Shadowplay

by Laura Lam

  I darted forward, clutching the disc in shaking hands. “Stop sending us dreams and visions without warning. Stop speaking in riddles. Or I won’t call you out, and I won’t help you.”

  “Oh, but you will, little Kedi.” She smiled beatifically. “You will.”

  I pressed the button savagely. She disappeared, and I went to Cyan. She folded into my arms, and I held her as she cried. “I’m sorry,” I said, over and over. “I’m so sorry.”

  22

  THE NIGHT OF THE DEAD

  “On the Night of the Dead, the dead come out to play.

  On the cold, dark wind of winter, they come to stay,

  They whisper to remind us before the light of day:

  You will join us one day.”

  Elladan children’s rhyme about the Night of the Dead.

  Blissful routine followed over the next few weeks, and I sank into it gratefully.

  Mornings were for magic lessons, early afternoons for constructing the apparatuses and costumes, and late afternoons were for séance work. I cemented my role as a stagehand. If both Cyan and I were at the same table during a séance, visions plagued us, though we broke physical contact before they could take hold. Anisa kept her visions away, or so we thought, but all Vestige seemed to contain echoes of their past. Whenever we went to Twisting the Aces, I avoided the whispers just out of earshot that came from the display cabinet. We returned the Augur to its rightful place as I began to feel uneasy around it. As far as we knew, Maske never knew we had temporarily borrowed it. Even the Glamour felt uncomfortable next to my skin, and I was glad I didn’t have to wear it as often anymore.

  Cyan and I agreed not to talk about what happened between us in her room. It reminded us too painfully of our differences, and the fact that we had no idea what Anisa planned. We focused on the stage magic to distract ourselves from the real kind.

  But that did not mean that thoughts did not plague me. Scattered among the many magic books in Maske’s study were a fair few about ancient magic and antiquities. I had never looked at them – too afraid of what I might discover, perhaps. But I couldn’t keep running away. I took down a book by an author I recognized: Professor Mikael Primrose, the husband of the famous Lady Primrose, on etiquette.

  After the long days of study and work, I studied more, pouring over the dense text. We knew so little. Already from Anisa’s visions I had a clearer context of the relationships between the Alder and the Chimaera and what life for them was like. Already I knew that Vestige was far more powerful than we had ever dreamed.

  Professor Primrose still taught me a thing or two. He held many postulations on Penglass – that it was created from the same substance as their ships, which I could confirm from my vision of Anisa in the garden. He thought that the Alder had left and taken the Chimaera with them, and that humans chose to stay. But soon after they left, a tragedy had struck the earth. Smoke scorched the sky and most of the world drowned beneath the waves. I had the feeling that the Alder had still been involved in that in some way.

  For though I knew more than most about Chimaera, the Alder were still an enigma. Many times, I considered asking Anisa, but I still feared her and feared what she would ask of me in return for her answers. Everything seemed to have a price.

  I dreamed of that ancient Lindean forest many nights, but I did not think Anisa sent the dreams to me. In them, I loved the forest, with its primordial feeling of age and power and life. I prowled through the jungle on all fours, content that I was the king of my domain. Nothing could hunt me.

  Maske came in late one afternoon after going to the auctioneers to sell another of his precious Vestige automata. He showed it to us before he left – a mermaid, her skin a luminous brown, her hair cropped close to her skull, and eyes dark as coal. Her neck had little gills, and small fins sprouted on the backs of her forearms and along her spine. The mermaid’s tail was an emerald green, and she wore a heavy necklace of shells and stone that did not quite cover her breasts. Maske said that if he switched the lever on her back she could swim underwater, but Maske did not wish to use any more power before selling her, not even to see her swim one last time.

  “She’s lovely,” I said.

  “So she is,” Maske said, stroking her face with the back of a fingernail before wrapping her in cloth and sliding her into the case. “Another woman I’ve abandoned, eh?” He said it with a smile cracked with sadness.

  “What do Taliesin’s automata look like?” I asked, remembering him mentioning that he’d never sold those. Maske hesitated, but in the end he came down with a little tortoise. I could tell it was not Vestige – the limbs were articulated, and I could see the seams between the painted tin of the shell. When he switched it on, it moved well enough, though jerkily, and I could hear the mechanisms within. It was still a clever bit of machinery. With a sigh, Maske tucked Taliesin’s tortoise away and left for the pawnshop.

  When he returned, no sadness remained. He held a letter aloft as he entered the library where Cyan, Drystan and I were having biscuits and tea as we studied.

  He placed the creamy sheet of paper on the table between us. His face was flushed, flakes of snow on his coat and hat.

  “We have an invitation to our first séance and private magic show of note,” he said, nearly bouncing on his heels like an excited child.

  We had performed a few séances, small ones for Maske’s more regular clients. Cyan had proved a great success. Evidently word travelled fast, or perhaps the Collective of Magic had a hand in it. They were doing everything they could to push publicity for our duel – printing lithographic posters and taking out ads in the newspapers for an event that was still two months away.

  “Of note?” Cyan echoed.

  “Look.”

  I read the invitation:

  Mr Jasper Maske and his Marionettes:

  You are cordially invited to entertain with a night of séance and magic at the residence of Lord and Lady Elmbark on the 21st of Dalan, the Night of the Dead. Kindly provide your response by week’s end.

  Cordially yours,

  Mr Edgar Nautica, Head Butler of the Elmbark Residence

  “Wow,” I breathed. “The Elmbarks are a prestigious family.” Cyan looked at me blankly, but Drystan’s jaw muscles tightened. I felt similar to Drystan. I had once dined at the Elmbark residence with my parents and Cyril after going to the opera in Imachara.

  But I remembered the Hornbeams were much friendlier with the Elmbarks. Drystan had probably been to their estate in the Emerald Bowl. He would have played with their son, Harry, who was about the same age. Harry’s younger brother, Tomas, was Cyril’s age.

  “Who else will be there?” Drystan asked, his voice terse.

  “I asked the messenger about the guest list and, with but a small parting of coin, he was happy to gossip.” A small smile of triumph curled on Maske’s lips.

  “Oh, was he now?” Cyan asked, delighted. Drystan and I, by contrast, clutched the edges of the table in dread.

  “The Lord and Lady Elmbark will be inviting some very important guests: Lady Rowan, Lord Cinnabari, Lady Laurus, and the Royal Physician himself, who has just returned from abroad. A few others as well, but the man did not remember the names.”

  My eyes burned – I was so surprised I had not blinked.

  “I can’t go,” I said.

  Drystan stared at me in mutual horror.

  “But you have to go!” Maske said. “The séance we have works only with all three of you. And this is essential for us – Taliesin has never performed for them as far as I am aware.”

  “There’s a slight issue with the fact that one of the attending members of the séance is my mother,” I said, teeth gritted.

  Maske jerked his head back in surprise. “Oh.”

  Cyan sent me a wordless wave of concern and comfort, tinged with her own surprise.

  Maske’s shoulders slumped. “They’re offering us two hundred gold marks. That’s enough to last us months, plus buy the materials we n
eed for the finale. We can’t turn this down.”

  “Two hundred gold marks?” Cyan echoed. I felt the same. Our cut would be almost enough to buy false papers, though Drystan and I had not mentioned leaving Ellada for months, now. I think we both still hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.

  Maske sat up straighter. “Micah, you will be behind the scenes. Behind the walls.”

  “Behind the walls?” I asked.

  “Lots of older houses have space behind the walls for servants to get around the rooms. Or for people who shouldn’t be there to make a… discreet escape.”

  Cyan laughed. “Shocking.”

  “Not particularly. Nobles are as twisted and devious as you’d expect.” Drystan drawled.

  “Well, I’ve only you two to judge on, so obviously that’s true.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “Who, little old me? Noble? How amusing,” he said. Cyan goaded him to try and learn more about him, but he never cracked, though he let the fake small town accent fade gradually. In turn, she stayed well out of his mind as far as I could tell.

  I did not join in their levity. Panic fluttered in my stomach. “It’s still very risky, for me to go. If Drystan or I are recognized, that’s the end of your duel, Maske.”

  Maske rubbed his chin. “That is a point. Damnation. But think of it this way. The nobility are our prime clientele. I can charge a noble family ten times what I charge a working class family for the same séance. If you’re to stay a magician you’ll always be rubbing shoulders with the nobility. Who better to test your disguises with than those who have the most chance to recognize you? They asked us. Not Taliesin.” He grinned, his teeth white and sharp. I knew it was the thrill of the gamble that excited him. The threat of discovery made the prospect all the sweeter.

  “That they didn’t,” I said.

  We asked for an advance on our wages, which Maske reluctantly gave us, and we bought false identity papers, hiding them in the loft. If we were discovered, we’d make a run for it. Maske was the one who put us in contact with the man for the papers. I know he hoped we’d never have to use them. So did I.

  In the end, Maske won the gamble, or at least partly. Drystan and Cyan would wear their disguises and stay in the limelight. And in the séance, as with the magic duel, I would stay out of sight in the shadows.

  Come what may.

  It was the night before Lady’s Long Night. The Night of the Dead.

  We rode in the carriage, the curtains drawn tight against the cold. We huddled beneath the blankets, but our breath still misted in the air as the driver took us through the winding cobbled streets of Imachara.

  Cyan wore her black Elladan dress with a Temnian silk sash. In her bag was the dark veil for the séance and silver paint for her face. In addition to the Glamour, Drystan’s eyes were darkened with kohl and he wore a suit with a Temnian silk cravat.

  I was dull in an all-black suit, black gloves, and I would wear a black knitted sock over my head, with two holes cut for the eyes. Invisible.

  As we rode, I berated myself, trying to clamp down my unruly nerves. All I could think of was that somehow my mother would see me and would recognize me and drag me back to Sicion. She would find a way to explain away the scandal and try to have me engaged or married off by summer’s end.

  We pulled up to the apartments on a rich street of the Gilt Quarter of Imachara – Amber Dragon. I had spent much of my life on streets as sparkling clean as this one. Statues graced every corner, the streets lit by the sodium yellow of gaslight, and the turrets of the buildings topped with oxidized copper.

  We exited the carriage. The cold wind nipped at our fingers and ears, its teeth finding its way beneath our coat collars. I pulled my coat up higher against the stinging snow. The doorman gazed at us disdainfully as he gestured us inside.

  The lobby was a mirror image of my old apartment building in Sicion. Both of them had been built during the Astrid era, two hundred years ago. Our shoes clacked along the granite floor. When we knocked on the door to the Elmbarks’ suites on the top floor, the butler welcomed Cyan, Drystan, and Maske to the foyer and, with a knowing wink, ushered me to the hidden entrance behind the wall. Maske and the butler shook hands, and I knew Maske would have slipped a coin into his palm. A token payment for continuing our ruse.

  Part of me wanted to sneak back to the Kymri Theatre and not have to spend a long evening staring at the woman who used to be my mother. The woman who had convinced my father that surgery was my only hope for a normal future. She had raised me to be ashamed of what I was, banning me from telling my closest friends to avoid even the hint of scandal.

  But I could not let the others down, and so I crept along the dusty corridors behind the walls. Magicians, spies, or jealous lovers had already been here, for there were little peepholes in the walls. The room was bedecked in Night of the Dead memorabilia, the walls draped in black velvet, white wax candles illuminating the carved fauns and fairies of the wooden columns to either side of the stage.

  Guests trickled in over the course of the next half hour, ignoring Cyan and Drystan at their posts on the stage but greeting Maske. My breath caught when I saw my mother and Cyril. My mother smiled, a cat with the cream at being included at such a prominent evening. But her face was thinner, the lines about her mouth and eyes deeper. Her nose and cheeks were flushed with the rosacea of drinking, even through the powder. She always enjoyed her wine a bit too much, but I could tell her penchant had grown. Her hair was a different shade of brown; she dyed it to cover the gray. I could not believe how much she had changed in so few months.

  My brother, in contrast, was the picture of good health. He was taller, his face somehow more mature, as if he had settled into his features. His fair hair curled over his ears. I smiled to see him. I had a note in my pocket I’d have to find a way to give to him, so that we could meet tomorrow.

  The Lord and Lady Elmbark were both dressed in somber gray with matching necklaces of bird bones and feathers. Lady Elmbark wore preserved bats’ wings in her hair. The Elmbarks loved anything to do with the macabre and always dressed and behaved as if one foot were already in the grave. A tall man with a trimmed mustache and beard and a finely tailored brown suit stood next to them, a bright feather boutonniere on his suit coat as if to deliberately clash with their solemn apparel. He wore a small, derisive smile that reminded me of Drystan’s – as if he knew the punch line to some amusing jest that none of the rest of us could hear. He must be the Royal Physician, whose true name very few knew. It was safer that those trusted to be so close to the crown – the Royal Physician, the Royal Taste Tester – went by their title, to protect their identity and families. A few faces registered: Lord Wesley Cinnabari, Lady Rowan, Lady Ashvale, and several others.

  I was not sure why my mother and brother were here. My father often came to Imachara in winter for the partners’ meeting and seasonal party, but most years we stayed home. The Lauruses held a good standing among the nobility, but these were all families closest to the Snakewood throne.

  Soon, the Elmbarks led their guests to the dining room. Drystan would entertain with close-up magic. Cyan remained in the parlor, preparing the séance. I wondered how many of the Elmbarks’ guests were cynics or believers.

  I snuck further down the walls, hoping to spy on the dinner. In my mind, Cyan asked me to send her anything that might be useful for her séance.

  Through another peephole, I saw the guests sitting about the black draped table. A gramophone played eerie, appropriate music. Candles flickered, the only source of light. Unfortunately, I was right by the gramophone, so it was difficult to hear what anyone said to each other. As they ate their lavish meal, Drystan entertained them with prestidigitation. I found myself unable to concentrate on his patter as he amused the audience, distracted by his long fingers and the tilt of his smile as he performed the tricks.

  I blinked, forcing myself to concentrate and deduce who was most impressed by his magic. Though I could barely hear it, Drystan t
old a story about a young jack who fell in love with a queen despite the jealous king, cutting the deck and drawing up the relevant card at just the right moment in the story. I found myself smiling as I watched him. The jack disguised himself as the queen’s joker and they ran away together. Drystan had invented the trick.

  He made coins appear from behind ears and produced endless falling blossoms for the Lady Rowan, who blushed like a maid. He had people choose cards and made them appear in different places about the room, or he levitated and threw them onto the ceiling, where they stayed for the rest of the meal. By the end of his entertainment, people had stopped eating and were watching him in awe. The man in the brown suit clapped just as hard as the rest of them, though his eyes narrowed as though he were trying to figure out the method behind the tricks. I noticed he still wore his white gloves. When Drystan gave a last flourish and left, talk resumed and people finally remembered the food in front of them.

  Lord Wesley was especially impressed. I heard him exclaiming to Lady Rowan – who wore one of Drystan’s paper blossoms in her hair – that he had never seen such a display. I tried to eavesdrop some more, but the music was too loud. I snuck back to the parlor, sticking my head out of the concealed door.

  Cyan and Drystan were murmuring to each other. Cyan saw me first. “Stars and sky! You startled me.”

  I grinned. “You did an amazing job, Drystan.”

  He gave me a little bow. “Why thank you, thank you.”

  “Need any help setting up for the séance?” I asked.

  “Nay,” Cyan said. “Not yet. After the Vestige demonstration, though.”

  Her eyes grew unfocused. “Oi! They’re coming!”

  I closed the door behind me, setting my eye back to the peephole. All too soon, my lower back cramped and my stomach rumbled. As the guests went back into the room, I rummaged in my pack and ate some cheese, nuts, and dried fruit. I smiled – I was a little mouse behind the walls, eavesdropping on the big cats of Imachara.