The Last Magician

by Lisa Maxwell

  “His life was never in danger,” the Professor said, dismissing her.

  Esta glanced up at Dakari, but her old friend’s expression was unreadable, his features closed off and distant. If he was upset or surprised by this news, his face didn’t show it.

  “You risked Dakari’s life because you didn’t trust me?” she pressed.

  “I wouldn’t have trusted anyone that much, but especially not you, impulsive girl that you are. So, no. I didn’t trust that you wouldn’t be swayed by Dolph Saunders or even the Magician. I couldn’t trust that you wouldn’t take one look into Harte Darrigan’s pretty gray eyes, listen to his poor-little-boy-lost sob story, and decide to give him a chance. I gave myself some insurance. I gave you an incentive to return.” He stared at her, his nostrils flaring from the exertion of his tirade.

  With those words, something inside her clicked, and apprehension wrapped around her. “How did you know he had gray eyes?”

  “What?” Professor Lachlan’s face bunched in irritation.

  “Harte Darrigan. You couldn’t know what color his eyes were. Pictures wouldn’t have shown you that.”

  His expression went slack, as though he realized the slip, but then a smile curved softly at his lips. “You always have been too observant for your own good.”

  Unease slinked through her. “You always told me that it made me a good thief.”

  “It did. But it also makes you a problem.” Professor Lachlan spoke to Dakari. “If you’d secure her, I’ll take it from here.”

  She knew it was coming, but she could still hardly believe what was happening when Dakari wrestled her into a chair and secured her arms and legs with rope.

  “Just tell him the truth, E. If you’re still with us, everything’s gonna be okay.”

  “Dakari?” she pleaded, but it fell on deaf ears. He was already heading toward the elevator.

  “You know, you were never supposed to come back here. None of this had to happen if you’d have just done what you should have. If you’d only given me the Book that day on the bridge—”

  Esta turned back to meet Professor Lachlan’s gaze. “How could I have given you the Book? That was a hundred years ago.”

  Professor Lachlan didn’t speak at first, but there was something in his expression that made Esta’s skin crawl. “Maybe you’re not so very observant, after all.  You don’t recognize me, do you?” He frowned. “Have I really changed so much?”

  “You look exactly the same as the last time I saw you,” she said, confused by his question.

  “A few weeks, a lifetime. Strange how similar two spans of time can be. I was right about you then. I’ve been right about you all along.”

  She saw then what maybe she should have seen before. “No . . .” He’d changed over the years, but beneath the age spots and wrinkles, beneath the tuft of white, thinning hair and the frailness, she thought she could see the boy he’d been. “Nibs?” she said, her voice barely working.

  “I always hated that name,” he told her.

  “It can’t be. You can’t be him. That’s impossible.”

  “It’s improbable, not impossible. What’s a century when you can find healers like Dakari to keep you whole?” Professor Lachlan gave Esta a chastising look. “What’s a century when you’re waiting for the key to your plans? I’m a patient man, Esta. You must know that much by now.”

  “You killed Dolph,” she said. “He trusted you, and you killed him.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand—Dolph wanted to destroy the Brink. He wanted to bring down the Order. You were on the same side. There wasn’t any reason to kill him.”

  Professor Lachlan—Nibs—sneered. “Dolph had some grand plan to destroy the Brink and free the Mageus in the city. But what would that have done? Started a war with the Sundren, a war we were too weak to win . . . at least with the Book in his hands.”

  “They were better hands than yours.”

  “He thought we needed the Book to gain our freedom, as though the Book of Mysteries, the most ancient and hallowed record of magic, was some simple grimoire he could use to break a wicked spell,” Professor Lachlan scoffed. “He always was shaky on his Latin tenses. He misunderstood the message Leena sent him before the Order took her. I know, because she explained it to me when she gave me the note. . . . Not that I bothered to correct him. As long as he wanted to keep pursuing the Book, it worked for me, but I knew all along that it wasn’t that the Book could free us, but that we could free the Book . . . And now I plan to do just that.”

  “But the Brink—”

  Professor Lachlan waved off her protest. “I never cared about destroying the Brink. It never stopped me from doing the things I wanted to do. It can stay up for all I care. It’s a mere nuisance compared to what the Ars Arcana contains,” he told her, tapping the Book. “This isn’t just a record of the most important magical developments throughout history. It is an object infused with the very source of magic. Whoever can unlock it controls it. And whoever controls it will have the whole world in their hands.”

  Esta remembered then what Harte had told her on the bridge—that no one had really understood the Ars Arcana’s true nature. He’d been wrong. Nibs had known. Nibs had always known, and he’d manipulated them all.

  “And you think you should have that power?” she asked, urging him on as she tried to think of some way out of the mess she’d walked right into.

  “Why not me? The Order could barely touch the power these pages contain. They knew what the Book was capable of, which is why they kept it under lock and key. But they were never brave enough to actually use it. They’d been warned by the last person brave enough to attempt unlocking the Book’s secrets and wielding its power after it nearly drove him mad.”

  “One of the Order?” she asked, realizing that she could just begin to feel the drug they gave her wearing off. She didn’t know how long it would take before she could be free of it, but she might be able to wait it out. She needed to keep him distracted, to keep him talking. A little longer, and she could try to escape.

  “One of their earliest founders,” Professor Lachlan told her. “Most don’t realize Isaac Newton started his career as an alchemist. Before he sat under any tree, he searched for the philosopher’s stone—for a way to isolate quintessence. I’ve had a long time to learn about the Ars Arcana, a long time to learn about Newton’s secrets. He got as far as creating the five artifacts by imbuing ancient objects from the five mystical dynasties with the power of Mageus whose affinities happened to align with the elements. But he stopped before he ever managed to unite them and use them to control the power of the Book. Historians believe that he had a nervous breakdown in 1693, but that wasn’t what happened at all. It was the Book, and his breakdown was the result of attempting to control its power. After he recovered, he gave up alchemy and entrusted the Book to the Order for safekeeping.”

  “You always told me that elemental magic wasn’t real magic,” she argued, still reeling. “Or was that a lie, too?”

  “It’s not. Elemental magic isn’t real magic. It requires breaking up the pieces of creation, dividing them and weakening them in order to control them. Real magic is about controlling the whole of creation, the spaces between the elements that make up the very fabric of existence. Mageus don’t need the elements, but we can use them. We’ve always been able to use them. With the right rituals, the elements can be quite useful to augment natural power. It’s what made the Order what it is. It’s what made you what you are,” he told her, lifting the cuff and examining it in the light of the desk lamp.

  “The Order doesn’t have real magic,” she argued. She was feeling stronger now, but she had to keep him talking until she figured out how to escape. So she pressed on, taunting him with her disbelief. “They aren’t Mageus. All the power they have is stolen.”

  He placed the cuff back onto the table before he looked at her. “That may be true now, but it wasn’t always. The Order of the Ortus Aurea began as a front. Li
ke so many of those so-called occult societies, it was formed so the richest, most influential Mageus could hide in plain sight. The Order is one of the oldest, though, and they were able to maintain their power even as the Disenchantment destroyed magic.”

  That news contradicted everything she’d ever been taught, everything she’d ever believed. “You’re telling me that the members of the Order were once Mageus?”

  “Of course they were. There’s always been magic in the world, and at one time most people could put their finger on it, until they allowed themselves to forget. The Disenchantment helped with that. When the climate on the Continent grew too dangerous, the Mageus who could leave, did. They brought their little society to the New World, because they thought they could start fresh and they believed the new land was one where magic could take root. It didn’t work, of course. Away from their homelands, after a few generations, their power had faded. So they used the secrets in these pages to create the Brink as a way to protect their magic.

  “But they couldn’t control it.  What began as a way to build their power became a trap, and their magic continued to fade. A few generations more and the only magic they had left was the power they could steal through their experiments. The Brink was never intended as a weapon, but it became one well enough.

  “By the time my family arrived in Manhattan, back in 1888, the Order had forgotten what they once were, what they’d come from. They feared the power that was coming to their shores, so they tried to eliminate it. They targeted the weak, the poor. Those who had no voice, no power to fight back. They killed my father because he tried to speak out, and then they hunted down my mother and brothers and sisters. I only got away because I was off working. An eleven-year-old, working at a factory just to put bread on the table.

  “They had no idea what fear was, but they will. Newton knew that if anyone could finish what he started and control the Book’s power, they’d be as powerful as a god, the last magician the world would ever know. Now that I have the Book and the stones, I can unlock the power of the Ars Arcana. I’ve been waiting a lifetime—more, really—for this moment.”

  “So do it already,” she challenged. “You’re standing here monologuing like some cartoon villain. If you have all the pieces, what are you waiting for?”

  He smiled. A slow, creeping curve of his narrow lips. “I’ve been waiting for you, Esta.”

  “I won’t help you.”

  “Oh, I think you will.”

  When he lifted himself from the chair and worked his way around the table to where she sat, she realized then that he didn’t have his usual crutch. Instead, his hand rested on a cane topped with a silver Medusa head.

  “That was Dolph’s,” she said through clenched teeth as anger flashed through her.

  “Yes, it was. You might say he bequeathed it to me.”

  “More like you stole it.”

  “Mere semantics. All that matters now is that I’ve nearly won. Dolph Saunders didn’t get the Book. Because of your work, Harte Darrigan didn’t either.”

  Disgust rose in her throat. “I would never help you.”

  Professor Lachlan tipped his head to the side, his expression calm. “What makes you think you’ll have any choice?”

  THE IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE

  Esta pulled against the ropes, desperate to loosen them enough to free herself. She wanted nothing more than to destroy the man in front of her. But the ropes holding her were too tight. They barely moved.

  Professor Lachlan straightened. “You’re only going to wear yourself out, and I’m nowhere near done with you.”

  “Funny, I’m more than finished with you,” she spat.

  He laughed as he made his way to the table that held the artifacts, scooping them up and bringing them to where she was still tied to the chair. “You certainly inherited your mother’s fire, didn’t you?”

  Her voice sounded like gravel when she finally found it: “You knew my mother?”

  Professor Lachlan took a moment to look her over, his cloudy eyes studying her. “Dressed like that, you look a bit like her, you know. Not much, but a little. Same eyes. Lighter hair.” He placed the crown that held the Dragon’s Eye on her head, so the cool metal lay snug against her forehead. “You’re certainly impulsive like she was. Stubborn, too.”

  “You told me you found me in a park.” Her own voice sounded very far away, and all around her, the room felt like a tunnel.

  “I lied,” he said, fastening the collar that held the Djinni’s Star around her neck.

  “Or maybe you’re lying now.”

  “Am I?” He slid the ring with the clear agate called Delphi’s Tear onto her left middle finger.

  She could feel the warmth of the stones, but they didn’t call to her, not like Ishtar’s Key did. Professor Lachlan was still holding the cuff, and if he would just put it on her arm—if she could just fight past the drug in her system—maybe she could get away.

  “You have to be lying.” Because if he wasn’t, then everything that Esta had ever believed about herself was also a lie.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t put it all together for yourself.  You might be impulsive, maybe a bit overemotional, but I’ve never thought of you as stupid.” He huffed out an amused laugh. “You didn’t, though, did you?”

  He studied her for a moment before he continued. “Actually, now that I look at you, you definitely have more of your father in you. I wonder why someone didn’t notice the resemblance. Not that they would ever have put that together—not when everyone thought Dolph and Leena’s child died at birth.”

  “Dolph?” she whispered.

  “And Leena . . . who wasn’t quite his wife.” Professor Lachlan gave her a less-than-friendly pat on the cheek, but she didn’t even feel the sting of his hand against her skin.

  No.

  Dolph Saunders couldn’t be her father. She’d sat across from him countless times, had talked with him and argued with him. She would have known. When he bought her the knish from Schimmel’s and told her what he wanted to do, wouldn’t she have realized? When they brought his body in, pale and lifeless, and she had mourned with the others, wouldn’t she have felt something—anything—that would have made her recognize who he was to her?

  “That’s not possible,” she said through the tightness in her throat. “Dolph Saunders died more than a hundred years ago.”

  Professor Lachlan gave her a pitying look. “You are capable of traveling through time, aren’t you?” He held up Ishtar’s Key. “With the right equipment, that is.”

  “I would have remembered—”

  “You were far too young to remember anything. You couldn’t have been more than three when everything went wrong.  After Darrigan took the Book and destroyed half of Khafre Hall, Tammany’s patrols and the Order’s influence made life a living hell in the Bowery—you know that now for yourself.”

  “No,” she whispered, as though uttering that single syllable could change the truth that was staring her in the face. “I was there. He didn’t have a child.”

  “He didn’t know he had a child. Leena kept it from him after he betrayed her. He was so desperate back then to shore up his power that he didn’t tell her he was dabbling in ritual magic. She didn’t find out until it was too late that he’d taken some of her power and used it to turn his marks into weapons. The shock of it sent her into labor too early, and when you were born, she told everyone you’d died.”

  “How could she?”

  “In those days, it was fairly easy. Fathers weren’t all that involved. I think the real question you mean to ask is why.” He shrugged. “Because it was clear from the beginning that you were something special, something rare and powerful, and she didn’t trust that Dolph wouldn’t use you as well.”

  “He never knew?” she asked, horrified that anyone could do such a thing.

  “He never even saw you. She was desperate to protect you, and you should know well enough that desperate people are capable of terrible thing
s. But they also make easy marks.”

  “She trusted you,” Esta realized. It was the only way he could know.

  Professor Lachlan nodded. “She needed an ally, and she believed in me. I don’t think she ever intended to hide you for long, but lies have a tendency to take on lives of their own. We both knew your affinity was something different. Maybe once there had been others who could do what you can do, but they were hunted and eliminated during the Disenchantment. You were rare, even in 1902. An unexpected anomaly born from unexpected parents.

  “It was easy enough to get her out of the way—Dolph believed me when I told him Leena would be fine going into Morgan’s house. He was supposed to die that night as well, the stubborn bastard. But in the end it was easy enough to get rid of him, too.”

  “You killed them both,” she whispered, still trying to process what he’d revealed. She was suddenly glad there was a chair holding her up, because she wouldn’t have trusted her legs to do the job. “You lied to me about everything.”

  “I also saved you. Life is full of contradictions, isn’t it?” All the amusement melted from his expression, and he leaned even closer. “By the end of the year, things had only gotten worse. Their Conclave was coming up, and the Order was growing increasingly desperate to find their artifacts. I knew if the raids got ahold of you, the Order would keep you. I couldn’t risk losing you, so I did the only thing I could. I used Ishtar’s Key to hide you.”

  He held up the cuff and examined the stone. This stone didn’t have the crack bisecting its smooth surface. Even from that distance, Esta could feel its call.

  “I’d experimented with it myself, and I knew it could be used to focus or amplify magical power, even if I wasn’t completely sure what it would do for you. You were too small to have any control over your power, but I knew that if I got you scared enough, you’d use your affinity. So I locked you in a closet, and when you stopped crying, I opened the door to find you gone. Exactly as I’d hoped. Far out of the reach of the Order.