Chapter 13 Tamsin
Tamsin
Once upon a time, Alexei Adamovich was my father’s favorite magic student.
It’s all I can think about after Sam and I part ways. That I knew her brother’s killer—knew his killer for years, in fact. Worse yet, I liked the guy. Because here’s the thing: Alexei was always kind to me.
Isn’t it awful to remember a villain that way?
Alexei can’t be anything other than a villain if what Sam told me is true.
But I don’t remember a villain. I remember Alexei the man.
We didn’t interact much when he was alive, but he always had a smile for me, kind words and easy praise, where Dad only offered criticism.
It might not sound like much. But when I was a kid, it was everything. All I wanted was for someone to tell me I was doing something right. And Alexei—big, brutish-looking, incongruously sweet-natured Alexei—never failed me.
But I also remember the last night Alexei ever spoke directly to me. And I hate how much of it makes sense now.
Dad had been running me through my usual drills at the training arena when Alexei stopped by.
“I need to talk to you,” Alexei said without preamble.
He didn’t look like himself. His face had gone gray.
It made him look like a gargoyle: a hulking, nervous-eyed creature hovering over the mat where I’d been summoning the same streak of crackling magical power over and over again, left and right, ten times on each side, on the ninth rep on the right side, and already bored out of my mind.
“Hi, Alexei!” I piped up. I immediately dropped the ninth rep of the spell, pleased for the excuse to stop practicing that godforsaken drill.
Alexei hadn’t been addressing me, though. He’d been addressing Dad, who greeted him with open arms. “Good old Adamovich,” crowed Dad. “Come now, what’s the matter?”
“You didn’t say it was a kid.”
“Didn’t a replacement step up?”
The big man’s gaze darted from side to side. He looked, if anything, even more nervous. “Yeah, another kid. God damn it, Mateus!”
Dad clapped Alexei on the back like this giant gargoyle of a man was a child. “Not in front of young Tamsin here. Let’s discuss the matter out back.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Tamsin, another ten reps on each side, please, then move into the Diving Lotus sequence.”
For once, I didn’t obey right away. I didn’t even move, absorbed in this strange, heated exchange between the adults in my life.
I’d never once heard Alexei swear at my father before.
I’d never heard Alexei play anything other than the obedient student.
The perfect magician, loyal to Master Mateus Blackwood, like so many other fawning disciples.
Like me.
Alexei didn’t leave immediately, either.
Instead, he looked past my father’s shoulder, right into my eyes.
He tried to smile, but even to my fourteen-year-old eyes, the smile didn’t look all that convincing.
“Listen to your dad, Tamsin,” he said. “You’ll be grateful to have a decent command of the Diving Lotus once you’re a duelist yourself, even if you think it’s boring right now. ”
“I never said it was boring,” I insisted. I couldn’t help pulling a face, though.
Alexei laughed. That, at least, sounded real. “Well, I’ll help you practice once I clear up business with your dad. So make sure you’re ready. I’m going to test you!”
He and my father disappeared after that. And, obedient as ever, I practiced the Diving Lotus sequence. I wanted to impress Alexei, which at least was a realistic goal. I’d already mostly given up on ever impressing Dad.
Alexei never tested me on the Diving Lotus sequence, though. Alexei never spoke to me again.
The remainder of that night still feels like a fractured memory.
A bunch of guys from one of the clubs Dad wouldn’t let me visit—one where he told me he sometimes did side hustle work—came by and kept talking to Dad in hushed voices.
He’d sent them all away, impatient, but I overheard enough to know bits and pieces of what happened.
A boy had died. A teenager, barely old enough to be considered a legal adult. More specifically, a boy had died in an illegal duel at Dad’s club.
In the weeks that followed, news of some anonymous teen magician’s inglorious, back-alley death started appearing in all the magician forums and minor news sites. And coincidentally, Alexei stopped coming by the training arena.
For whatever it’s worth, I did see Alexei Adamovich one last time before he died.
Or, more accurately, I caught a few glimpses of Alexei in the aftermath of the death at the club—all the little puzzle fragments of which probably should have added up to a more substantial “one last time” in the real sense of the phrase.
Fate isn’t that kind, though.
By then, big gentle Alexei was a hollow-faced, haunted creature dogging my father’s steps. A ghost of what he’d been. My father was avoiding him—Alexei may not have been looking at jail time, but he’d have been a persona non grata after killing Jamie Chan.
In the end, Dad must have gotten sick of ducking Alexei and making up new excuses.
Alexei never seemed to get the message that he wasn’t welcome anymore, so Dad had to spell it out with starker messaging.
He finally took a meeting with Alexei—really took a meeting, without hemming or hawing or pretending to be indisposed—one night after I’d wrapped up running hex-casting drills with the regular students.
I never saw Alexei again after that night. No one ever did. People assumed he packed up and left the city. Or maybe that all his petty crimes finally caught up to him and got him gunned down or jumped by the wrong guys in the wrong corner of town.
I had another theory. But I’ve never had reason to test it until now.
Dad’s still awake when I get back to the hotel.
That’s normal for him. I don’t know if Dad ever actually sleeps.
He told me once that he’s suffered from insomnia since he was my age.
I’m never sure when Dad’s embellishing, but I do actually believe him about the insomnia.
Shadows the color of bad bruises always seem to linger under his eyes.
He tells me he’s used to it. He tells me he’s gotten used to a lot of unpleasant things. Sometimes, he winks when he says it.
I’ve never wanted to know the specifics. I wonder if that makes me a coward. I wonder if that makes me complicit.
Some part of me still doesn’t want to know, not really, but want isn’t as important as need. And I need to know. After seeing the look on Samantha Chan’s face when she named Alexei as her brother’s killer, I need to know what really happened that night.
Dad, of course, can tell I’ve got something on my mind as soon as I show up.
He’s on the couch, flipping through old footage of magicians’ duels, but his eyes cut directly toward mine when I enter the room.
“Tam.” He doesn’t set the remote aside, but he stops flipping through footage and hits the pause button.
His brow furrows, which somehow deepens the tint of those permanent shadows under his eyes. “What’s the matter?”
My face goes warm as heat pricks my eyes, traitorous. I’ve learned to hate moments like these. Moments where Dad seems to actually care about his daughter and not just his champion. They never last, and it always makes what comes after feel worse.
“Do you remember Alexei?”
The furrow between Dad’s brows deepens further. “Alexei? Alexei who?”
“Adamovich.” I twist my fingers together. “He used to be one of your magic students. A duelist who made extra cash by competing…off the books.”
“Alexei.” Dad rolls the old brute’s name around with a reluctant click of his tongue, like he’s savoring something distasteful. Wine that’s gone off, which he refuses to spit out for appearances’ sake. “Yes, I do remember a Mr. Alexei Adamovich. An unfortunate soul, really.”
“I thought he was one of your favorites.”
Dad chuckles. “All my students think they’re my favorite. That’s part of being a successful master. Mr. Adamovich was no exception.”
“What made him so unfortunate, then?”
Dad goes quiet for so long, I’m briefly convinced that he might drop the subject entirely and send me on my way.
Then he says, in startlingly harsh tones, “You know I’m not a good man, right, Tamsin?”
I blink at him. My father likes to gloat sometimes—in a self-aware yet gleefully ostentatious sort of way—about the brutality that’s ruled his personality and reputation alike.
He makes no secret of having been a brutal man during his days in the arena and remaining a brutal man in the days that followed.
This, though, feels different.
“I’m not a good man,” Dad continues. He heaves a great sigh and drags the heel of his hand down his face, massaging slowly, as if he might erase his own features. “Guys like Alexei know it. And that’s why they come to see me. Because here’s the thing: they’re not good guys, either.”
“Alexei was always kind to me,” I say.
“Alexei always behaved kindly to the only daughter of his master. There’s a difference.” Dad offers me a long, considering stare. “Like is always drawn to like. And we recognize our own kind. You’ll do well to remember that in the magical world and beyond, Tamsin.”
“Well, I’m your student, too.” I raise my chin. “So what about me? Am I…good?”
Dad looks surprised by the question. “You’re my daughter.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Dad shrugs. “Does it matter?”
“It does to me.” I take a step closer. My heart rate climbs, but I persist. “What really happened to Alexei, Dad? He used to come to the training arena all the time, and one day he just disappeared. We never saw him again.” I swallow. “Why?”
Dad chuckles. There’s an odd, dark quality to the sound. When he speaks again, he sounds almost wistful. As though mirth, black-humored though it might be, might prevent him from reckoning with a different feeling.