Chapter 20 Sam
Sam
I can’t blame Tamsin for wanting her own revenge against me after everything that passed between us. And what better place for a magician’s vengeance than the largest arena in the country? After all, I had the same idea myself, once upon a time.
Accepting her challenge felt like self-flagellation in some ways. Maybe I’ve decided that Tamsin deserves her vengeance just as much as I once deserved mine.
The rest of my life, after Tamsin defeats Rook, becomes a blur for a little while.
Rook and I don’t speak. For a while, I make half-hearted attempts at tracking him down.
I text him a few times, but they don’t even get left on read—he simply doesn’t bother to open them.
Next, I try messaging him on one of his social media channels, only to discover that he’s deleted all his accounts.
When I ask Master Silverstein whether Rook has entered witness protection for some top secret crime or if he’s simply trundled off to some corner of East Coast suburbia to die in obscurity, all I get is a stony look and a sigh.
“What?” I’m immediately defensive. “I’m running out of other ideas for what the hell could have happened to the guy.”
I get another sigh for that particular remark.
“Samantha. Lysander has built his entire life around his magical career. He’s pretty much made being undefeated his whole personality.
Put yourself in his shoes for a moment, would you?
Imagine what it’s like to have everything that defines your self-worth shredded inside of ten minutes in front of a sold-out crowd in an unfamiliar city. ”
Silverstein pauses then peers at me sidelong. “Adding to that, imagine that you’ve just had the falling out to end all fallings out with your only friend in the world. Now tell me, would you be super keen on gallivanting around for a lunch date?”
“I didn’t ask for a lunch date, I just want him to answer my texts,” I mutter. I chew on my lower lip, then ask, because I evidently have no self-control to speak of, “Do you really think I was Rook’s only friend in the world?”
Silverstein makes a derisive sound. “I think you were the closest that poor kid was going to get, with the way he was built. No one else his age was ever going to understand him, or his priorities, or his lifestyle, not really. A boy like Lysander Rook is always going to be a magician first and a teenager—a kid—second. It’s always going to hold him apart from his peer group. ”
“Except for me.”
“You know why, right?” Silverstein’s still peering at me with that oddly knowing look in his eyes. “You’re more like Rook than you think, Samantha. Why do you think he took to you after chasing away all his other seconds?”
“I thought I was just crazy enough to take the punishment.”
Silverstein laughs. “And you think being crazy makes you less like Rook? Think again, kid. The pair of you are among the most talented magicians of your age—of any age, if we’re honest—but I’ve never seen two eighteen-year-olds worse at interacting with other eighteen-year-olds.
Comedians could probably write a whole set about it.
Neither of you know how to be normal kids. That’s why you have each other.”
“Had.” I swallow hard.
A hint of sympathy trickles into Silverstein’s expression. “Don’t be so quick to give up on him, Sam. He needs time, is all. And I think you do, too. You’ll find each other again when you’re both ready. You’ve shared too much not to.”
So I give Rook time. I give myself time, too.
Events in the broader magical world unfold almost exactly the way I’d expect.
With Rook suffering a humiliating, one-sided loss at the hands of a nepo kid like Tamsin, the pecking order has shifted overnight.
If Rook decided to stay in the public eye, craft statements, take interviews with the press, maybe it would be different, but he might as well be a ghost now.
As far as the public is concerned, he’s hiding somewhere with his tail tucked between his legs.
How quickly the world turns on you when you’re a god proven mortal after all.
Meanwhile, Tamsin steps neatly into Rook’s old place in the magical pecking order.
She’s the new teenage darling, ranked number one on the dueling circuit.
The world is her oyster. Every promoter wants a piece of her.
Tamsin Blackwood’s face and name are everywhere, suddenly synonymous with precocious youth, success, and power: the very picture of what every budding magician aspires to be.
And I’m the one who’s supposed to topple her. The idea of even trying gives me hives. But I made Tamsin a promise to show up in that arena. I won’t break another promise to that girl. Not after everything I’ve tried to do to her.
Tried and failed.
For what it’s worth, Tamsin keeps her end of our bargain: She does everything in her power to destroy Master Mateus Blackwood in the eyes of magical society.
Tamsin’s rise through the ranks seems to inspire the former nepo kid to give her whole life a makeover.
And, true to her word, Tamsin’s first act as the freshly financially independent teen queen of magical society is to expel Blackwood from her inner circle.
Seemingly overnight, Daddy Dearest gets tossed out with the rest of her old life.
When asked about why she’s decided to part ways with her own blood, Tamsin’s too much of a class act to openly bad-mouth him, but her comparative silence—sprinkled with borderline passive-aggressive platitudes—is, if anything, even more damning.
“I’ll always be grateful to my father for being so generous with his time and energy, and I’m happy to credit him with truly getting me my start as a magician,” she tells eager reporters. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without the foundation he provided for my career in magic. That said—”
And here, she always takes a pause, like she’s truly relishing the moment.
“That said,” continues Tamsin, “as I continued to grow as a magician, my ambitions grew with me. That’s no fault of my dad’s.
Speaking frankly, however, I believe that we eventually grew in different directions.
This was made abundantly clear to me by the very different visions we each expressed for the shape of my career.
Ultimately, I need a second who will be capable of seeing me through some of the biggest dueling events in the world and supporting me fully. ”
She leans forward here, speaking very clearly: “I need someone who truly believes I can win—and knows how to help me become, and remain, a champion among champions.”
The first time I watch her make that statement on some social media reel, I sit with her words for several minutes.
Tamsin was supposed to be my enemy. I couldn’t stand caring about her.
Caring about her meant that Mateus Blackwood was winning.
Every involuntary smile I found myself offering his daughter—every secret glance toward the curve of her body or the glow of her cheeks—was like spitting on Jamie’s grave.
In the four long years I spent plotting against the Blackwoods, it never once occurred to me that Mateus Blackwood’s daughter and I might just be on the same side.
For weeks, I obsessively read through every Tamsin Blackwood interview I can find. I listen to all her podcast guest spots, watch all the social media reels that remix that first sound bite about her departure from the fold of her famous father.
I need someone who truly believes I can win.
Tamsin doesn’t stop there. Mysterious rumors with no clear source begin to circulate with shocking fervor.
People start to whisper about where Mateus Blackwood got his money after retirement.
The back-alley deals. The illegal clubs.
The complicity in all that blood spilled for entertainment behind closed doors, from the veins of those too young and naive to say no.
It’s not long before media outlets start asking Tamsin if she knows anything about all these stories. And when they do, she’s perfectly prepared.
“I never wanted it to be true,” she tells one reporter, tears shining on her cheeks.
“I let myself believe that it couldn’t be true.
He is my father. And I wanted to believe he was a good man.
But the world deserves the truth. I never want Dad to hurt anyone else, ever again.
I’ll do anything to ensure that he doesn’t. ”
She’s the perfect repentant daughter, the martyr willing to give up her own family to protect everyone else’s. The best PR experts in the world couldn’t have written a better script for her if they tried.
It’s not enough to put Mateus Blackwood behind bars.
Just like Tamsin predicted, it’s a war of reputation that she’s waging now—and she wins it easily.
The once famous, well-respected Master Mateus Blackwood is granted no quarter in any legitimate arena.
Other magicians are polite enough to his face, but anyone who knows anything knows what’s said about him behind closed doors.
He’s finally the pariah I’ve always dreamed he’d become.
And I didn’t even have to destroy his daughter to do it. I just had to wait for her to speak her mind.
It should be everything I wanted.
It’s not.
It’s not enough for me.
I can’t explain why. I should be celebrating the downfall of Mateus Blackwood.
I should be ecstatic. I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever wished for since my brother died.
In the four years since losing Jamie, I can’t remember a single day that I haven’t woken up with a hunger inside me.
I’ve craved violence, and hurt, and destruction.
It’s the closest I’ve come to understanding audiences at magic shows, the way they scream for dueling magicians to tear each other apart.
I’ve avenged my brother. Yet I’m still waking up hungry.
I only know one thing that might sate it.