeting face-to-face in advance of the duel. A hype builder, through and through.
I’m dreading the damn thing.
I actually kind of like doing press, most of the time—interviews and podcast appearances and even full-blown press conferences are a great opportunity to say my piece about magic with an audience that might actually care about my opinions—but I cannot think of anything I am less excited for than being set up as an obstacle to Lysander Rook’s meteoric rise to the top.
I get why we have to do it this way. You need a good narrative to sell a duel.
“Two magicians of roughly equal experience and talent fight each other in an arena to find out who’s better that day” is not a narrative—or at least, not a narrative that the average Joe will pay to watch live in a sold-out New York City arena.
On the other hand, “Reclusive teen heartthrob who conveniently happens to be an undefeated up-and-coming genius duelist looks to destroy spoiled nepo kid” is A) a narrative, and as such, B) sells tickets—and news subscriptions—like hotcakes.
Which means that the esteemed members of the press are going to do everything legally in their power to push the narrative. And I can’t blame them for it. I’d do the same in their shoes.
Pushing the narrative, you see, benefits us all—the two magicians, the sponsors, the reporters, literally everyone who has any kind of financial stake in this whole dog and pony show.
But the thing is—and maybe this is juvenile of me—I really don’t like playing a minor villain.
I don’t like being framed as an obstacle, or a supporting antagonist, or an inconvenience to the hero, even if it does get me paid. And that’s what I am, in their story.
Never mind that I’m favored to win by the betting odds. Never mind how hard I’ve worked to get where I am. So far as everyone else is concerned, the most interesting things about me are my father’s surname—and the fact that I’m currently standing in Lysander Rook’s way.
The actual night of the duel is still a couple weeks away, which means that I need to endure a couple more weeks of listening to my father—not to mention seemingly every magical world news outlet known to man—go on and on about how brilliant and dangerous and special Rook is.
It puts me in a foul mood the night before the press event.
I try to ignore it as I drag myself down to the hotel gym for my evening workout.
I’ve buried myself in an oversized hoodie and slung my headphones on over my ears: modern-day armor.
As suspected, no one else is at the gym at nine p.m. on a Friday.
Even Dad doesn’t bother following me to gym sessions this late at night.
At last, blissful solitude. I pick an assault bike and settle my weight down.
Less than three weeks out from a duel, I’m probably not going to make truly significant gains in either strength or cardio levels for the arena, but I want to keep myself moving.
I need to move, to sweat, to feel my heart pounding its familiar rhythm of protest against my rib cage.
It’s a delicate balance to strike: stay warm, stay mobile, stay hungry, but don’t overtrain.
Don’t tire yourself out beyond repair before showtime.
I lose myself in the music as my lungs start heating up.
It’s nothing special, just a randomized playlist, but all the songs I picked have the right beat, a nice up-tempo rhythm that keeps my legs pumping.
It’s a moving meditation for me, this kind of late-night steady-state cardio.
And it’s probably the first time in days that I’ve truly felt at peace.
So naturally, that’s when the door slams open to admit another gym rat.
I don’t bother looking up at first. It doesn’t matter to me who else needs to drown their sorrows and insecurities in sweat and exhaustion, so long as they don’t hog the equipment. I’m in the zone right now. I don’t want to risk any distractions.
Too bad I’d also be the first one to tell you that we don’t always get what we want.
The intruder has the nerve to come right up to my assault bike.
I still don’t look up, so all I see are a pair of bright white designer sneakers.
Great. I’m probably about to have my workout interrupted by a status symbol chaser with a closet full of overpriced athleisure outfits that they never actually wear to the gym.
“Excuse me.” The intruder’s voice is slightly muffled over the music blasting from my headphones but, unfortunately for me, still audible.
I pause the bike with a sigh. “What?” I jerk my headphones down off my ears so they can rest on my neck. “What’s so important that it can’t wait until I—”
“So it is you.”
I finally look up. I regret it almost immediately.
Lysander Rook stares back at me. He’s wearing a shit-eating grin and twisting one of the drawstrings of his plain black hoodie around one finger.
Aside from the too-nice shoes, he’s shockingly modestly dressed.
No sponsor logos, no ostentatious designer names printed all over him, human-billboard style.
Past nine p.m. on a weekend night at the gym, Lysander Rook apparently dresses just like any other gym goer at our ritzy all-expenses-paid hotel.
“I’m sorry for interrupting cardio day,” continues Rook, who doesn’t sound particularly apologetic. “I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to meet Tamsin Blackwood in the flesh.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m sure her autograph isn’t worth as much as Lysander Rook’s,” I tell him dryly. “Seriously, man. You couldn’t wait until the presser tomorrow?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” He waggles his eyebrows at me in this way that should be cheesy, but for Rook, it somehow works. I hate this for us both. “No one’s ever their real self at a presser.”
“But they definitely are after nine p.m. at a bougie hotel gym.”
Rook cants his head from side to side. It makes him look like a particularly handsome bird. “Realer than they are at a presser. Especially…” He trails off, lips twitching as he looks me up and down.