Chapter 13 Tamsin #2
“Mr. Adamovich got in over his head,” says Dad. “Magicians like him often do. There was only so much I could do for him, after that. You won’t be seeing him duel again, if that’s what you’re wondering. He’s long dead. Tragic, really.”
“What do you mean, ‘duel again’?” I shuffle closer still. “What happened during Alexei’s last duel? Before…before he passed?”
“Oh, spare your old man the ingenue act, Tamsin. I’m not a member of the press corps.” Dad gives me an exasperated, knowing look. “You know exactly what Alexei did to expel himself from my good graces.”
I fold my arms. My heart’s pounding so hard, I think it might explode right out of my chest cavity. “Refresh my memory, Dad.”
“That big fool of a brute killed a kid,” Dad spits. “At the club I ran. My damn club! In a duel I arranged, no less.”
“It didn’t exactly seem like he wanted to duel in the first place.”
“Oh, really?” Dad’s dark eyes go flat. “And what, pray tell, gives you that impression, my girl?”
I draw my spine straight and square my shoulders, trying not to look as anxious as I feel.
Heart palpitations or no, I need to know the truth.
I deserve the truth. Sam and I both do. “I remember the day of the duel. The last time Alexei ever really spoke to us—or at least to me. He was upset. He kept trying to talk to you. Saying something about how he didn’t want to duel a kid. ”
I look my father in eye. “ ‘You never told me it was a kid,’ ” I recite. “Isn’t that what he said to you?”
Dad scoffs. “Yet he went right ahead and took the duel anyway.”
“Did he want to?” I refuse to break eye contact. “Or did you make him do it, Dad? Did you give him a choice?”
“Everyone has a choice, my girl. I taught you that much.” Dad doesn’t even blink. “I never forced Alexei to do anything. I simply explained that his livelihood was on the line.”
My stomach sours. “That’s coercion.”
“That’s business.” Dad shrugs. “I may not be a good man, Tamsin. But I’ve always done what was necessary to thrive in a world that’s unkind to most. I do no more and no less than that much.
That means doing what I’m good at. I’m a good magician.
And I’m a good matchmaker. If promoters want to cut me a check or two to send duelists their way to drum up ticket sales—I’m not going to turn away free money.
And the promoters at my club offered an awful lot of free money. ”
The sour feeling inside me intensifies. “So you sent Alexei their way to beat up a kid.”
“Hey, I didn’t tell the kid to take the duel either.
He did that himself.” Dad doesn’t even look sorry.
“And as for Alexei, he was always more brawns than brain. Needed someone to do his thinking for him. So I took the job.” He spreads his hands.
“What’s so wrong with that? Everyone got what they wanted in the end.
My club’s promoters got their duel. Alexei got his money.
Even the kid got his shot at glory. It’s not my fault he squandered it.
If that fool Alexei hadn’t panicked and killed the idiot boy in the arena, the whole night would have been a celebratory one. ”
I close my eyes. It’s one thing to suspect the truth. It’s another to hear it confirmed aloud. “Do you even remember the kid’s name?”
“How should I know? Some pretty boy, Asian, if I recall correctly. Jason or James or something.”
“Jamie,” I blurt out. “His name was Jamie Chan.”
My father blinks at me, looking surprised.
“You have a good memory.” His eyes go distant.
“Yes, Jamie Chan, you’re right. That was it.
A pity. If he’d lived, we could have made a lot more profit off a kid that good-looking and that talented.
” Dad shrugs. “What can you do, though? The world’s a mean place, my girl. And the magical world is even meaner.”
“Dad.” I take a deep breath and will my voice not to shake. “What really happened to Alexei after he met with you? After Jamie died?”
“I told you already, Tamsin; Alexei died, too.” Dad sounds impatient. “Many magicians who fall on hard times do. It was an accident, nothing more.”
I meet Dad’s eyes again. “Was it really? An accident?”
My father falls silent, eyebrows climbing.
“Tell me the truth, Dad. Please.” I press my advantage. “What killed Alexei?”
Slowly, Dad smiles at me. He chuckles softly before he speaks again. “Nothing he didn’t to himself, Tamsin. Nothing at all.” He pauses then adds delicately, “So far as anyone can prove, at least.”
Oxygen flees the room. My chest tightens. “You could go to prison,” I whisper.
“On what charges, exactly?” My father’s dark eyes flash dangerously at me. “The crime of having a suspicious teenage daughter? I wasn’t aware that was a felony.”
I balk. “Dad. I never said—”
“You implied,” Dad snaps. “You insinuated. That’s as good as an accusation.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“And Alexei didn’t mean to kill poor Jamie Chan.
” Dad finally tosses the remote aside and stands up.
I back away instinctively. “I’m not a good man, Tamsin.
But don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re so virtuous, either.
You asked me earlier if you were good. As if human beings are so easily divided into good and evil, like characters in a fairy tale.
” Dad gives a bark of laughter. “Tell me, Tamsin. Are you good if you live under my roof and eat my food—all of it paid for by the profits I earned off the backs of petty criminal goons like Alexei? Like the obviously less-than-legal promoters at that club?” His voice rises. “You tell me, my girl. You tell me!”
“I’m sorry!” I blurt out. I’m humiliatingly close to tears. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked about any of this.”
“Oh, Tamsin.” Dad’s face softens, full of pity. “Where would you be without me?” His voice is gentle again but still laced with venom. “Ask yourself that instead. Where will you go without my money? Without the work I’ve done, that you apparently disdain so much?”
“I don’t disdain you,” I whisper.
Dad snorts. “I’m relieved to hear it.”
“Dad.” I force myself to look him in the eye again.
My stomach churns. “If I upset you. If I screwed up. Would I…would I meet Alexei’s fate?
” I blink back the prick of heat behind my eyes.
With an effort, I keep the tremor out of my voice when I ask, “Whatever happened to him, would it happen to me, too?”
I can’t read the look on Dad’s face. But he doesn’t blink at me, and he doesn’t speak for some time. I want to throw up. I want to cry. I do neither while I wait for my father’s answer.
He closes his eyes and sighs, all the tension going out of his body.
His shoulders slump. In this moment, my father is transformed.
He looks so frail, ancient and withered, exhausted by the burden of life.
Every line etched onto his face stands in stark relief behind the glow of the TV screen, the hollows beneath his eyes practically painted black.
When he opens his eyes, they’re wet. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t shout. He just stares at me for a long moment with those wet eyes.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tamsin,” he says at last, his voice rough. “I told you already. You’re my daughter.” He turns away from me. “It’s late. Go to bed.”
If I were actually a good person, I’d be looking up how to turn my father in to the authorities. I’m sure there’s a hotline I could call, a website I could find, an emergency number I could dial. Even without hard evidence against him, Dad could at least face the threat of real consequences.
I should want that for my father. He’s right.
He’s not a good man. He never has been. Maybe Alexei killed Sam’s brother, but Dad’s the reason they were together in that godforsaken arena at all.
The duel never should have happened in the first place.
Dad’s just as guilty as Alexei—maybe even guiltier.
Dad and his eternal need for profit and power.
Dad, who as good as admitted to killing Alexei, too, just to tie up loose ends.
If I don’t beat Rook in our duel, I’ll be tied to a murderer forever. And I’ll spend the rest of my life surviving off his blood money.
Unless, of course, someone puts Dad away for everything he’s done.
I eye my phone where it sits plugged in on the nightstand, the blank black screen somehow accusatory.
Could I make it happen? I’m his daughter and his student; I’m the favored disciple to a great man.
People would listen, at least. The shadow of a doubt would be cast if I were the one to cast it.
And that shadow maybe—just maybe—could be enough to open up a real investigation that would force Dad to answer for all the blood he’s spilled, the families he’s broken, the hurt he’s wrought.
But where would that leave me?
The thought hits me like a bucket of cold water. Dad’s right. If he goes down, I go down with him. Without Dad, I have no one. I have nothing.
I close my eyes. At the end of the day, I’m not such a good person after all. At least I know it. At least it shames me.
But shame doesn’t solve the problem at hand. I’m back at square one: where Lysander Rook remains my only way out. A boy who wants to tear me limb from limb. A boy who probably will if I make the smallest of mistakes in this duel.
So in the end, I don’t call anyone. I tell nobody about my conversation with my father. Instead, I sleep fitfully that night, waking from half-remembered dreams over and over again.
The next day is hilariously unproductive.
I zombie-walk my way through my usual strength and conditioning routine at the gym, my mobility exercises, even my favorite hex and curse sequences.
Mustering focus is impossible. Instead, I keep staring at my phone, scrolling aimlessly through social media and old texts, refreshing email with no specific purpose.
I still don’t call the authorities.