“Soon, Child of Man and Woman yet Neither,” she said. “Soon it will begin.”
I was too frozen to do anything but look into her Penglass-blue eyes, full of ancient secrets and sad memories.
“Twenty-two silver marks and six bronze,” Lily declared, drowning out the sound of time and feathers and the voice of the long-dead Chimaera.
I let go of the disc. The damselfly disappeared from the crystal ball. When I took my hand off of the glass of the display case, my handprint remained.
My head throbbed, and my throat hurt from biting back screams.
Maske took out several coins, but also looked at us expectantly. I leaned against the counter. Drystan side-eyed me and reached for our dwindling supply of money. Maske paid Lily and she thanked him cheerily.
Maske tucked the parcels under his arm, lingering near the counter and Lily Verre. “It was my pleasure, Mrs Verre.” To us, he said: “Are you coming back with me or staying in town?”
Drystan and I exchanged a look and nodded, even though I longed to go back to the safety of the theatre. Drystan’s eyes were full of questions I would have to answer.
Maske smiled, as if he hadn’t noticed that I was about to faint. He passed us a spare key and we left him.
The light outside was so bright I closed my eyes. My ragged breathing echoed in my ears.
“Old dog,” Drystan muttered. “Never could resist a pretty face.”
I stumbled.
“Micah? What’s wrong?” Drystan asked, half-carrying me to a secluded alleyway.
“I felt faint all of a sudden,” I said. I didn’t want to tell him about the vision. I didn’t want to admit to him or myself that I was seeing things that didn’t make sense.
“I didn’t eat much at breakfast,” I added, hoping that would explain it. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth. When would I learn?
“Come on,” he said, and he put his arm around my shoulders. I smelled the spicy scent of his skin. I used my weakness as an excuse to lean into him further, comforted by his warmth and nearness.
The streets were quieter than when Aenea and I had come into the city in midsummer. The clouds promised rain. We came upon one of the smaller market squares. The clock tower in the center was carved into an upright dragon, the clock face resting between its half-furled wings. At its base was a puppet show. Near the stage was a food stall, and Drystan bought me some almonds roasted in honey. The sugar melted on my tongue. Drystan stole a couple, the almonds disappearing into his mouth faster than sleight of hand.
We drifted closer to the puppet show. A gaggle of children too young for school sat cross-legged, staring up in delight at the display. It was a shadow play – the puppets were wood carvings, their clothes cut out from colored paper, their paper faces well-painted. The show had already begun, but I recognized the political fairy tale that I loved during my childhood: “
The Prince and the Owlish Man
”. I watched the puppets act out the story against the late summer sun shining through the backdrop, losing myself in the tale to forget what I had just seen and couldn’t explain.
A prophecy foretold that the young Prince Mael of Ellada would one day break into six pieces. To protect him, his mother and father locked him in a tower. He was not allowed to play. All of his possessions were soft and rounded. If he so much as pricked a finger, the greatest surgeon attended him. Prince Mael was watched and guarded by all, and the little boy was miserable.
One day, he was staring out of the window of his tower, watching the sun set. He clasped his hands and made a wish. He promised the Lord and Lady that if he could have his freedom, he would become the greatest king Ellada had ever known and he would go to the fate of his prophecy willingly.
He heard a flutter of wings. When Prince Mael opened his eyes, a young Chimaera perched on his window ledge. He was a youth with the large yellow eyes of an owl, and small feathers tufted his eyebrows. Great wings of banded brown and gray feathers sprouted from his back.
“The Lord of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon have heard your prayer,” the Chimaera said. “I have come to show you your kingdom and your colonies. You shall make friends and foes, you will love and you will hate, and during these ten years, no harm shall befall you. In return, you must promise to listen and learn from all those you come across. After the ten years have passed, you must return to the castle, your reign, and the fate of your prophecy.”
“I swear it.”
The owlish man held out his hand. “Then come.”
And the prince climbed onto his back and they travelled the world for ten years. He saw all of Ellada’s cities. He fell in love with a girl who did not love him back. He saw how the poor suffered, and how the rich profited from them. And then he went to see the rest of the world.
Danger had a way of finding him. A shark nearly devoured him off the coast of Northern Linde. He was kidnapped by bandits in Kymri. He was trapped in a landfall in Byssia. But he always managed to escape lasting harm.
Ten years passed. He had grown from a sheltered boy to a wise man. The day arrived when he must return to the castle and accept his fate.
Upon Prince Mael’s return, his younger sibling abdicated and Mael ruled as king, marrying a beautiful princess.
Many years passed, and no harm befell him. King Mael became one of the most famous kings of Elladan history. He did not break. But he did bend. And when the colonies threatened war, he allowed them to secede. For that was how the prophecy was fulfilled – the Empire of the Archipelago broke into Ellada, Linde, Byssia, Northern Temne, Southern Temne, and Kymri. He lived happily ever after.
Much of the political subtleties were lost on the children, but they delighted in the display of monsters and fighting and the happy ending. They clapped loudly and a man in a dark hood came around the crowd holding a puppet who asked the children for coins.
“That was one of my favorite tales, growing up,” I said.
“Really?” Drystan asked. “It always seemed like so much propaganda to me.”
“I always liked the message of it. King Mael chose to see the world and learn from it. And Mael Snakewood stopped wars.”
Drystan shrugged. “More like he delayed it.” That was so: Ellada had used the threat of Vestige to put the colonies under their rule again after King Mael died.
“That’s true,” I conceded. It had been a game of back and forth for centuries. I didn’t think the former colonies would ever stand for being subjugated again. Ellada no longer had as much Vestige to use and it became an empty threat, and they knew it.
At the corner of the square, a small man wearing a billboard proclaiming “LEAVES FOR ALL” shouted at passers-by as he shoved leaflets in their faces.
“Are you tired of being cold and being hungry? Are you tired of the Twelve Trees of Nobility taking all the water and sunlight from us? Join the Foresters! Make a difference to Ellada!”
The boy caught sight of us and stomped over, pushing a flyer into our hands. “Make a difference,” he whispered, impassioned. He trotted back to his stand and took up his place again.
On the flyer, the stylized image of the man from my vision stared back at me. The man overlaid on the angry, shouting crowd. My breath hitched in my throat.
“What’s wrong?” Drystan asked.
“Who’s this?”
“That’s Timur. The leader of the Foresters. No one ever sees him in person.”
I shook my head and threw the flyer into a nearby bin.
When we turned around, two policiers stood before us. For a moment, I gaped at them, with their dark, pressed uniforms, their shining brass buttons, the guns holstered nonchalantly at their sides.
And then I remembered who I was supposed to be. The Glamour pressed against my sternum, buzzing softly.
“Sun’s blessing,” I managed with a smile and a passable Temri accent.
The policiers stared at me with a slight curl to their lips. It made me feel uncomfortable and small. I could barely breathe. They didn’t seem to recognize me or Drystan. I schooled my face into blank, polite interest.
“Can we help you, gentlemen?” Drystan asked in that same, bland politeness.
“No, I don’t believe so,” one said, genially enough, but still they lingered. My forehead dampened with sweat.
“Well, good day to you, sirs,” I said, nodding and smiling at them, though I avoided eye contact with them. They nodded back and bid us good morning, but they trailed us as we made our way across the square. We pretended to peruse the window of a second-hand bookstore.
“They know. They know!” I hissed under my breath.
“No,” Drystan said, his voice sad. He still kept the Temnian accent, just in case, and I made sure to do the same. When we left the square, they tailed off.
“They thought we were Temnian,” Drystan said. “The disguise worked too well.”
Relief flared for the briefest of moments before it clicked into place. We looked Temnian. We looked foreign. And many distrusted those who were not born on Elladan soil. “Those bastards. We weren’t doing a thing.”“They’d probably do the same to anyone they thought was Byssian or Kymri, too.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” Even as a runaway policiers hadn’t looked at me with such scorn. And as Iphigenia Laurus, I could have very well passed those two as I took a stroll in the park with my mother, and they would have tipped a hat to me.
We picked our way back home, and I was silent, lost in thoughts.
He paused, considering me. “You’ve never noticed this? There’s a reason the tumblers didn’t go into town much. Wasn’t worth the hassle.”
My stomach flipped. “No,” I whispered. “I never noticed.”
Drystan rested a hand on my shoulder. The sky opened, drenching us with rain. We half-ran the rest of the way back to the Kymri Theatre. When we stood, dripping in the corridor, I snapped the lock shut with a clunk.
6
MOONS, CLOUDS, SUNS, STARS
“I could list every magic trick in the book, and in intricate, infinite detail describe the reveal behind each one. And you could understand it. But that does not mean you are a magician. It means you know a few tricks. For a trick without context is only a fold of the fingers or a tuck of a prop up a sleeve.
“I could teach you how to switch objects. A clown may pass a cloth over a false bird and bring it away to show a live, cooing dove to delight a sideshow. But a charlatan soothsayer may perform the same trick using misdirection to change the sacrifice of a live crow for a dead one covered in maggots. The same trick for different purposes, with very different results in the audience.
“There is no one way to be a magician any more than there is only one way to be human.”
The Secrets of Magic, The Great Grimwood
“Are you ready to begin?”
Maske held up a deck of cards.
We nodded.
The cards clacked together as he bridged them effortlessly. Maske brought his arms wide, a trail of cards following his hands. Flashes of red and black, the numbers jumbling together. He did it again, and I searched for hidden threads. He shuffled the cards in different ways, tumbling sections over each other; interlacing them and snapping them smartly back into a pack. The cards danced over his fingertips into circles and “S” shapes, each move flowing to the next without hesitation.
He fanned the cards, face down. “Pick a card,” he said, flashing us a magician’s smile. “Any card.”
My fingertips hovered over the deck. The edges of the cards were well-thumbed, the silhouettes of the rampant dragons on the back faded. I touched the back of one card.
He held it up for Drystan and me to see, turning its face away from him.
I had chosen the ace of stars. I nodded and Maske shuffled the card back into the deck. He placed the pack upon his outstretched hand. The other hand hovered above the deck, and the top card levitated between his hands. He held it for us to see.
“Is this your card?” he asked.
The ace of stars. Amazed, I nodded.
He returned the card to its siblings and fanned the cards again. “Drystan. Pick a card. Any card.”
Drystan selected one, tilting it to me. The six of clouds. Back into the pack it went. After more showy shuffles, Maske showed us the deck again, face up.
“Where is your card?”
We searched for the six of clouds, but could not see it. When we shook our heads, Maske opened his mouth and drew out a card. He passed it to us. Drystan took it with no small amount of trepidation, but the six of clouds was quite dry.
We clapped. He gave a little bow.
“What I showed you will not be easy to learn. For it is not just the manipulation of cards,” he said, shuffling with various flourishes, “but having the instinct. And that cannot be entirely taught. Knowing how long to pause, what you say and how you say it, your body language, the confidence… all of this is what completes the illusion. Take an aspect away, and the magic is lost.”
His demeanor changed. He stood stiff as an automaton, shuffling mechanically. He held up a card – the two of suns – and put it back. He fumbled. And in that hesitation, I saw how the trick was done. I met Maske’s gaze, and he saw my understanding and was pleased.
“We start with cards, coins and other small objects: sleight of hand, or prestidigitation. This is where magic begins. You come from rich families – surely you have had a magician at a birthday party or something of the sort?”
I shook my head, but Drystan nodded.
“And what sorts of things did these magicians do at these parties?” he asked.
“Card tricks, coin tricks, cups and balls, things with billiard balls, eggs, flowers…” Drystan trailed off, trying to remember others.
“Exactly. Close up magic uses everyday objects and does something extraordinary with them. With grand illusion and séances, you can distract with great bursts of light, or darkness, but you cannot do that so easily with something so innocuous. It’s all in your fingers.”