by Olivie Blake
“Why not?” Nico demanded.
“Because you’re babying him,” came Max’s drawl as he emerged from his room, clipping Nico’s shoulder with his. He had deigned to put on an incongruous mix of sweatpants and a cashmere sweater, which was at least an improvement on the apartment’s state of sanitation. “You’re fussing, Nicky. Nobody likes a fusser.”
“I’m not,” Nico began, but at Gideon’s look of skepticism, he sighed. “Fine, I am. But in my defense, I make it look very appealing.”
“When did you even have time to grow maternal instincts?” Max asked him, sniffing the air as Nico began sifting through food in the kitchen.
“Probably during some class you didn’t attend,” Gideon told Max before turning back to Nico. “Hey,” he cautioned in a low voice, nudging him. “I’m serious. If you’re going somewhere, I’d like to know about it.”
“You won’t even notice I’m gone,” Nico said with a sidelong glance.
“Why, because you expect me to come visit?”
Nico reached over, backhanding Gideon to remove him from the path to the fridge. “Yes,” he said, pretending not to see that his answer had left Gideon with some relief. “In fact you could come, actually. Could put you in a nice drawer somewhere, you know? Stand you upright in my closet.”
“No, thanks.” Gideon sank to the ground to lean against the cabinets, yawning. “Do you have more of that—”
“Yes.” Nico dug through one of the kitchen drawers, tossing Gideon a vial that was caught with one hand. “But you’re not using it,” Nico warned with a spatula, “unless I’m allowed to come tonight.”
“I can’t decide if that’s a reflection on your concern for me or just your massive fear that something exciting will happen without you present,” Gideon muttered, draining the contents of the vial. “But yeah, sure, fine.”
“Hey, you need me. That stuff doesn’t come easily,” Nico reminded him, though in truth he would never tell Gideon just how easily it didn’t come. He’d had to do a lot of things he didn’t want to say aloud just to make sure the third year alchemical had left her mind blank enough for him to steal the formula. That he’d even managed that skill—which had taken nearly the entire four years at NYUMA to learn and had depleted him so thoroughly that for four days Libby Rhodes thought he was either dying or trying to trick her into hoping he was dying—was already more than he’d do for anyone else.
The trouble with having Gideon for a friend was the constant possibility of losing him. People like Gideon, who was not technically a person, were not, by most laws of nature, supposed to exist. Gideon’s parents, an irresponsible finfolk and an even more irresponsible equidae (a mermaid and satyr respectively, by colloquial terms), had always possessed the 25% chance their offspring would look perfectly human, which Gideon did. They, of course, had not cared that their human-looking child would not be technically anything at all that could be registered, and that while he would have medeian abilities, he would not be afforded the class of species to which all medeians were required by law to belong. Gideon wasn’t entitled to any social services, couldn’t be legally employed, and unfortunately couldn’t spin straw into gold without considerable effort. That Gideon had been educated at all was mostly an accident, along with an instance of wide scale institutional fraud.
It all basically came down to one thing: the opportunity to study a subspecies like Gideon was not something NYUMA had been prepared to pass up, but now that he was no longer enrolled as a student, he was back to being nothing.
Just a man who could walk through dreams, and Nico’s best friend.
“I’m sorry,” Nico said, and Gideon glanced up. “I was going to tell you, I just…”
Felt guilty.
“I keep telling you,” Gideon said. “You don’t need to.”
If Libby Rhodes mocked that Nico and Gideon were attached at the hip, it was only so that Nico could personally assure Gideon’s survival. Libby would not understand that, of course; she was one of the spare few who knew that Gideon was not what he seemed, but she didn’t know what it meant. She didn’t know how often Gideon ended up in harm’s way, unable to secure himself corporeally in a single realm, or how often he got swallowed up inside his own head, lost to the intangible spaces of thought and subconsciousness, and couldn’t find his way back. She didn’t know that Gideon had enemies, or that those who knew what he was and intended to use him for it were most dangerous, above all.
Libby didn’t know, either, that while Nico didn’t underestimate her, she relentlessly underestimated him. He had perfected skills in multiple specialties outside his own, all of which had cost him greatly. He could change his shape to follow the other two into the environment of dreams (animals had fewer restrictions on their boundaries than humans), but only after learning to manipulate each element of his own molecular structure; something he only did once a month, because it meant a full day’s recovery afterwards. He could brew something to bind Gideon’s physical form more permanently to the reality he currently stood in, but only after backbreaking effort that left Nico throbbing and sore for a week.
There had been no way Nico was turning down the Society’s offer. Power? He needed it. An obscure cure? He needed that, too. Money, prestige, connections? He needed all of it, and Gideon would be better for his access. Two years away was hardly too much to ask.
“I never expected you to put your life on hold for me, Nico,” Gideon said.
No, he didn’t, and that was the only reason Nico had done it to begin with; or thought he had no choice but to do it, anyway, until today.
“Look, the moment you became my friend, you became my problem,” Nico told him, and then, realizing what he’d said, he amended, “Or, you know, mine. Or whatever.”
Gideon rose to his feet with a sigh. “Nico—”
“Can you guys stop whispering?” Max yelled from the sofa. “It’s hard to hear you from here.”
Nico and Gideon exchanged a glance.
“You heard him,” Nico said, figuring it wasn’t worth continuing the argument.
Gideon, who had obviously decided the same, plucked some carrots from the produce drawer for a side dish, nudging Nico aside with a motion of his hip.
“Shall I grate?”
“You’re grating already,” Nico grumbled, but he caught the evidence of a smile on Gideon’s face, deciding the rest of the conversation could stand to wait.
TRISTAN
The problem with seeing through things so readily was the development of a certain degree of natural cynicism. Some people could be promised knowledge and power without a compulsion to uncover the caveats implied, but Tristan was not one of them.
“I need to talk to you,” he said, remaining behind the other five candidates and approaching the Caretaker who’d so evasively insisted on recruiting him.
Atlas looked up from muted conversation with whoever the man was who’d come in to drone on at length about the Society; Dalton something-or-other, who’d been effusing quite a lot of magic while he spoke. That was partially why Tristan had not made an effort to listen. If he were going to be convinced to abandon the life he’d already set up so meticulously for himself, he wasn’t going to be illusioned or manipulated into it. It would be his choice, based on uncompromisable facts, and Atlas would give them to him or Tristan would leave. Simple as that.
Atlas seemed to have gathered as much from a glance and nodded, dismissing Dalton.
“Ask,” Atlas beckoned, neither patiently nor impatiently, and Tristan’s mouth tightened.
“You know as well as I do that my abilities are rare, but not useful. You can’t possibly expect me to believe I have one of the six most valuable magical specialties in the world.”
Atlas leaned against the table, considering Tristan for a moment in silence.
“So why would I have chosen you, then, if I didn’t believe it?”
“That’s precisely what I want to know,” Tristan said staunchly. “If this has anyth
ing to do with my father—”
“It doesn’t,” Atlas said, dismissing Tristan’s concerns with a wave of a hand. “Your father is a witch, Mr Caine. Skilled enough, but commonplace.”
Of course Atlas would want him to believe that. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to magnify Tristan’s abilities in order to reach or infiltrate his father’s gang. “My father is the head of a magical crime syndicate,” Tristan said, bristling, “and even if he were not, I am—”
“You,” Atlas cut in, “don’t even understand what you are, I’d wager. What was your specialty? And I do not mean your abilities,” he clarified. “I mean to ask which credential you received from the London School of Magic as a medeian.”
Tristan scrutinized him warily. “I thought you already knew everything about everyone in that room.”
“I do,” Atlas said with a shrug, “but I’m a rather busy and important man with many things on my mind, so I would prefer you to tell me anyway.”
Fine. No sense dragging this out. “I studied in the college of illusion.”
“But you are not an illusionist,” Atlas pointed out.
“No,” Tristan said gruffly, “but as I can see through illusions—”
“No,” Atlas corrected, startling him. “You can do more than see through illusions.”
He rose to his feet with sudden immediacy, beckoning Tristan after him. “Walk with me,” he said, and though Tristan did not remotely want to listen, he conceded to follow, allowing Atlas to lead him through a narrow hallway that wound into a wider corridor.
“Here,” Atlas determined, pausing abruptly before a painting. “What is this a painting of?”
Disappointing. This, as far as Tristan could tell, was predictable cultish recruitment. Evade and flatter, mystify and conceal.
“I don’t have time,” Tristan snapped, “to play games. I assure you, I was diagnosed by every medeian at the London School, and I know the extent to which my abilities are—”
“In the moment I asked,” Atlas interrupted, “you identified this painting as a portrait of the artist’s lover.” He gestured again to the painting behind him. “You saw a number of things, of course—far more than I was able to distinguish from my brief foray into your observations—but you looked at this nondescript portrait of a nineteenth century Society benefactor and interpreted the details which led you to conclude what you were looking at, which no one but you would have seen.”
Atlas pointed to the title on the plaque, which read simply: Viscount Welles, 1816.
“You ascertained that the light coming in through the window came not from a typical portrait studio, but a location both the artist and the subject found comfortable. You noted his presentation was informal and the marks of his rank were added hastily afterward. You came to a reasonable conclusion not on what was presented to you, but on what you deduced. This is because you see components,” Atlas pointed out, and Tristan, always wary of a hidden agenda, assumed a guarded suspension of disbelief. “In mortal terms that would make you a savant. You also see magical components, which is why you were identified for medeian classification. But you are correct,” he conceded, “to suspect that our interest in you exceeds the magic you have exhibited deliberately up to this point.”
Atlas saddled Tristan with a look of immense and troubling expectation.
“You are more than rare,” Atlas said, pronouncing it with finality. “You cannot begin to imagine your capabilities, Tristan, because no one has ever known what to do with you, and thus you have never encountered a reason to know. Have you ever studied space? Time? Thought?”
To Tristan’s momentary furrow of bemusement, Atlas said, “Precisely. You were educated alongside a group of illusionists, intending only to profit from marketable sleight of hand.”
Tristan bristled. “Is that what you think I am?”
“Obviously not, Tristan, or I would not be standing here trying to convince you otherwise.”
Tristan considered that a moment.
“You make it sound like the game is rigged in my favor,” he observed, still guarded, and Atlas shook his head.
“Not at all. I know how useful you are; it’s your turn to convince the others. The promise of your talents is nothing compared to whatever you ultimately prove to be.”
At that point, Atlas gave Tristan a curt, inattentive smile, expressing wordlessly that he wished to conclude the conversation.
“I can promise you nothing,” Atlas said. “I will, in fact, promise you nothing, and whatever you take from this, do not be misled; nothing I have told you is a guarantee of anything at all. Unlike the others of your initiate class, your power remains largely untested. Your potential is almost entirely unreached, and however unmatched I believe it to be, it will have to be you who brings it to fruition. I’m afraid, Mr Caine, that you will simply have to take the gamble if you wish to see it through to the reward.”
Tristan wasn’t entirely risk averse; he had been known to cast his lot in venturesome ways before. In fact, the majority of his current life had been a gamble, and while it had been paying off as he intended thus far, he hadn’t been aware at first how unsatisfactory that return would be. Based on his previous decisions, Tristan would be married to an heiress in a matter of months, the inheritor to a massive player in the magical economy, finally dismantled from his father’s criminal enterprise and probably equally likely to jump off a bridge as he was to ‘accidentally’ poison Rupesh’s favorite detoxifying kombuchas.
Some gamble.
“Shall I see you to the lifts?” Atlas prompted.
“No, thank you,” said Tristan, who figured he ought to start learning the building. “I can find them myself.”
PARISA
Following Dalton Ellery’s path was not a particularly trying task. The building was mildly sentient, possessing enough layers of enchantment that it had a basic primordial sense of thought, and so it was a simple enough effort to identify the motion of his footsteps along the vertebrae of its corridors. Parisa stepped daintily in his trajectory, hardly breaking a sweat.
To her relief, he was still handsome upon second glance. It wasn’t a face he had put on for them at the meeting; typically, masking charms of any kind were too strenuous to hold at unnecessary moments, like this one.
She felt, though, the little catch of an unseen mechanism when he spotted her; his defenses flying up.
“You don’t seem like the power-seeking type,” Parisa ventured, deciding to guess aloud what sort of man Dalton Ellery was. The assertion was so accurate as to be unremarkable; he had a studious look to him, and a solemnity that didn’t lend itself to the hypermale braggadocio of politicians and businessmen.
Her more pressing estimation—the more reckless guess—had been that candor might alternatively unnerve or embolden him. Either way would be enough to secure herself a place in his thoughts, in which case it would be like leaving the door open a crack behind her. She would more easily find her way back to his thoughts if she had been inside his head to begin with.
“Miss Kamali,” said Dalton, his tone evenly measured despite his initial surprise. “I cannot imagine I seem like much at all, given the inconsequence of our meeting.”
That was insufficiently informative, to say the least; neither unnerved nor emboldened, but merely factual.
She tried again, attempting, “I wouldn’t describe anything that just happened as inconsequential.”
“No?” He shrugged, inclining his head to dismiss himself. “Well, perhaps you’re right. If you’ll excuse me—”
That wouldn’t do. “Dalton,” she said, and he glanced at her, giving her a look of intensely restrained politeness. “Surely it’s reasonable that I still have questions, despite your illuminating presentation.”
“Questions about…?”
“Everything. This Society, among other things.”
“Well, Miss Kamali, I’m afraid I can’t give you many answers beyond the ones I have already provided.�
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If Parisa hadn’t already been aware how little men cared for evidence of female frustration, she might have grimaced. His indifference was deeply unhelpful.
“You,” she attempted, venturing a more effective topic. “You chose to do this once yourself, did you not?”
“Yes,” Dalton said, with an unspoken obviously.
“You chose this after one meeting?” she prompted. “Tapped by Atlas Blakely, sat in a room with strangers just as we were… and you simply agreed, no questions asked?”
Finally, a hitch of hesitation. “Yes. It is, as I’m sure you know, a compelling offer.”
“But then,” she pointed out, “you chose to stay beyond your initiation period.”
His brow twitched; another promising sign. “Does that surprise you?”
“Of course,” she said, relieved to see he was finally taking a more active role in the conversation. “Your pitch to us in that room was about power, wasn’t it? Returning to the world after initiation to take advantage of the resources allotted to the Society’s members,” she clarified, “and yet, given the opportunity to do so, you chose to remain here.” As a cleric, essentially. Some intermediary between the Alexandrian divine and their chosen flock.
“Someone once told me I don’t seem like the power-seeking type,” Dalton said.
She smiled. He didn’t know it yet, but she had found her footing.
“Well, I suppose I have little reason not to join,” Parisa replied with a shrug. Nothing, after all, was keeping her. “Only that I am not particularly enamored with teamwork.”
“You will be glad to have a team,” Dalton assured her. “The specialties are chosen to complement each other, in part. Three of you specialize in physicalities, while the other three—”
“So you know my specialty, then.”
He smiled grimly. “Yes, Miss Kamali.”
“So I suppose you don’t trust me?”
“Habitually, I refrain from trusting people like you,” said Dalton.