Caster

by Elsie Chapman

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  I take the coins and am compelled to remind my buyer how things can still go wrong. I thought I was over botching my last mind wipe, but apparently not.

  “Like I said before, there are no guarantees,” I say. The corners of the square coins dig into my hand as I riffle through them, counting the number of marks. Removing time from someone’s memory is burning down a single tree in a thick forest—sometimes there’s smoke damage to other trees nearby. “Mind wipes are tricky.”

  The last time, I didn’t just wipe out a weekend as requested, but the whole week. Rudy pointed out it had more to do with the nature of the spell than my control. Mostly I believe him, if only because Rudy’s not one for trying to make me feel better.

  Coral nods. Her name’s not really Coral—I never want to know their actual names—but it’s what I call her on account of the lipstick she wore on our first meeting, the same shade she’s wearing now. “Still, I’m just asking for one specific day to be gone,” she says, nervously twirling the ends of her brown hair. “But if you can’t do it …”

  Annoyance flickers across her face even as her eyes stay hopeful.

  The conflict comes as no surprise. It’s how most of those with leftover magic feel about casters of full magic, unable to decide if they loathe us or envy us. If they need us or hate us. We’re dangerous, forever having to hide who we are. Only one thing is certain—they can’t do what we can. Full magic.

  “Any other caster of full magic will tell you the same,” I say. “No guarantees. And if they say otherwise, they’re lying.” I slide her a cool look, hoping nothing on my face gives away that another caster might be more confident with their magic. How they might’ve done more than the few mind wipes I have. How I’m actually doing this because I still need to be better.

  I hold out my hand, offering back the marks. “But be my guest, if you’d like to spend the time searching for someone else.”

  She flushes. The network of rumored full magic casters in Lotusland is thin—holes and dead ends—and it took her months to find me, a caster willing to cast for marks. And needing marks the way I do, I let myself be found.

  Still uncertain, Coral picks at her nail. She’s careful to work around the material painted onto the tip. It’s a trend, embedding bits of spell starters right onto your nails so you only have to curl your fingers into your palm to cast magic. The downside is that a lot of starters need to be replenished, so you’re always repainting. Like most casters of any magic, I just use a basic starter bag. Blending in is good.

  I do my best to hide how nervous I am as doubt continues to cloud her expression. She takes in my age—I’m sixteen, not exactly a responsible adult—my worn clothing that says I might just be trying to hustle her, and then my casting arm. Like there are signs in the limb and its palm that would give away my true control over magic.

  I hope she can’t tell I’m still working on perfecting that control, the consequences of which could mean disaster for me or the fragile ecosystem around us.

  Finally Coral waves her hand, exasperated. “I’ve paid, so whatever—let’s just get on with it. I have a meeting in a few minutes and need to get back to my office.” She touches one of her starter-embedded nails to her palm and her hair smooths itself back, though we are indoors and there is no wind. It’s leftover magic, weak enough to exact no cost on its caster.

  I shove the marks into the pocket of my jeans and glance around the washroom.

  We agreed to meet here secretly, this room of silver-papered walls and warm mahogany doors and ceramic-framed mirrors. We’re in one of the dozens of high-rise office buildings that make up the Tower Sector of the city, and for a second my skin goes clammy.

  It was not even a year ago that Shire fell from one of these buildings—maybe it was even this building, I don’t know. It was a job gone beyond wrong—her casting full magic.

  The memory of our last time speaking, the raised voices. The disagreement. I would mind wipe myself of that argument, if I wasn’t too scared of losing more of Shire. She died too young, and I don’t have memories to spare.

  Coral clears her throat. “What’s the worst that can happen again?”

  I check the washroom stalls once more, though they’re just as empty as they’ve been since I got here. “We’ve already covered that.”

  “Humor me. This isn’t an easy decision.”

  “Fine,” I say.

  “I lose a lot more time than a day, right?”

  “Possibly.”

  “It doesn’t work at all?”

  “Maybe.”

  She swallows, curls in her pinky, and hastily casts another leftover spell. The shoulders of her suit jacket neaten themselves. “I forget everything.”

  “Highly unlikely.” Even I couldn’t do that, especially not by accident. A caster would have to have zero control over their full magic for that to happen. Brand-new to their power, caught completely unaware. I think back to the day I found out I wasn’t a typical caster of leftover magic, and repress a shudder.

  I step into one of the stalls and she follows me. I lock the door and then lean back against it, hoping it all goes well. I’m not worried about someone interfering. Casting full magic hurts. There’s always a price to pay, sometimes forever, so I’d prefer to be out of sight for this.

  Leftover magic requires a starter, just like the ones embedded in Coral’s nails. And it’s cast by placing the starter in the palm of the casting arm.

  But for full magic, we cast with a spell star, tracing the shape in the palm. The rule is that the more points to a star, the more magic is pulled from the earth. It’s why casting real magic is illegal now. The pain that follows is a limitation, too—draw a star with too many points and you could be dead before the spell’s even run out.

  A mind wipe the way Coral wants it is a seven-pointed star. That’s the amount of magic I’m going to need.

  I could chance six points—I’m only wiping one day. But six usually means a nosebleed for me, and it’d be awkward to move across a crowded lunchtime lobby while bleeding from my face. Seven will give me a bad headache that I usually like to sleep off when I can. Except it’s the middle of the day and my parents already think I’ll be out until late, working at a job that has nothing to do with casting full magic. A job I don’t actually have.

  Which is why I keep a jar of healing meds in my starter bag. They’re not a surefire fix, and they won’t work on a bloody nose, but they should help with a casting migraine. I mean to head to Rudy’s from here anyway—if I
’m really still hurting, there’s no better place to be than his apothecary.

  If he were here, he’d remind me to be careful. To not draw any extra attention to myself. To never forget that secrecy is imperative when casting is illegal.

  Shire would tell me the same. She’d remind me of Scouts and their department within the police dedicated to hunting us down. Some of those Scouts are casters just like me. But full magic never guarantees loyalty, and they’ve turned because of pay, or because they worry about the earth caving in while they still stand on it, or simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do.

  But Shire is dead. She faced the pain of casting too much magic and died.

  I push back harder against the stall door, needing it to keep feeling steady. I pull out a green leaf from the starter bag I wear slung over my shoulder.

  “Last chance,” I say to Coral.

  She’s sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. Her eyes are huge. There’s fear in them now, crowding out need and envy and hate. The look in them says despite her being here, it’s right that my kind of magic is now banished, that casters like me no longer have a place in this world.

  She exhales. “I’m in.”

  “Then play out the day in your head for me to find.” I draw a seven-pointed star on my palm with my finger, lay down the leaf in the center, and cast.

  The floor beneath me rumbles just the slightest. My feet grow hot. The heat climbs up my legs and torso until it’s pooling in my hands, making them feel heavy and languid. I’d almost expect to go up in flames if I were new to how full magic works. The sensation’s still odd, though, so much heat without pain.

  I’ve learned that the pain comes later.

  It’s said that earth’s magic doesn’t have a physical form, but even so it fills my veins. Full magic glows inside, a red that’s brighter and hotter than any blood, desperate for escape. A thin buzz fills my ears. My heartbeat collects in my throat, thick and pounding.

  It’s like stoking a fire, Shire once said to me, a conversation I go back to again and again. The magic you draw is its fuel, but you control how high you want its flames, Aza. What you want the fire to burn. Where you want it to go.

  I paint a picture of my power—this strange red amorphous thing, real and not real, wonderful yet terrible—in my mind. At the same time, I make sure to meet Coral’s eyes, the connection necessary for me to work a spell on her mind.

  I drive—stoke—my magic forward. It enters her head as fire, red and pointed. There’s a wind behind it, pushing the flames of that magic straight along its intended path. The fire seeps through the bone of her skull and then deep into her brain, where it’s soft and vulnerable. Malleable. It curls into the recesses of her living mind, into its tiny hills and valleys that are full of memories and stories and time, all of them shaped like trees. One tree sticks out above the rest. It’s that day, the reason why I’m casting banned magic in a bathroom stall. I will the red fire that is my power toward the tree and set it alight. A final black swirl of smoke and my job is done.

  The skin of my hand burns. Full magic might have no real form, but it sits in my palm anyway, alive as a flame.

  Pain shoots through my head. If not for the door I’m still leaning against, I’d be stumbling back with the intensity of it. Waves of nausea come, and I barely keep from retching. The fire that lit up my skin cools and disappears.

  I drop the leaf. Used up now, it’s gone all autumn on me, brown and crisp. It shatters into dust as it hits the bathroom floor.

  “Did it work?” Coral licks her lips. “How do I know if it worked?”

  “It worked,” I whisper. Hammers are alive in my brain, and they’re all going at once. I drag a shaking hand across my face. Cold sweat, nerves, deep relief, and sickness—they all wash over me.

  “You can’t know that for sure.”

  “I know because you’re asking.”

  “How do I know if you accidentally wiped out too much?”

  “It went as well as it could, trust me.” I think of the last job and how it didn’t go so well and shiver. “Anyway, does it matter? It’s too late now.”

  I unlock the door of the stall and stagger out, not wanting any more questions, not caring if anyone else has come into the washroom. I pull out the tiny jar of healing meds and frown when I see that there’s only one left.

  I found it in Shire’s room, a jar clearly from Rudy’s apothecary, and kept it for myself. I knew I was going to take over for Shire, and that casting magic would hurt—being able to recharge faster just meant I could fit in more jobs. I also figured out pretty quickly that Rudy must have used full magic to make the pills. Even the times they only half work, it’s still better than what nonmagic medication can do.

  I’ll have to get more from Rudy today. I wash down the pill with water from the tap and drop the empty jar back into my bag.

  “I can cast you better,” Coral says. Her voice comes way too close to my ear, and I wince. “A simple skin spell for pain. I can cast those, too, just like you.”

  I nearly laugh, but I’m still afraid of throwing up. Her weak magic can cast skin spells. She can also cast bone spells, and blood, and breath ones. Just like me, but so much less, only able to ease a sore muscle instead of erasing someone’s mind. To get rid of an ache in a bone, not clear it of disease; to form a tiny scab, not knit skin back together; to help fill a lung, not crush it.

  “Won’t work,” I whisper. “Leftover magic isn’t strong enough.”

  I don’t tell her that pain from casting is just one way we’re affected. How for some full magic casters, all their damage comes back. And it comes back all at once, like being stampeded over. Becoming an Ivor—the condition goes by the name of the first caster in history known for it—can happen anytime after casting full magic. Maybe weeks later, or months, or years. And for Ivors, the change is forever, their magic as good as gone, their bodies no longer able to handle even one more casting. If they’re lucky, it’s only on the inside that they’re broken. If not, it’s never too long before Scouts find them and take away their magic. Before they lock them up and display them as warnings to other full magic casters.

  I used to worry about ending up an Ivor. But I don’t worry about it as much anymore. I actually think most full magic casters don’t. I think we worry way more about accidentally destroying a part of the world. I think we worry about the smog we’re breathing in all the time, about earth being too weak to sustain the magic that we hold.

  “Well, then why can’t you just cast yourself better?” Coral sounds nearly as put out as she does concerned—I have a meeting, and it’s very important that I be on time. “Wouldn’t that be faster than any medication?”

  I shut my eyes against the bright lighting of the room. Already the hammers are quieting down a bit. But it can’t hurt to keep Coral away from wondering about such effective pills, away from wondering about who might make them and how.

  “Casting another spell at this point would only mean more pain.” I have to recover enough first, or the effect compounds. And then I’d be in serious trouble.

  “Right. That makes sense.” Then I hear her breath catch.

  I open my eyes, already knowing what I’ll see. The shock in that single caught breath gives it away.

  A long crack splits across the tiled washroom floor, as thin as string but impossible to ignore. It’s as though the opposite sides of the room are tectonic plates and there’s been a shift from a quake.

  This quake is because I pulled full magic from the ground.

  The earth isn’t too happy about it.

  “So it’s all true.” There’s disgust in Coral’s voice. “It’s not just enough that you hurt while casting. You have to hurt us, too.”

  “Oh, please.” I manage a sneer even as the crack slowly begins to widen. “You came to me, asking for full magic. You knew the cost. You know how magic and this world work.”

  “But I’ve never seen it for myself before. It’s always
just been the Scouts warning us about full magic.” She gazes down at the crack, then back at me, her eyes full of disdain. “How we’re never going to be really safe until all casters like you are locked up or your magic is taken away. Books and the news, reminding us how it’s full magic that ruined the air and oceans, so that the earth had to turn it against you.”

  I clench my hands over my starter bag. It was once Shire’s. I struggle to think of what she might say to this weakling of magic. Shire, who was always nicer and better than me, with her discipline, her views, her ideas—even our parents think so.

  But my mind stays blank even while it continues to pound. Because nothing Coral’s said is untrue. I can blame her for hiring me and giving me a reason to cast—but it doesn’t change that I’m still casting. I’m still slowly breaking apart small bits of the world, spell by spell. Shire did the same, and I guess that’s why her words don’t come to me, either.

  I move toward the washroom door, staring at Coral as I go. “Don’t forget, one word of this and Scouts will be on you just as fast as they will be on me. They might not do to you what they’ll do to me, but they’ll definitely haul you in anyway.” It’s not just the casters of full magic that are banned but full magic itself. Whether it’s cast or bought is beside the point. Our power can be the end of everything.

  Coral’s gone pale. “I promise.”

  “Also, you might want to get out of here before the fire department comes to inspect. The crack’s only getting wider and once Scouts get word, they’ll have questions for anyone caught in the area.”

  I pull my smog mask from my back pocket and tug it on over my nose and mouth. With my stomach still rolling and my tongue as bitter as ash, I push the door open and step out of the washroom. I cross the lobby, and just before I step outside, I yank the lever for the fire alarm.

  I hit the street running, ignoring how my head still hurts. The distant ringing of the office building’s fire alarm fades behind me, and I think about what I need to do next.

  Namely, bug Rudy for more about magic.

  I want to be as good as Shire was. No, better, because I don’t want to die casting magic for marks. And he was her instructor, teaching her to be good enough with her magic that she made the marks to keep our family’s business going. Now that’s on me.