Flicker (19 page)

“N
ot usually,” Nasser said. “I mean, n
ormals do stumble in
every
now and them
, but it’s rare
.”

“How?”

“Sometimes, when you look out of the corner of your eye, you can see straight t
hrough glamour.
It happens more often if you have
a touch of magic.
” He
peered at her
. “D
id that ever happen to you?
”

For a second, Lee hesitated. Then
she
admitted, “
Sometimes.
”

When the boys kept looking at h
er expectantly, she elaborated:

“I’d see
weird things sometimes. P
eople with horns or
wings
. Statues
that followed me with their eyes.
Shadows that danced
around like they were alive.”
Lee
frowned, thinking of just how many of those strange sights she had
passed off as tricks of the light or daydreams
.
“
It never happened when I looked
straight
at something, only when I saw it as I was turning my head or focusing on something else.
When
I looked back,
everything looked fine. I
tried to ignore it. I
always
thought
it was my imagination
.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Nasser took
several fries from the edge of her plate, without seeming to notice that he was doing it. “Don’t worry about that.
It’s
perfectly normal.”

“
That’s
normal?” Lee scoffed.

“To us, anyway,” he
shrugged.
“We’ve always seen weird things.”

* * *

A strong wind was blowing as they stepped out of Ladders; Lee hugged herself, rubbing her arms to warm them as they started up the street
.

“Are you cold?” Nasser aske
d her, starting to pull off his
own
coat.
The old
brown
leather
w
as worn soft and
actually
looked singed in places, making her wonder just what kind of abuse it had withstood.

“Oh, that’s all right—”

But he was already draping the coat over her shoulders
.
It hung on her like a scarecrow, but it did wonders against the cold and it s
melled like Nasser:
musky
and pleasant
. She laughed as she zipped it up.
“Thanks.”

When they finally turned onto East Teric Avenue, Lee recognized the faded Flicker sign.  As Filo’s touch opened the locks, Lee peered through the front window. The place looked muted and mysterious, like another world. A moment later, she followed him inside.

“I guess you can hang around for a few minutes
,” Filo announced, without
quite
looking at
Nasser
. “I
f you want to.”

He stooped to pick up several pieces of paper that apparently had been shoved under the door while they were away. He flipped through them, giving each no more than three seconds of his time, then
stuffed
them all in his pocket.

As Nasser edged into the shop, Lee examined some of the more curious posters that papered the walls. Most advertised circuses and live magic shows. Sh
e peered at the shelves
, inspecting books that threatened to fall loose from their bindings when she picked them up.

She found Nasser by the counter, leafing through a stack of papers.

“
You can have your coat back,” she
offered
, unzipping it.

“Keep it for now.”

“That’s very gentlemanly of you,” she said as she started to smooth her hair, which the wind had pulled in every direction. “But I can’t keep it. It’s yours.”

“
It’s
all right.”
He reached out and carefully brushed a stray strand away from her eyes. Though his fingers barely
grazed
her skin, she felt a tingle of electricity and
, for a moment, the whole room seemed brighter.
“
You can give it back
the next time we see each other.”

“And
when might that be?”

“That depends.
” Shuffling his feet a little, he added,
“
Soon, I hope
.”

She smiled. “Me, too.”
Then, glancing around the shop, she asked, “Hey, where’s Filo?”

“Upstairs, getting some things. I offered to give him a hand, but I guess he doesn’t want me
in the apartment
after what happened yesterday.” He shrugged. “All things considered, I’m lucky he let me
back
in at all.”

She leaned against the counter. “What happened between you two, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“Filo’s been staring daggers at you since you showed up at L
adders. And yesterday—well.” She shrugged. “
Something
happened.”

Nasser hesitated, slightly uncomfortable.

“Well,” he began eventually, “after our
mom
…
died,
Neman
and
Morgan
brought
my brother
Jason and me here, to teach us magic. To teach
me
, really—Jason’s Sightless, so they weren’t really interested in him. When we got here, Filo and Alice had already been at Flicker for years, as long as they could remember.
”

“Who’s Alice?”

“Another apprentice. She and Filo grew up together.”

Lee tried to imagin
e Filo as a child
. “How’d they get here? What about their families?”

“I’m not really sure.” His gaze flickered away from hers, then returned
, like he wasn’t telling all he knew.
“U
ntil we arrived,
Filo and Alice had spoken Old Faerie with
Neman
and Morgan
, for years
. Their English was really rusty
.
We did a lot of pantomiming those first few weeks.”

“But I thought Filo had—what did he call it? The gift of tongues?”

“That’s right,” he confirmed. “
But understanding a language and speaking it are two
different things
.
Besides,
he didn’t trust us at all.
Neman
and
Morgan
hadn’t
exactly
explained that two new apprentices were coming
.
They just woke up one morning, and we were here. He didn’t
want
to talk to us.
We must’ve seemed so strange. We probably
scared him.”

Lee found it difficult to imagine Filo being afraid of anything,
especially of Nasser,
but she didn’t say so.

“Anyway, he finally got so frustrated that he started trying to speak English with us, and translating for Alice,” Nasser went on. “
But it took them
months to
get fluent
.”

Lee nodded, thinking of the smooth, liquid sounds of Old Faerie, more like music than words.
English seemed clu
nky
and difficult
in comparison.
Then she prompted, “So
Neman
and
Morgan
taught you all magic?”

“Sort of.
Jason wasn’t technically an apprentice.
Neman
and
Morgan
just used him as an errand boy, so we all had to teach each other.”

“Were
Neman
and
Morgan
always so
…
” Lee paused, searching for the right word. “Intense? I mean, did they always treat you like they did yesterday?”

“Not always.
Morgan
and Neman
know everything about magic. But they’re not patient, or tolerant of mistakes. They hate disobedience, and they’re quick to punish.”

“They beat you.” It wasn’t a question.

“
Yes.”

“You sound so calm about it.”

He shrugged. “That part of my life
lasted five
years. Not like Filo and Alice.
Neman
and
Morgan
raised
them. They were used to being
beaten and
left alone for days at a time. It was al
l they knew, Lee. They
thought it was
norma
l,
that
they deserved whatever punishments they got. And I think,” he confided, his voice low, “that Filo still sort of feels that way.”

She tried to ignore the memory of yesterday as it rose in her mind: Filo, not resisting when
Morgan grabbed his throat and
struck him, just squeezing his eyes and waiting for her to stop.
It’s been this way for as long as I can remember.

“Only Filo lives here now, though,” she said. “What happened?”

When Nasser spoke, he sounded tired. “
About two years ago,
Neman
and
Morgan
got tired of Jason. They thought he’d never
really
pull his weight. They wanted to get rid of him. I
over
heard them talking about it.”

“What were they going to do?”

“They hadn’t decided.
Abandon him in some faraway woods. Sell him to a
band
of elves for entertainment. Or just kill
him.”

“Are they really that evil?” she gasped.

“Not
evil
,” Nasser said. “
They’re very, very old, Lee. They’re from a different time. It’s just their nature.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“Not at all
,” he agreed.
“
But it’s the way they are. To faeries, humans are just animals. Tools. Sport.”

She shook her head. “That’s awful.”

“That’s the way it is.”

Lee
gripped her elbows. “So you heard th
em talking. Then what
?”

“I left Flicker, and I too
k Jason with me—i
n the middle of the night, when
Neman
and
Morgan
were away. It was all I could think of to do.”

She stared
. “How old were you?”

“Seventeen. Jason was fourteen
.” He must have noticed her e
xpression, because he clarified:
“A little glamour goes a long way. Once you get good at it, you can do more than create visual illusions. You can glamour people into doing things, or believing just about anything you want them to.”

“And by ‘anything,’ you mean
…
?”

He shrugged. “That you’re
an adult
. That the piece of cardboard in your hand is a legal ID. Anything.”

Lee thought of the woman who now
lived in her
house, of how readily she’d volunteered all that infor
mation. Had Filo cast a spell on her, enchanting
her into telling what she knew?

“Weren’t
Neman
and
Morgan
angry with you?”
she asked.

“They were furious. It didn’t matter that we
left
to protect ourselves from
them.
To them, all that mattered was that they were our masters, and we’d betrayed them
by leaving
.”

“I would’ve thought
they might
…
do something t
o you.”

“The way I hear it, they considered killing us as punishment.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if they had.
But in the end, they
decided to
surrender their claim
to
us
, cut all ties
. It’s kind of like being disowned. They were probably just curious to see if we could survive on our own—and we have.
For the last
two
years, we’ve kept out
of their way
, and there hasn’t been any trouble. Up until a few days ago, at least.” He gave her a smile that was half-grimace. “Now I don’t know what will happen.”