Chapter 22 Sam #2
“Sure doesn’t hurt. But hey, we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you.” Rook’s voice shifts slightly like he’s trying a little too hard to be casual but not quite succeeding. “Is it true? You’re going to duel Tamsin Blackwood?”
“Yep. She’s issued a formal challenge and everything.”
“And you said yes.”
“Honestly? I don’t think I could have brought myself to say no.”
“Why?” Rook sounds hunted. “You feel like you need to avenge my loss to her or something?”
“No, actually.” I blink at the shock of truth in my own words. “But I think I owe her this duel. And— Lysander, I can’t explain it. But I also think that maybe I owe myself this duel, too.”
Rook is silent for so long that for a precious few seconds, I think he’s hung up on me. Then he says, quietly, in another voice, one I’ve never heard him use before, “Come see me.”
I laugh, more out of surprise than anything else. “I have no idea where you live these days. You didn’t answer any of my earlier messages.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I needed to get…settled.”
“And you’re settled now?”
“You could say that.” He pauses, then says, “I’m going to text you an address. We can meet up this weekend.” Another pause. “You know, if that works for you.”
“Lysander Rook, so polite all of a sudden.”
“Like I said. I’m turning over a new leaf.”
I shake my head slowly, even though I know he can’t see me. “You know, I might actually be starting to believe you.”
“Good. This weekend, then?” He actually sounds nervous.
I close my eyes again. And before I can think better of it, “Sure. This weekend. I’ll come see you.”
When I arrive at the address Rook texted me, I think I’ve made a wrong turn at first. It’s a cute little walk-up in an equally cute little suburb, about ten minutes from the nearest train station into the city proper.
It’s the kind of place with an aesthetic I’d associate more strongly with bubbly, bright-smiled young women in sundresses than, well, Rook.
It’s not a bubbly girl in a sundress who greets me at the door, though.
“Sammy.” The boy who opens the door looks me slowly up and down.
I do the same to him. He’s still recognizably Lysander Rook, but his whole energy is different.
If you told me Lysander Rook had a secret identical twin this whole time who’d murdered him and taken his place, I might actually believe you in this moment.
A cleaner-cut, brighter-faced twin. A twin who, despite saying all of one word to me so far, just seems so much less haunted than the boy I once knew.
“You look good,” says the Rook-shaped boy at the door. He sticks his hands in his jeans pockets.
“So do you,” I tell him. It’s true. Rook—or Rook’s secret twin slash clone, I’m still not fully convinced it’s really Rook—has gotten a different haircut, a shorter one, that makes him look more approachable.
He’s in a simple white tee and jeans, but there’s not a smudge or stain in sight—shocking for the white tee, particularly—and most notably, he doesn’t smell like cigarette smoke anymore.
He must notice me sniffing the air because he chuckles. “I quit smoking, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
My eyebrows climb. “Damn, princess. What happened to ‘the principle of the thing is bullshit’?”
He chuckles. “I never said it wasn’t. But there’s more important stuff to worry about than gassing out during a magicians’ duel. Lung cancer, for example.” He wrinkles his nose. “Also, I never really liked the smell, if I’m honest. Couldn’t get it out of my laundry worth a damn.”
I chew that over for a few seconds. “You really weren’t kidding about turning over a new leaf.”
“No, I wasn’t.” An awkward pause descends between us. Rook’s hands fidget, like he’s not sure what to do with them when they’re not playing with a lighter. Or twirling a cigarette. Or planting a magically enhanced fist into an opponent’s belly.
“You wanna come inside?” asks Rook.
I do.
Rook’s place is quaint and modest but charming, all exposed brick and clearly recently restored appliances. He sets out steaming mugs of coffee for us both on the tiny kitchen table. I’m surprised at how good mine is when I take a sip. “Wow. Forget magic. You could turn pro at this.”
He laughs. “Oh, I did, actually.”
I almost drop the mug. “Excuse me?”
“Turned pro at coffee. Well, sort of.” He scratches the back of his head, looking uncharacteristically bashful.
“I’ve got a gig as a barista at a local coffeeshop in town, among other side hustles.
The pay is…well, it’s not money I’m gonna retire on, but all things considered, it’s actually pretty decent when you count the tips.
Definitely, like, way more generous than market value. ”
I stare at him. “You’re…a barista.”
Rook shrugs. “I also walk dogs.”
I keep staring. Maybe there’s something to my twin theory from earlier. Or my clone theory. Either or, really.
“It’s a good life,” says Rook, almost defensively.
I glance around the premises. It’s not a McMansion, by any means, but it’s nice. Nicer than I’d expect for the kind of work Rook describes. “And you afford all this by…making coffee and walking dogs.”
“Hey, now, I’ll have you know that walking dogs pays more than you’d expect! Especially rich people’s dogs. Better than most magicians get paid, in fact.”
I snort. “Now that I do believe.”
“I’ve also got a couple of roommates—not that they’re rich, either. One’s a freelance musician slash violin teacher, the other one works for a nonprofit. We split the cost.”
I try to picture Rook with roommates. For so long, I was used to being the only person in his life. “Do you like them? Like, do you guys get along?”
“Eh, I don’t know if I’d call us friends, but they’re good guys. Maybe louder than I’d like, but friendly, and they keep the place clean, and the rent here is low.”
“And what do they think of rooming with the mighty Lysander Rook?”
“Are you kidding?” Rook laughs again, this time laced with true mirth. “Neither of them know shit about the magical world, except that it’s splashy and violent and sometimes gets turned into memes on social media.”
A strangely dreamy expression settles over Rook’s face.
“Neither of my roommates know who I am. All they know is that I used to be a magician and now I make coffee and walk dogs instead, which seems like a pretty reasonable life choice to both of them. Hell, I’m pretty sure at least one of them still thinks a dueling magician is the same thing as, like, those corny stage magicians that suburban parents hire to pull rabbits out of top hats at little kids’ birthday parties. ”
I wince. “Ouch.”
“It’s nice actually. They don’t know anything about the rules of dueling, or the kind of training we do, or who’s who in the dueling circuit rankings. It’s…well, I don’t know what else to call it but ‘nice.’ Relaxing, maybe. Or chill. Something like that”
“Chill?” I echo disbelievingly. “You, Lysander Rook, are embracing chill?”
Rook sighs. “Listen, Sammy. I know this all probably seems really…weird to you. It was weird to me, too, at first, having a life without magic in it.”
“You don’t practice magic anymore?” I blurt out. A pang goes through my heart that I don’t quite understand. “Magic was everything to you. You said it yourself. Magic was your whole life.”
Rook sighs again. “Yeah. Magic was my whole life. Do you know how happy that life was?”
I frown. “You were the best at what you did.”
“Sure, I was the best,” allows Rook. “That was important to me, being the best, so I won’t argue with you on that front.”
He begins to pace around his little kitchen.
“But do you know what being the best at magic cost me? How much time I spent obsessing over remaining the best? All the dark places my mind went whenever I thought about the possibility of losing? Let me ask you something, Sammy.” He leans forward slightly across the kitchen countertop.
“Did I seem…I don’t know, content to you?
Like, was I happy, really, consistently happy?
Not just the ten-minute elation if I won a duel against someone impressive—like, someone who’d improve my ranking or earn me a fat purse—before I put my nose back to the grindstone? ”
I don’t have a good answer for that. Rook’s moods have always been so mercurial, I’ve seen him cycle from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows—and back again—in the space of twelve hours or less.
But one word I’d never use to describe him was content.
He couldn’t be. He was never satisfied with anything—too much of a perfectionist, and even at the pinnacle of his skill, too paranoid about having his throne toppled.
Now that his worst fear has come true, I’ve never seen him look better, honestly.
“Right now,” I tell him, “you look happier—more content—than I ever saw you when I was your second.” I swallow. “I’m sorry.”
“Aw, Sam.” Rook suddenly looks awkward and a little sad.
“Don’t be. Really. All that shit that went down in New York—I didn’t see it this way at the time, obviously, but I think it had to all fall apart the way it did, you know?
I needed to hit rock bottom before I could pick myself back up and figure my shit out.
Which meant that—at least for a little while—I had to believe that I’d lost you. ”
“You didn’t,” I whisper. The back of my throat burns as my eyes go hot.
The side of his mouth quirks upward. “Clearly not.”