by T. A. Pratt
“They can't even leave my palace, Marla. They don't have enough reality to survive in the world outside.”
“Better that B live here, where I can visit him, than live nowhere.”
Genevieve shook her head. “I never even met him. I couldn't possibly—”
“He lives in my mind, Genevieve. Can't you get into my mind and find all you need? You can have full access, with my blessing, ransack my memories, drag it out of me, do whatever you have to—”
“Marla, I can't. It would be like making a photocopy of a photocopy, don't you see? He might look like B, but inside he would be… all wrong. Full of blank spaces, and worse yet, places I'd filled in with my best guesses. He wouldn't be your friend. He wouldn't even be a…a picture of your friend. He would be a shadow puppet. An abomination.”
Marla crossed her arms. “You won't do it?”
“If you ask me to, I will.” She shuddered. “Are you asking me to?”
Marla remained tense for a moment, then slumped. “It really wouldn't be any good?”
“No. It would be bad. I'm so sorry, Marla. I wish—”
“Don't worry about it. Give Zealand and St. John Austen my love. Could you send me home now?”
Marla spent the next day curled up on the futon in her living room, staring at the ceiling, and thinking. She'd killed a god, once. She'd successfully invaded the underworld. She'd bested the creature who claimed to be the king of the elves, in a duel. She'd saved her city more times than she could count on her fingers. Surely, surely, she could do something about this.
• • •
She thought of a way It might destroy me, she thought. It might even destroy the universe. But what the hell. Nothing ventured, right?
Rondeau opened the door, expecting an orderly with a lunch tray. He was staying in a musty little cottage on the grounds of the Blackwing Institute. The cottage had belonged to the groundskeeper, back when the Institute was a mansion, and Dr. Husch was letting him stay there for as long as he needed.
Marla was on the doorstep. “Shit,” she said. “You look like you again.”
He couldn't look her in the eyes. That was no surprise. He couldn't even stand to look at himself in the mirror. Staring at her green boots, he said, “It seemed like the thing to do.”
“But you're still in B's body, under that glamour. And Hamil says you probably have his powers.”
“I… think I do. I can see things, things I couldn't before—ghosts, I think… and weirder stuff.”
“You can summon oracles? Open paths where there are no paths?”
“I don't know, Marla. If you need me to, of course, I'll try.”
“Great. Get your shit. We're catching a plane out west.”
Rondeau blinked. “Where are we going?”
She looked at him with scorn and contempt. “To fix what you did, if we can.” Her expression softened. “To fix what we did.” She turned and started walking across the vast green grounds, then called back, over her shoulder: “To bring B back to life.”
Rondeau took a step outside the door. “You found a way? You really found a way?”
But Marla didn't answer. She doesn't need to, Rondeau thought. Marla always found a way No matter what it cost.
Thanks go first to my loving spouse, H. L. Shaw, for infinite quantities of support, for acting as a sounding board, and for being my biggest fan. I received invaluable feedback, friendship, moral support, and/or all of the above from Greg van Eekhout, Susan Marie Groppi, Michael Jasper, Jay Lake, David Moles, Cameron Panee, Lynne Raschke, Jenn Reese, Anne Rodman, and Scott Seagroves.
My editor, Juliet Ulman, supported the crazy ideas I had for this book, and wouldn't let me get away with being lazy or taking the easy way out. As always, my agent, Ginger Clark, made sure everything ran smoothly; film rights agent extraordinaire Holly Frederick made some wonderfully unexpected things happen; my copy editor, Pam Feinstein, saved me from the tiger pits of continuity errors and logical gaffes; and my cover artist, Daniel Dos Santos, wrapped it all up in a gorgeous package.
As a longtime fan of caper movies and books about grifters, I can't possibly mention everything that influenced this book, but I'll hit a few of the major works I discovered or revisited in the course of my research. In film and TV, the con artist movies of David Mamet, The Sting, and Hustle all loom large; in print, I leaned heavily on The Big Con by David W. Maurer and How to Cheat at Everything by Simon Lovell. I found Toni Howard's account of the Bonbonne D’Uranium!—which inspired Jason's long con—in Grand Deception, edited by Alexander Klein.
Finally, I'd like to thank my son, River Alexander Pratt Shaw. I wrote this book during the first six months of his life—and the best six months, so far, of my own.
T. A. Pratt lives in Oakland, California, with partner H. L. Shaw and their son, and works as a senior editor for a trade publishing magazine. Learn more about your favorite slightly wicked sorcerer at www.MarlaMason.net.
SPELL GAMES
A Bantam Spectra Book / March 2009
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2009 by T. A. Pratt
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks and Spectra and
the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90619-6
www.bantamdell.com
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