The Bootlace Magician

by Cassie Beasley

  But these few names that someone—presumably Victoria—had chosen to translate seemed fancier than that.

  The older ones had more dignified names, thought Micah. That’s what she said. That the ones who were real terrors in their day were smarter.

  Judging by this list, Victoria hadn’t been interested in all dragons. Only the most dangerous ones.

  Micah swallowed hard.

  It doesn’t matter what she was interested in years ago, he told himself. The draklings are all in hibernation now. They’re asleep because they’re too weak to hunt other magical creatures. Firesleight said so.

  He picked up the third book, hoping Victoria had written something in it about how she’d gotten bored studying dragons and decided to take up a more wholesome hobby. Like stamp collecting.

  But as soon as he opened the book, a torn sheet of floral stationery fell out. A single line was written on it, in that same ornate script:

  They will wake as the Moment approaches.

  SPECULATION

  Micah stared at the piece of stationery.

  He only knew of one moment important enough to deserve a capital M—Fish’s. And it was definitely approaching. Micah had been using his knots to feed Fish bits of news and circus gossip every day, and he’d witnessed two of the Idea’s peculiar growth spurts just last month.

  What that Moment had to do with the draklings waking up was a mystery, but it seemed unlikely Victoria had been interested in the subject for friendly reasons.

  Micah had to tell someone.

  He grabbed the stack of books and headed for the door. Behind him, the sparkling silver tent was still glowing. He glanced back at it before he exited. It really was beautiful.

  “Lights off.”

  Outside, the sky was cloudless and purpling toward night, and Micah couldn’t help staring up as he headed for the Lightbender’s tent.

  Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. Of course the Bird Woman wasn’t going to make an appearance just because he’d looked through boxes filled with her old costumes. But he’d shoved the thought of her to the back of his mind over the past few months, and now it loomed over him again, darker and more shameful than ever before.

  Which was why he ended up standing frozen outside the Lightbender’s room.

  Micah clutched the books under one arm, and with the other, he reached for the bellpull that would let the Lightbender know he had a visitor. But when his fingers closed around the satiny cord, he found he didn’t want to tug it.

  He stared at the bracelets that covered his own arm from wrist to elbow.

  Micah had never managed to turn his knots into the kind of fabulous magical objects he’d imagined, but he had nearly finished his memory bracelet project. He had tied bracelets for every show at the circus and for every magician except the Lightbender, who was still giving him trouble.

  Gray twine, blue shoelaces, orange yarn, green floss, strips of leather, silk ribbons, fabric scraps—Micah’s bracelets were an ever-present whisper at the back of his mind. They made him feel like he was taking part of the circus with him wherever he went, and they were a reminder of how good the place was.

  The magicians here worked so hard to inspire kids, to make the world a little bit more magical. Firesleight had once told Micah that every time she performed, she hoped at least one person in the audience would change their minds about who they were and who they could be.

  “You try to do something extraordinary,” she’d said, “so that someone watching will begin to believe they can do extraordinary things themselves.”

  How was Micah ever going to belong here when his own grandmother had tried to ruin all that? The books seemed to grow heavier as that question filled his mind. He let go of the bellpull.

  He was halfway across the Lightbender’s stage, heading for the flap, when another question stopped him in his tracks: How am I going to belong here if I don’t do what’s right?

  He took a couple of deep breaths, then spun on his heel and marched back to the bellpull. He yanked it hard before his nerves could get the better of him, and when his guardian appeared, he held out the books.

  “Victoria was interested in dragons,” he said without preamble.

  The Lightbender blinked at him. “Beg pardon?”

  “She took Firesleight’s dragon books and never gave them back,” said Micah. “And she wrote in them. She made a list of names. She talks about a Moment, and how when it gets closer the draklings will start to wake up, and I just . . . I thought I ought to tell you right away.”

  The Lightbender was silent, staring down at the books. When he finally took them from Micah, he opened one up and flipped through it, his fingers pausing every now and then to trace sentences.

  At first, he didn’t seem particularly concerned, and Micah began to relax. See? he thought. It’s all right. Old news. Nothing important.

  But then the Lightbender opened the next book, and his expression turned grim. He sat down on the edge of the stage, leafing through pages so quickly it seemed impossible he could actually be reading them.

  After a few minutes of what felt like extraordinary patience, Micah burst out, “What do they say?”

  The Lightbender frowned down at the page. “The author of this text was interested in how hibernating draklings might be affected by ambient magic.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ambient magic?” said the Lightbender. “It’s atmospheric magic. Or it might be more accurate to call it potential magic. It is around all of us, all the time, just waiting to become real.”

  He closed the book.

  “An Idea like Fish is, essentially, unrealized potential. According to this book, the scent of an approaching Moment could make the draklings restless. Dragons hunted by sniffing out the magic of the creatures they preyed upon, you see.”

  “But they can’t possibly smell Fish from wherever they’re sleeping!”

  The Lightbender rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I’m sorry. This is an abstract concept, and I’m not explaining it well.”

  He flicked his hand, and suddenly Micah was holding a large glass sphere. It was filled with tiny, flurrying specks of silver that made Micah think of a freshly shaken snow globe.

  “Imagine this sphere is the world,” said the Lightbender. “The particles inside it are potential magic. It exists everywhere equally, as you can see.”

  “All right,” said Micah.

  “As the Moment approaches, the world fills with more potential magic.” He snapped his fingers, and suddenly there were twice as many silver specks in the globe. “The specks just exist. For now. But if you were a drakling, with a nose finely attuned to magic . . .”

  “The whole world would suddenly smell like dinner?” Micah guessed.

  “Exactly,” said the Lightbender. “And perhaps the smell would be strong enough to wake you from your slumber.”

  A tiny, snakelike creature appeared in the bottom of the globe. It was covered in slimy gray mud, and it was sniffing at the silver sparks hopefully.

  “Okay,” said Micah slowly. “But why would Victoria care about them waking up?”

  “I am uncertain,” the Lightbender said.

  “But do you have a theory?” Micah pressed. He let go of the glass sphere, and it fell toward the stage, disappearing an instant before it hit the shiny black wood.

  The illusionist said, “A sleeping drakling is of no use to anyone. A wakeful one little more so. They are too small and weak to hunt for themselves . . . but they can still eat.”

  It took Micah a second to catch on, but when he did, his stomach roiled. “You mean she would feed the draklings.”

  “It’s only speculation,” the Lightbender said, in a voice he probably thought was soothing.

  Micah did not feel soothed. “You mean she would feed them magical cre
atures so that they turned back into dragons!”

  “That might have been her plan. Decades ago. A full-grown dragon is a force unlike any other. Any reasonable person would never dream of attempting . . . but Victoria always did have an inflated opinion of her own abilities.”

  He saw the look of horror on Micah’s face. “Please don’t worry overly much,” he said. “We know nothing for sure except that Victoria was once interested in the possibility.”

  “But that’s not all we know,” Micah said frantically. “We know that dragons liked to eat unicorns.” One of the names on Victoria’s list was I Eat the Horned Ones. “I thought maybe Terp’s herd left her because they were scared of something, but I gave up looking because I couldn’t figure it out. What if they were scared of this all along?”

  If the herd knew that the draklings were awake, they would have tried to make sure their most vulnerable member was safe.

  “The coincidence of the foal’s arrival at the circus is unsettling,” the Lightbender agreed. “But we do not know anything for—”

  “I never should have stopped trying to figure out why Terp was here,” said Micah. “We could have known months ago. If Victoria is out there, she could have an army of dragons right now.”

  “She certainly could not,” said the Lightbender in a steady voice. “Even if our worst fears are true, I doubt she could manage to fledge more than one of them.” He grimaced. “But one dragon is more than any magician can handle.”

  * * *

  An emergency staff meeting was taking place in Mr. Head’s office, and Micah was not invited.

  “Why would they invite you?” Chintzy squawked at him.

  The parrot was flapping around the stands collecting bric-a-brac the last audience had left behind. Micah sat slumped in the Lightbender’s chair.

  “I’m the one who found the books!” said Micah. “I want to know what we’re going to do.”

  “Well, I’m the one who should’ve been invited,” the parrot said. “I have expertise.”

  “On dragons?”

  “On birds!” Chintzy said indignantly. “If they’re talking about the Bird Woman, they should ask a bird for advice.”

  “Do you know a lot about her?”

  “No,” Chintzy admitted. She eyeballed a half-eaten caramel someone had dropped on the floor. “I was only a chick when she left. But I know she’s evil!”

  Micah hunched his shoulders. “Yeah. Everyone knows that.”

  Chintzy stretched her neck out to grab the caramel.

  “Chintzy, don’t. It’s got germs, and it’s pure sugar.”

  “Mind your business,” said the parrot.

  “Dulcie made it,” Micah warned her. “You’ll be coughing up snowflakes like last time.”

  Chintzy paused. “I can’t deliver messages when I’m coughing! It’s not professional.”

  “True,” said Micah.

  Chintzy clicked her beak and waddled toward a convenient piece of popcorn instead. “The sacrifices I make for humans!”

  Eventually, the parrot grew tired of foraging and headed for her perch, but Micah stayed up, waiting on the Lightbender. He thought for sure his guardian would return soon, but the hours ticked by. When he went outside to examine the sign that was always posted by the entrance to the tent, he saw that the Lightbender’s midnight showtime had disappeared.

  And so had the two o’clock show for tomorrow.

  How long, Micah wondered, is an emergency staff meeting supposed to last?

  He wandered the circus for the next hour, making note of who was absent. It was mostly the oldest magicians who were gone, though Firesleight was missing, too. Everyone else was carrying on as usual.

  I guess that’s what I should do, too, Micah thought.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead, he went to the menagerie. He tied knots for Fish, explaining what was going on, and as usual, Fish gulped them right down. He bumped the side of the aquarium with his nose when he’d finished, and Micah pressed his forehead to the glass.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s not your fault that you’re making the whole world smell like magic. It’s just how you are.”

  Next, he checked in on Terpsichore. He was proud that she was almost as big as a horse now, and glad that she was still every bit as much of a goofball as she’d always been. He stroked her powerful neck while she whuffled at his hair.

  He didn’t explain what he’d found out. For one thing, he didn’t know how well the unicorn would understand, and for another, if Victoria was out there feeding magical creatures to some horrible drakling, he didn’t want to give Terp nightmares.

  Or make her wonder what had happened to her mother and her old herd.

  * * *

  Micah woke up the next day in the Lightbender’s armchair. His stomach groaned with hunger, he had a crick in his neck from sleeping with his head at a funny angle, and his hair was stuck to the side of his face with what he hoped was sweat but thought might be drool.

  Apparently, his guardian had come back to the tent and not seen fit to wake him up. Instead, the Lightbender had covered him with a cozy blanket and taped a note to the stage letting him know he’d been excused from morning lessons with Rosebud.

  Which was a good thing, since he’d slept until well past noon.

  Micah wanted information right away, but neither the Lightbender nor Chintzy were in the magician’s room. And when Micah stepped outside, Bowler wasn’t on guard duty.

  He headed toward the dining tent. He’d missed two meals, and surely someone would be there who could explain what was going on.

  The day was bright, and the circus was as festive as always. Micah looked around as he walked, expecting to see some evidence of a response to last night’s revelations.

  It wasn’t that he wanted the whole circus to be in an uproar. He didn’t even think they should be, necessarily. Not over news that Victoria might have had some mysterious plan involving dragons three-quarters of a century ago. But he felt odd walking past so many happy kids and smiling magicians.

  When he reached the dining tent, he found it nearly empty. The lunch dishes had all been picked over, and the remainder had been relegated to a single table.

  Someone Micah didn’t recognize was standing over the leftovers, digging into a dish of moussaka with a fork. The woman was short and round, with hair the color of a tangerine, and she had so much dirt on the back of her T-shirt and jeans that it looked like she’d been dragged along the ground for miles.

  Micah, assuming she was one of the circus’s shapeshifting magicians practicing for a new act, walked up and grabbed a plate. “Do you know what’s going on?” he asked, scraping the last few grains out of a bowl of steamed rice. “And what happened to your clothes?”

  The woman tilted her head to the side. “I lost a fight,” she said. She had a strong Southern drawl. “Are you supposed to be here?”

  “I didn’t eat last night.” Micah wondered why the shapeshifters had decided to put accents and fight scenes in their show. “And I missed breakfast. Are you going to eat all of that?”

  He pointed at the moussaka. The woman stared at him for a moment before shrugging and scooping some eggplant and lamb onto his plate.

  “Thanks.”

  The double doors to the kitchen swung open and a trio of women strode into the dining tent. They were beaming and talking excitedly with one another, their arms full of layer cakes, cobbler, and rice pudding.

  “You found the dessert!” the orange-haired woman cried jubilantly. “Thuja, is that a flan?”

  Micah stared at them all, counting. Circus Mirandus had two shapeshifters. And here there were four women with unfamiliar faces.

  The one called Thuja was tall and dark-skinned, and she wore armor made out of gold and silver leaves. Beside her stood a pale woman whose black cat
-eye glasses and sharp business suit wouldn’t have been out of place in a law office. And the final member of the group was a dimpled, gray-haired lady who wore a leather vest that revealed arms almost as heavily muscled as Bowler’s.

  They carried the desserts and half the leftovers to the corner table where Micah and Rosebud often had lessons in the morning. He followed them and was surprised to see the familiar mismatched chairs surrounded by assorted weaponry.

  For Thuja, a longbow and a quiver full of heavy arrows, their wood a faint green as if it were still alive. A spiked club and a polished briefcase for the woman in the cat-eye glasses. And for the gray-haired woman, a sword that was longer than Micah was tall.

  The double doors swung open again, and Yuri backed out of the kitchen holding a tray full of pastries. He was followed by Geoffrey, who was peeling a boiled egg.

  “I found some more?” Yuri said, gesturing with the pastry tray. “Or I can pack these for your journey?”

  “Thank you, Yuri,” said Thuja.

  “I swear the food gets better every time we visit,” said the orange-haired woman. “By the way, are y’all letting the children into the Staff Only section now?”

  She gestured to Micah, who was standing a few feet away with his plate, trying to figure out what was going on.

  Yuri blinked. “No?”

  “This is Micah,” said Geoffrey. The ticket taker clapped Micah on the back with a hand covered in eggshell fragments. “Mentioned him to you in the meeting, didn’t we, Pennyroyal?”

  Micah assumed Pennyroyal was the one with the Southern accent and orange hair. He waved at her. “Hi.”

  “You’re the Lightbender’s kid!” she exclaimed.

  Micah had never been called the Lightbender’s kid before. He didn’t know how to feel about it. “Yes . . . that’s me.”