Shadowplay (23 page)

As I scurried back to the loft, Cyan poked her head out of the door.

I opened my mouth, but she said, “I know.”

“Does Lily care for him?” I asked. “I don’t want him hurt.”

“I don’t either. But if you think she’s talkative, then you haven’t heard her mind. So much noise I can’t pick out a thread, but sometimes I pick up emotions. And she glows when she’s around him.”

“Good. I’m going to tell Amon.” I grinned at her and dashed up the stairs.

 

Maske refused to mention the incident, pointedly ignoring our titters over breakfast. Soon, we had other things on our mind. That night, we went to see the competition: Taliesin’s grandchildren at the Specter Show.

Maske came with us. The large Specter Show theatre was half filled. It was not the week’s end, and most laborers would not be paid for another few days.

The light dimmed and music from a gramophone played with a pop and a hiss. My stomach dipped with the same excitement as before I watched the circus on that last day of spring. The curtains pulled back and the first twin entered the stage. I could not tell if it was Sind or Jac. He was soon followed by the other. They gave a short bow and launched into the tricks, aided by their assistant, a girl with curly brown hair and long legs.

As the show progressed, excitement twisted to dread in my stomach. The Taliesin brothers were talented. Their patter was witty, weaving in topical commentary, from the political upheaval of the Forester protests to the Princess Royal’s birthday to the upcoming festivities of the Night of the Dead and Lady’s Long Night. They started with small tricks – scarves appearing from sleeves, opening a closed palm to reveal a live butterfly fluttering away – before rolling out a spirit cabinet and having their assistant disappear. I breathed a small sigh of relief that she did not appear as she did in our tricks, but having her drop down to the stage from a rope from the gridiron above was dramatic all the same.

They continued to abuse their poor assistant, sawing her in half and then quarters, levitating her and then having her disappear in a shower of sparks. Though I thought I could figure out many of the tricks, some of them eluded me.

The Taliesin brothers chose volunteers from the audience and performed mentalist tricks. They guessed how many siblings they had, what objects would be in their pockets, the name of an uncle that had died.

“They’re planted,” Cyan whispered into my ear. “Talented actors.”

After the intermission, the brothers raised a phantasmagoria, telling a story through images projected from a magic lantern onto a shifting canvas of smoke. Skeletons and hooded figures trailed along the smoke. The Night of the Dead had come early.

“Once, old man Styx came to the world himself to collect the dead,” one said.

A large hooded figure with a scythe emerged onto the vapor.

“He would take the dead one by one in his robe to the River Styx, where the good would cross to the twilight lands by gentle waters and the wicked would sink to the dark currents below before returning to the land of the living. As they passed through him, they forgot all they were and all they had ever been. Each life was a blank slate, as it is for us now.”

Men and women swam in a great, swirling river that undulated on the shifting canvas.

The brother changed the slide. “A woman decided to trick Death. She sought the help of a Chimaera wizard, who gave her a spell so that she would remember who she was when she passed through the river.”

A Naga, a snake man, gathered a great ball of energy, which moved toward an older woman bent with age. Death came and held his cloak open, and she moved into his embrace.

“When she crossed through, she remembered all those many lives. And she knew if she returned to another life, she would forget it all again. So she stayed in the river.

“This upset the balance. Because of Death’s error, the Lord of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon forbid him from coming to earth to collect souls. Now, we find our own way to the river, but we all find it in the end.”

The smoke swirled into darkness and the gaslights rose. The magician’s assistant stood on the stage, wearing a white wig. The other brother stood in a dark robe. The “old” woman shimmered with the light of her “spell”. She ran at the hooded Death. Death held its robe open to her and when they met, they both disappeared.

Applause deafened my ears as the curtains closed. They opened again to show the two Taliesin twins, their assistant between them. They lifted their joined hands and bowed before the curtains fell.

 

As people rose to leave the theatre, Maske scowled, and I didn’t need to look at Cyan to know that the last trick was related to the dress he had shown us. Maske’s fingers twitched, as though he were already drawing new diagrams to make his illusion better.

“Are you alright?” I asked him as we threaded our way through the seats.

“I will be when we beat Taliesin,” he said, and I reeled from the heat in his voice. “He knew that trick was one of my favorites.”

I rested a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll beat him, Maske. I promise.”

“I hope you’re right.” He twirled his hat in his hand. “I’m going to see Lily.”

We nodded, and he gave us a curt farewell before heading off, his shoulders slumped.

Cyan, Drystan and I waited near the backstage. We spoke to the stagehand and told him who we were. After a wait that was long enough to border on rude, we were led backstage. We wanted to speak to our competition. Cyan would try to see if they planned to cheat.

The Taliesin brothers lounged in their dressing room, their bowties loosened and their shirtsleeves rolled to their elbows. They regarded us coolly.

Cyan took a step back from them, as if their thoughts repelled her.

Which is which?
I thought at Cyan.

Pencil Dick is on the left and Styxhead is on the right,
she shot back at me.

I sent a wordless burst of surprise and affront.

I “heard” rueful laughter.
Sind’s on the left and Jac’s on the right. They think I’m beautiful. But in a skin-crawling way. They’re both imagining me undressed.

I sent her the mental equivalent of “eugh!”

“So,” Sind drawled. “You’re the magicians we’re to thrash in a few months’ time?”

“We’re your opponents, sure enough,” Drystan said, and Sind’s attempt at dryness was
nothing
compared to his. He was the White Clown, even if he spoke with the Temri accent of Amon.

“I think I’ve seen enough,” Jac said. Neither of them bothered to rise.

Drystan leaned forward until he was uncomfortably close to them. “I think you two need your arrogance brought down a peg or two. I’ll be happy to oblige in a few months.”

I let Drystan handle this. I became flustered in a fight and never knew what to say. This hadn’t served me well in the circus, nor as a noble’s daughter.

The brothers rose, and Drystan faced them. Sind and Jac’s hands were balled into fists. Drystan’s were lax at his sides, but he stood in a tumbler’s ready stance.

“You three will never beat us, and we’ll see to that,” Jac said, his face twisted into a snarl. “We’ve only just started performing, but we were born for the stage.”

“And we were born to win,” Drystan said. “Believe me, you have no idea who you two are tangling with.” His face was perfectly calm, but his eyes scared even me. It was the face I had seen when he struck Bil with the cane. That stillness when we found out about Shadow Elwood. I forced my head high.
Show no fear
.

“Get out of here before we bloody that pretty face of yours,” Sind growled.

Drystan batted his eyelashes. “Oh, you think I’m pretty, do you?”

Sind swung his fist. Drystan dodged it easily and jabbed Sind in the throat, just hard enough to make him sputter and drop back. Jac jumped in next, but they were magicians, not brawlers. They were no match for Drystan and his tumbler’s reflexes. Within moments, they were both on the ground, gasping, with Cyan and I looking on in amazement.

“We’ll see you in three months,” Drystan said. “And I expect the result of the wager will be much the same as tonight.” He left, and we followed.

 

After returning from visiting Lily, Maske didn’t emerge from his workshop all night. He fought his own demons there, trying to solve them with diagrams and equations.

When Drystan and I were in the quiet of the loft, I didn’t ask him about the altercation with the Taliesin twins. I knew his anger hadn’t really been about them. He still felt powerless over the thoughts of the deaths against his name. He had a bit of power over the Taliesins, two boys as rotten as overripe plums. I gave him a long, wordless hug and went to my bed.

I licked my lips in the darkness. It would feel good to beat Taliesin and his twins.

 

19

THE BLUE LIGHT

 

The Blue Light, by Micah Grey

 

The next morning, Maske was in the kitchen drafting a revision of the winged woman trick, drawing the delicate cogs of the machinery onto the checked paper.

Cyan and Drystan and I opened the books Maske had left out for us for that day’s lessons.

“Séances?” I asked as Drystan passed me a cup of coffee. I smiled at him gratefully as I cupped the warm mug in my hands. Ricket trotted into the kitchen, demanding food, and Drystan obliged.

“We need capital. My séances alone aren’t enough, especially after all the repairs on the theatre. It’s been long enough that I think you two will be safe to perform them. I had to pawn a few things yesterday before we went to that Specter Show, and I’d like to avoid doing that as much as possible.”

“What did you pawn?” I asked, curious.

“Old Vestige. I used to collect it. A lot of it’s not functional or low on power, but I hate to part with it.” I wondered if he ever pawned the illegal Vestige he owned, or if it hadn’t come to that yet.

“Is there a lot of Vestige in the theatre?” Cyan asked, twisting the end of her braid around her fingers.

“A fair amount,” Maske said evasively.

“Hmm,” she said. I looked at her questioningly.

Well, that is… interesting
, I thought.

“The Night of the Dead approaches,” Maske said. “I want us to begin séances at least two weeks beforehand, in pairs. One to perform at the table, and another to perform behind the scenes.”

I shivered. The Night of the Dead was the night before the Long Night of the Lady, the longest night of winter. The Night of the Lady represented the hope of a turning point – that longer days and spring would return.

The Night of the Dead symbolized lost hope. Some say the currents of Styx that trapped the dead could flow back through the world and the dead could walk among us.

It was a night for séances.

Cyan met my gaze. She did not have to read my mind to know what I was thinking – with her in our midst, we were sitting on a goldmine. We had a Vestige crystal ball, and numerous other small artifacts we could spirit away in our pockets. If we went to the house of any rich merchants or nobles, they would be sure to have collections of their own. All Cyan needed to do was ask them to picture the dead person they wished to speak to in their mind.

I pretended to read from one of the books of séance as I pondered the implications.

She looked up.
What?

She kept her composure, but only just.

There was a long silence as my heart thundered in my throat. I was speaking to a girl with my mind as Drystan and Maske sat at the table with us, none the wiser. She read my mind and spoke back to me. None of it was my own ability as far as I could tell. But even so, it was extraordinary.

He’s much better at secrets than I am,
I thought wryly.

Her laughter echoed inside my skull.

I hid a smile of my own, but I was relieved. I could tell Drystan. The secret was eating away at me. I had lost Aenea from the little threads of lies that spiraled into a web and caught us. I knew I did not want to lose Drystan.

That evening, after lessons, I pleaded taking a chill and announced I was going to study in bed until teatime.

“Of course,” Maske said. “We’ll start practicing in earnest tomorrow.” He rubbed his face with his hands, tired. He was doing séances three nights a week, and spent hours and hours in his workshop or instructing us on magic tricks. He was patient, never snapping even when we kept making the same silly mistake over and over again, or dissolving into a fit of giggles. But he was tired.

I crept upstairs with my séance book. I tucked myself into bed, but could not concentrate. Setting my book aside, I held the disc that contained Anisa. Had it really been weeks since I had spoken to her? I sensed she was waiting for me to let her out again, to learn more. She possessed so many answers, if only I could ask for them…

My eyes grew heavy.

Drystan’s tread on the stairs woke me up. I slid the disc under the pillow.