Caster

by Elsie Chapman

  Saint Willow’s gleam of hunger sharpens. “Why do you want to find a gatherer?”

  Now Jihen gives her a hurt look. “So they’re really a thing? Why didn’t you tell me, Saint?”

  Irritation crosses the gang leader’s face as she looks at her cousin. “You know what you need to know to do your job for this family.”

  The piano notes change, become lively and quick.

  Saint Willow turns back to me. Her smile is elegant. “Cast full magic right now and we can talk.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I ask.

  “Something to convince me you’re not wasting my time.”

  I draw, grab one of the chopsticks still laid over the bowl of rice, and cast.

  Heat flows through the lotus-printed carpet and into my shoes, up into my hands, and into my mind. I gather the red cloud that forms in there and direct it toward Jihen. I make the muscles of his legs move so that he’s forced to stand.

  He glares at me, scowls. “Stop it, Aza.”

  I push my magic and he jerks backward. His chair crashes to the ground. I make Jihen’s legs start walking toward the kitchen. He’s fighting me—his motions are awkward, uneven, his steps more shuffles—but still I push.

  “Aza!” He starts swearing in Chinese. His face is red, sweating. “Don’t think you won’t pay—!”

  He disappears into the kitchen, I let the magic slip away, and pain swamps. It’s a massive punch to the middle, a wave of invisible gnashing teeth that I feel everywhere.

  Saint Willow sits back and watches me grimace.

  “Tell me,” she says, “why a gatherer?”

  “I want to buy a gathered spell,” I say, my jaw clenched.

  “What for?”

  “It has nothing to do with you.”

  She frowns. “How did you know to come find me to ask?”

  “You don’t need to know that, either.” The piano is still playing. I don’t recognize the melody. Back to somber notes anyway. “So do we have a deal?”

  “It’s not that simple. The caster who finds these spells has developed the ability to pull together lost magic. It’s no easy task, and these spells are not for just anyone to buy. Not even casters of full magic.”

  There’s a note of dismissal in her voice—of near boredom—and whether she means it or not, desperation still chills me. What if she decides she’s heard enough and forces me to leave? Then what?

  “I guess you’re right,” I say, making sure to sigh a bit. “If you have access to those kinds of casters—to actual gatherers—why would you even need just a caster of full magic like me working for you?”

  It’s a huge risk, my pretending to not care if I leave empty-handed. But knowing what I know of Saint Willow, I think there’s something she hates even more than suspecting her time is being wasted. And that’s letting an easy opportunity slip away.

  The elegant smile returns. That predatory gleam to own. “Ah, but gatherers can only do that—gather together the magic needed to re-create gathered spells. I still need a caster of full magic to cast those spells, as well as to cast more common ones.”

  “So maybe I’m the one here with something to offer, and not you.” I widen my eyes just the slightest. “Not that I blame you for wanting to feel close to full magic by spelling gathered spells. Not if it’s the only way.”

  Her smile tightens. “And yet, who has come to who, and why?”

  She has me there. The pianist is still playing, though more quietly now. It’s the only way I can tell the minutes are passing. With the covered windows, low lamplight, and curls of smoke that hang suspended in the air, late evening never leaves this room.

  “Do we have a deal, then?” I ask again. Oliver pops into my head, but I push him away—simply considering a gathered spell isn’t breaking my promise. But then it’s Embry, wishing me luck, and Piper, telling me to prove she’s picked a winner, and Kylin, making a face as she talks about cheating, and their faces are harder to push away.

  Saint Willow nods, as authoritative as Embry can be. “We have a deal except for erasing your family’s debt of honor marks. That is family business that goes much deeper than either one of us. You and your magic are just for me. You cast as I request, and I’ll get you to a gatherer.”

  I nod back. “But no more visits to the teahouse. Leave my parents out of this.” Disappointment claws, but I’m also not surprised. “So where is a gatherer?”

  “Nima,” she calls out, “will you come over here, please?”

  The piano falls silent. The pianist stands up and heads over. It’s a girl about the same age as me, and as soon as our gazes meet, I know she’s an Ivor.

  The color of her eyes is orange.

  I rub mine, wondering if I’m seeing wrong.

  “No, Nima really does have orange eyes,” Saint Willow says, sounding amused. “She wears contacts when necessary, otherwise Scouts would have found her by now. Also, she is mine, which is another reason why she hasn’t been found yet.”

  Mine. Like Nima is her pet. Like the way some Scouts keep Ivors as pets. Doesn’t she own me just the same now?

  “Aza, this is Nima,” she says. “My gatherer of magic. Nima, this is Aza, and she would like to buy a spell from us.”

  Nima frowns as she comes to stand by the table. She’s wearing a necklace of midnight-blue beads. Her orange eyes scan my face. “I don’t know if you can handle a gathered spell.”

  I bristle. “Can you get me what I need?”

  “That depends, what kind of spell do you—?”

  Not here, I make my eyes flash.

  Her orange ones slide just the slightest bit in the direction of Saint Willow before sliding back, and I can tell she understands I have secrets. But how could she not, considering what she does?

  “Nine p.m.,” she says, “the lounge at the Tea Chest Hotel.”

  I head home, my walk stiff and careful.

  Luna and Seb said Jihen had stalked off somewhere from the restaurant kitchen to sulk, and so after I was done with Nima, I left the dim sum restaurant by foot. I didn’t mind not having Jihen drive me back. I was spared from him yelling at me for deserting him and bringing my magic over to Saint Willow, his whining about his broken finger and about his cousin keeping secrets from him. It left me time to wonder how I could escape Saint Willow just like Diego did, without leaving my parents in danger. I pictured all the ways Earl Kingston and his men were likely promising careless Cormac pain if he didn’t give them information he didn’t have.

  I think about gathered spells and the match tonight and how I might fight.

  I think of the ways I want Finch punished and how I might be willing to pay.

  Can you ever be sure you’re using magic and it’s not using you?

  I’m about to cross the street when I see a group of Scouts on the far corner. There are three of them, and they’re preparing to rehang a display cage from a nearby lamppost. It’s the changing of the Ivors, that time of the week when display casters are switched up.

  Not wanting to get close, I stay on my side of the street to pass. I tug my mask up higher over my nose. Fear is the cold sweat that pops up all over me as I keep walking, not wanting to look at the Scouts but having to all the same, the way prey does as it’s slipping past a predator. Only the most experienced and strongest of Scouts get to do the changing of the Ivors. Cormac is a Scout, but he’s a Scout in the way a flower’s thorns start out soft, still to be hardened with time.

  Two of the Scouts climb up on stepladders to lift the cage up to the lamppost, while the third stays on the sidewalk, keeping watch over the milling crowd of curious people. His face tilts upward as he says something to one of the other Scouts and shock makes me stumble.

  Embry.

  The sight of his teal eyes is unmistakable.

  What? How? Why?

  The crowd jostling its way past makes me realize I’m just standing and staring. So I start walking again, still trying to understand. The world is back to being off-k
ilter.

  What does it mean when a caster of full magic is also an undercover Scout? More, when he’s a member of the most powerful group of casters and a Scout? I made up that story for Cormac about cops going undercover and how full magic casters were involved because I never thought anything like it could be true.

  But I should have known better, because secrets—they surround me.

  Rudy and Shire. Oliver and Finch. The tournament and how it only half exists, its own secrets of gatherers and gathered spells held within it. Full magic itself is a secret, buried away even as we keep casting. I can touch my casting arm and know it’s real, but what is real when you’re always having to hide?

  Soon enough I’m nearly back home. Last night I didn’t worry about Jihen and Cormac because of the smog. This time, I don’t worry because Jihen’s still off licking his wounds, and Cormac’s probably being threatened with a burial in the empty vastness of the blighted lands right this minute.

  Back in the teahouse, I set my alarm to wake up in time for dinner and go to sleep, wanting to heal.

  * * *

  The Tea Chest is in the central area of the Tea Sector, so not that far from the teahouse. It’s one of the city’s oldest boutique hotels, its concrete frame surviving quake after quake and somehow staying mostly intact. People flock to experience its themed rooms—the decor of each inspired by a kind of tea—the Marquess Blue room is gray and cream velvets, the Sparrow satins in shades of cinnamon and apples. There’s even a Wu Teas room, which is as yellow as ever, the color of royalty.

  I forgot there was a piano in the lounge of the Tea Chest. Or maybe I just never noticed. But now, walking through the lobby, there is the plunking of keys and I follow them.

  Nima’s there, playing. It’s another song that I don’t know. There are about a dozen people scattered around the sunken couches, a couple more at the bar. We’re on the ground floor, and the window reflects back the lamps of the lounge. There’s no view to miss anyway, just the side of the building next door, the smoggy gray night sky.

  She looks up as soon as I walk in—she’s been expecting me. She’s wearing blue contacts. I cross the room, wondering if she has different colors, depending on the occasion.

  She slides over on the bench even as her fingers never leave the keys. Sit.

  I sit down beside her, stiff.

  “So tell me,” she says, “what spell do you want?” The melody is slow and liquid, hiding our conversation from the others in the lounge.

  I only hesitate for a second.

  “I want to take someone’s magic away,” I say.

  “That’s a pricey spell.”

  “What will it cost me?”

  She keeps playing. “Your magic.”

  A chill rolls throughout me. Instinctively I pull my casting arm close. “Magic for magic.”

  She nods. “Is that acceptable to you?”

  Yes. No. Both words stick in my throat. Shire wouldn’t want me to, but she’s gone and I’m still here, hating how Finch took her away. Is this how Oliver felt when he was told the price of being a brother? Love but also hate?

  Finally I nod, and that tiny dark pit that’s in my chest stirs.

  “Then listen,” she says softly. “Not a star, but a spiral, twenty revolutions, no more, no less. And the appropriate starter, of course, there on the music rack.”

  A midnight-blue bead sits on the piano where sheet music might sit. Nima wore a necklace of them just hours ago.

  I pick up the gathered spell starter. “It’s plastic.”

  “It’s essence. Ether. Or the most tangible forms of such intangibles anyway, collected and re-formed.”

  Ghosts of spells lying around, waiting to be picked up again, spells that need twisted magic.

  I close my fist around the bead.

  “But I’ve already told Saint Willow I’ll be her caster,” I say, suddenly realizing. The relief of an escape would be bigger, but my mind is too full of the immediate—this ugly magic now in my hand, the tournament tonight.

  “The price of the spell is the price of the spell.” Nima switches up the song, picks a more fast-tempo one. “I’ll tell her myself.”

  There’s a note of satisfaction in her voice, but her profile remains unchanging.

  “You don’t want me working for her,” I say, confused. “Why?”

  “Do you think you’re the first full magic caster she’s found and had work for her? While she runs them into the ground, who do you think is there, trying to keep her under control?” Nima’s fingers fly over the keys. “So that the world doesn’t explode?”

  I think of Saint Willow’s face when I told her I was a caster of full magic. The gleam of hunger in her eyes, equal to Finch’s for the Guild. Finch, who terrifies me.

  “I’m doing you a favor.” Nima turns her concealed eyes my way. “I wasn’t always an Ivor, you know.”

  * * *

  I grab a train out to the Electronics Sector. It’s east of Tea, on the opposite end of Lotusland. The ride takes thirty minutes and I spend each and every one of them full of doubt. My casting arm twinges—phantom pain, as though my magic is already gone. How much will my arm hurt when my magic is gone for real? Does Oliver’s still?

  Neon lights are shining in through the train windows, and I get off at the stop closest to the address. But Discord Road is still blocks away, and so I walk down streets lit up with electronic signs and ads. Night is when the sector comes to life—a lot of its shops and arcades don’t even open until after dusk—and the sidewalks are crowded. Everyone’s loud. The blue bead hangs from the key holder at my hip, ether at its heaviest.

  When I arrive at the abandoned warehouse, I cast open the lock using my key starter. There’s a thrum in my bones, the echo of it a deep ache. Slipping off my mask, I pull open the door and step inside.

  The warehouse is vast, the size of a ball field, one with a concrete floor, concrete walls, and a soaring ceiling instead of a sky. The front half of the space is still and quiet, while the second half is full of spectators and light and noise.

  I walk toward this second half, and it’s like walking into the surf and still trying to breathe. The tournament reaches for me and pulls me in and then I’m in the light.

  Noise crashes into and rings off the warehouse walls; there’s the sound of my name, of Finch’s, of applause and anticipation and a hunger for a world that is long dead. The overhead orbs glow, cast into life by the Guild one more time for the year. I hear Hugo and Jack yelling for final bets, either Finch or me, because there can only be one winner.

  Can a heart pound so hard that it bursts? My veins feel too full, magic threatening to spill over. Fear is the taste of silver in my mouth.

  And yet, that tiny dark pit in my chest begins to bloom.

  I weave my way to the starter counter—there is no registration area now that it’s the final—and wait there for Piper. I know she’s probably looking for me, too, the fighter she’s put her faith in and shouldn’t have.

  She’s here the next minute. Her silk gown tonight is gold, her purse a wisp of brighter yellow.

  “Rudy.” Her voice is brusque even as her expression stays soft. “I’m sorry about what happened.” Finch is a merciless fighter, his hunger for victory boundless. “How are you feeling about tonight?”

  I take a deep breath. “I’m ready.” I’m sorry.

  She helps me tie on my ribbon, gives me my marks, wishes me luck. Her words are a blur, but I smell her perfume, and in there she is my mother, she is my father, she is Shire and Rudy and Kylin.

  The bell rings, the crowd rushes out like the tide, and then it’s just Finch and me in the middle of the light.

  His eyes are as cold as the Pacifik in winter. His arm is no longer broken, healed by magic. Another spell, some other cost, a pattern that can never be broken.

  Chants of our names fill the air and I shiver. I’m half looking for Oliver in the crowd when the world changes.

  I’m standing on the slop
e of a long, jagged embankment. It’s angled steeply enough that I have to brace my feet against the ground to keep from slipping backward. The sky’s a dome of blue-gray clouds and it’s pouring rain, sheets of it hard on my skin, turning the ground into mud.

  The mud’s blue.

  It smells of flowers.

  I look down.

  A hundred feet below, there’s a line of shrub, then a wide rushing river. Its surface churns and foams as rain crashes inward.

  Dread is trickling into my stomach and there’s Finch, twenty feet away from me, also standing with his feet braced in the embankment. I adjust mine even as I notice him because I’m already starting to slip.

  That river down below …

  “These are the Painter’s Cliffs of ancient Rinra.”

  Embry’s voice comes from the top of the embankment. I peer upward as rain streams into my eyes.

  He stands there, the crowd a thick mass of color behind him, their cheers drowned out by the rain. His suit is black tonight, the shoulders gone even darker with wet, his tie the green of jade. The world is so overly blue that it tints his eyes, changes them from teal to cerulean.

  Nima’s orange Ivored eyes flash across my mind. I think of Embry telling me about his bones of glass. And then of Embry out there in the sector, his teal eyes as bright as gems as he helped keep an Ivor entrapped.

  Who are you, Embry of the Guild of Now?

  “The blue of the ground comes from a form of lichen that grows just beneath the surface,” he says. Once more, his low voice shouldn’t be heard above the rain, but it is. He crouches down and picks up blue mud, examines it in his palm. “These cliffs are gone now, and this lichen extinct. But when both existed fifteen hundred years ago, painters would travel here and try to capture the sensation of the sky melting into the ground, of the ground climbing into the sky. Some succeeded, and some failed, but each painted with passion.

  “Just as it was when the greats fought here. And many greats did, because to win in this place was to conquer another world. Where natural phenomena stopped making sense. Where the sky was the ground and vice versa.”