Chapter 23 Tamsin
Tamsin
I can’t decide on a dueling robe to wear.
It’s a ridiculous problem to get hung up on at a time like this.
But it’s all my brain wants to focus on.
Do I want the midnight blue with the pale gold trim?
Is that too plain—and would I look better and more striking in the crimson with the floral embroidery across the collar and shoulders?
Oh, but then I might look like I’m trying too hard, so maybe a good third option would be an all-black classic, even though the fit of my own black dueling robe is slightly off around my hips and bust.
I know, intellectually, that Samantha Chan is the last person who’d give a damn what her opponent wears to a duel. But clothing—my outward appearance in general, to the extent that I can control it—has always been armor for me.
I settle on midnight blue.
Déjà vu settles into my bones as I run through my warm-up exercises backstage.
The last time I ran through a pre-duel warm-up, I was about to take on the most famous opponent I’d ever faced.
I didn’t think anything could feel like a bigger deal to me than sharing a sold-out New York arena with Lysander Rook.
Yet here I am, fretting over an unranked magician and worrying that she won’t think I’m pretty enough or, alternately, serious enough if I wear the wrong dueling robe.
I want to scream.
“You ready to go, Tamsin?”
I don’t quite start, but I come embarrassingly close.
I’m still not used to having a second in my corner who isn’t also my father.
I picked Rachel Ortega because she was the exact kind of plainspoken, bullish, no-nonsense magician least likely to remind me of him.
She refuses to accept two positions as both second and arcane master (“That’s too much for any reasonable human being to take on for one person,” she insists, “and besides, I’m too damn poor—I don’t run a training arena”) but has been gamely helping me interview several options and set up opportunities for me to tour the training arenas they run.
She’s vetted them all herself to ensure that all my new candidates are well-qualified.
Ortega’s done a good job. All the arcane masters she’s hand-picked are smart and sturdy and experienced.
And most importantly, none of them currently or previously ran illegal underground dueling clubs.
My new second and I are still getting used to each other, though—as evidenced by the faint confusion on her face as I stare blankly at her.
“I’m ready,” I finally manage.
“You sure?” Ortega doesn’t look convinced.
She’s a stout, well-built woman in her late thirties who never turned pro on the dueling circuit herself but boasts some impressive amateur results, coupled with a respectable history of helping arcane masters produce a series of accomplished champions.
“I can stall the ref if you need me to.”
I shake my head. “I want to get this done.”
Ortega sighs. “Try to sound a little more excited.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s your first title defense as the top-ranked magician on the circuit.” She purses her lips at me in a decidedly schoolmarm manner. “You know how many people would kill to be where you are? Try to enjoy it.”
“It’s a lot of pressure,” I point out.
“Sure. But to quote one Billie Jean King, pressure is a privilege. You know that, right? Pressure is something you’ve earned.” She claps me on the shoulder. “So try and bask in it at least a little, champ.”
Pressure is a privilege. Pressure is a privilege.
Pressure is a privilege. I whisper it like a mantra in my head as I step out into the arena.
I’m immediately deafened by the roar of the crowd.
They’re all screaming for me now. Barely months ago, it was Lysander Rook they were screaming for, and I was just some nepo kid whose surname had screwed up their betting odds.
I was so envious of him. So convinced that he must be living the dream, with his name in lights and the likes of Samantha Chan playing his second.
Now, Samantha Chan is my opponent. And for the first time, I think I actually, truly, honest-to-goodness feel bad for Rook. Not the present-day Rook who’s fled the dueling circuit, but the champion among champions. The one who used to answer the audience’s screams. The one expected to win it all.
I wonder if he thought pressure was a privilege, too. Or if he just wanted to bury his head and hide in the sand. I wonder if disappearing into anonymity was what he wanted, deep at heart, all along.
Another roar erupts from the crowd when my opponent steps up on to the arena stage to meet me.
I blink a few times. Sam is still recognizably Sam, but there’s something different about her today.
She dresses for dueling the same way she dresses for everything else: plainly and without airs.
She, unlike me, did opt for a plain black dueling robe and not an especially fashionable one.
The plain, boxy cut suits her, the same way those oversize hoodies do.
But she’s carrying herself differently. There’s something about her stride or maybe the set of her shoulders that feels a world apart from the frequently forgotten second that so many of Rook’s old opponents overlooked.
You couldn’t overlook this version of Sam if you tried—even in her plain dueling robes and simple ponytail.
It’s all about the aura she’s projecting.
This version of Sam is nobody’s second. She’s the champion she always could have been. The only question that remains is whether she’s willing to step up to that potential.
My job is to stop her.
I twist my head around to the corner where my new second sits. “Hey, Rachel?”
Ortega’s at my side in an instant. “What is it?”
“No, no, it’s nothing bad, don’t worry.” I smile, shaking my head. “I just…”
“Just what?”
“I think I get it now,” I tell her. “What you said, about pressure being a privilege.”
She grins at me. “Yeah? Good.”
“Pressure is a privilege,” I repeat. “And I want to wipe this arena clean with Samantha Chan.”
“Really?” Ortega laughs. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were in love with this girl.”
Once upon a time, that insinuation might have made me blush.
Now I just grin back at my second. “Maybe I am. Or maybe I’m in love with magic.
Hell, maybe I’m in love with them both.” I turn to face the ref as he prepares to signal the duel’s official start.
“And maybe that’s the real point of it all. ”