An Unkindness of Magicians

by Kat Howard

  She tapped her glass to his, drank.

  The candidate House Beauchamps was quite comfortably at the head of the standings. The one magician who seemed able to offer a challenge to that was casting tonight, House Prospero having challenged House Hermann. The choice of magic was openings. Both Miles and Lara Merlin were in attendance, Miles watching Ian and Lara watching her father. Miranda held court at the opposite end of the room.

  Sydney hadn’t fought in a duel since she’d absorbed the blowback from the failure of magic. She had come to a balance with the new power—it no longer shaded her eyes to green or sent sparks flying from her hands, but the lurking awareness of its presence just beneath her skin, contained in her but not her, remained. Her hands were a constant ache, full of the desire for magic.

  The duel began. Angelica Hermann cast first, a tiny, elegant piece of magic that unlayered a set of clocks, opening their workings, sending gears spinning into orbit like orreries. It was precision and control made grace and elegance. Sydney’s applause was genuine.

  Ian stepped into the center of the room. A sharp flick of his left hand. A thud, like the sound of a thousand doors slamming shut. The noise, tremendous, and the House rocked on its foundation.

  His hands moved, bent. He spoke a word, and Sydney felt it in her chest, like a window swinging out. Doors carved themselves out of light and shadows, the frames appearing all over the room, scattered among the watching magicians.

  Another word, sharp and brass-scented.

  The doors opened.

  Each onto a different world—thick forests and luminescent icescapes, revolving stars and a concrete and steel sky. Scents and sounds came through, each place unique. The magicians walked through the room, peering through the doors. “Though I would caution you not to enter—I can’t guarantee that you would return,” Ian said.

  After they had their chance to look upon storms and oceans, on lavender fields and jeweled museums, Ian brought his hands down.

  The doors closed.

  The first part of the Turning was finished.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sydney gritted her teeth as the boat took her to Shadows through what had turned from snow to freezing rain. She was certain this was Shara once again summoning her for no purpose other than to prove she could, and to carve one more sliver off her torn and ragged shadow. She resented the cold, and the night, and the being subject to someone’s whim. The boat scratched against the shore, and she stomped inside.

  Soaking wet and the cold an ache in her bones, she was grateful that the House didn’t force her in some roundabout path, but brought her to Shara directly.

  “The challenges have become mortal,” Shara said. The air around her cracked and snapped with frost.

  “They have,” Sydney said. Magic like spring below her skin, green and humid. Not quite warmth, not in this place, but a ward against the worst of the cold.

  “And so the House requires a challenge. House Prospero.”

  And there it was. This was the plan. This had always been the plan. When Shara had first explained how the House would use her during the Turning, this particular challenge was the one that had been mentioned with specificity. Sydney had agreed because it hadn’t mattered to her at the time, because at the time all she could see was how well that fit into her own plans for the Turning. “Is there a time frame in which the House would like this to be carried out?”

  “Soon. It need not be immediate, but if the House feels you are taking too long, there will be consequences. I suspect that you will not enjoy them.”

  Shara’s fingers curled, and Sydney felt the sensation of hundreds of legs crawling over her skin. She did not allow herself to shudder. “Will there be anything else?”

  “I thought you’d be happier, Sydney,” Shara said.

  “I am always happy to serve the House.” Expected words, required sentiments.

  “Which is why the House has given you this opportunity—vengeance on the House that cast you aside. That is what you feel, isn’t it?” An expression that some might have called a smile, overlarge and too sweet. “That you were cast aside and thrown away.”

  Years of practice gave her the strength to keep her face blank, to not give Shara the satisfaction of knowing that every word had been a knife, twisted. “I don’t have a House.”

  “Except for Shadows. You’ll always be a part of Shadows.” Shara held up the knife, the pen.

  Sydney leaned as hard as she could into the pain as her shadow was cut away, letting it fill her, letting it be all she knew. It seemed like every time she walked back through the doors, she had more secrets to hide, but she had kept them all so far, and she would not let today change that. Better to endure pain than to betray herself.

  She signed her name and walked back out into the sleet.

  • • •

  Sydney wanted Madison to feel comfortable, so she asked to meet at the neighborhood bar again. A comfortable setting seemed kinder, somehow, when you were about to ask someone to do something where the consequences of saying yes ranged from “getting fired” to “death.” She was pretty sure she could keep Madison safe from that last one, but drinks were in order.

  “I need information,” Sydney said, after their drinks arrived, “about how the Houses are inherited.” Shara’s request itched at her. Not that it was unexpected, or that Shara or Shadows had ever bothered explaining things—you don’t explain things to a gun; you simply aim and fire—but she wanted to know what Shara was getting out of the deal. No matter what she had said, this challenge wasn’t because Shadows was trying to allow Sydney personal vengeance. She wanted to know why she had been aimed in this particular direction.

  “I assume you’re not asking because congratulations are in order,” Madison said.

  Sydney stared.

  “Right. Well, you’ll need to be more specific—under what circumstances is the House being inherited. I mean, outside of the conventional will and a named heir.”

  “Let’s start easy,” Sydney said. “There are biological descendants, but no named heirs.”

  “That one’s easy. In case of death or permanent incapacity, things pass by typical intestate succession—spouse first, then any biological children.”

  “Permanent incapacity?” Sydney asked.

  “Significant mental illness or brain damage, the kind that would interfere with magic use, or outright loss of magic,” Madison said. “There are legal processes and safeguards in place to confirm each.”

  Sydney stirred her drink. “What about if there is a biological heir that hasn’t been recognized?”

  “Like a lost heir problem?” Madison perked up. “I always wanted one of those. The basic proof could come from a Perdita spell, or any of the other pieces of magic that will confirm genetics. Perdita’s considered the most rigorous, and so it’s preferred. Then you introduce the heir to the House—if the House recognizes them and opens the door in front of witnesses, it’s irrefutable.”

  “Recognizes them?” Sydney asked.

  “The physical Houses have magical locks, ones that recognize the blood of the family that holds them. If the House opens its doors to you, you belong there.”

  “Interesting,” Sydney said. “Okay, what if there is a known biological descendant, but they’ve been disinherited and the House has no named heir?”

  Madison took a long drink of her martini. “You’re not speaking in hypotheticals anymore, are you?” There was only one House in living memory that had disinherited one of its children and had no named heir: Prospero.

  “No,” Sydney said. “I’m not.”

  “And is there someone else who is a blood heir, who would pass the House’s test?”

  “There is. I know how to find that person, and I know they would hold the House.”

  Madison closed her eyes. “I’m going to need another drink.”

  “They’re on me,” Sydney said.

  “Sydney, that House that we’re both very carefully not
naming, that’s a big, important House, and there is no sign that its current Head is about to vacate her duties. I know you have plans, big scary plans, and my willingness to support you in them hasn’t changed, but are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “I think so. There’s someone else I need to talk to, and a lot will depend on how that conversation goes. And no, that conversation won’t include a discussion of the outright assassination of a current Head of House.”

  “That is something of a relief.” Madison did not look like her stress level had been lessened by Sydney’s assurances.

  “I’m just trying to plan for everything.” Sydney liked plans. She liked to have many of them, so their pieces could be switched apart and replaced when necessary. “What you said about the inheritance lines up with what I thought, but are there any special provisions during a Turning?”

  Madison took another piece of the pickled asparagus Will had brought with the second round of drinks. “No—the current rules of inheritance were put in place after the last Turning. Oddly enough, it was Christopher Prospero’s death that led to them. He had no will, and Grey was too young to be formally invested. It was clear he would be, so there weren’t any issues, but it was one of those situations that made people realize that things needed to be formalized.

  “Though, interestingly, beyond removing Grey as heir, Miranda never has made a new will.”

  “That is interesting,” Sydney said.

  “I have the terrible feeling that when you say ‘interesting,’ what you mean is ‘liable to cause three, maybe four large-scale explosions.’ ”

  “Two. I’m pretty sure I’ll only need two. And I’ll try to keep you clear of them,” Sydney said. “But in all seriousness, you continuing to help me—it might not be a risk-free endeavor. Do you want out?”

  “Not even a little bit,” Madison said.

  “All right. I’ve set up some basic precautions for you. You’ll find an envelope, bordered in red, in your purse when you leave the bar tonight—and no, I can’t just hand it to you now. I want it to recognize you specifically, and the less contact I have with it the better.”

  “Sounds serious,” Madison said.

  “It is. The envelope will smell like roses. Open it once you get inside your apartment, after you shut the door.”

  “Self-triggering wards?” Madison asked.

  “Good ones. You’ll receive a new envelope in your mailbox once a week on Tuesday until this is over. Red-bordered, rose-scented. If any one of those three things isn’t right, don’t open it. And after you don’t open it and you get the fuck out of your apartment building, you call me.”

  “Got it,” Madison said, and swallowed hard.

  “Look, if this is too much—”

  Madison cut her off. “It isn’t. Really. I’m just mentally transitioning from, ‘Hey, I feel like a spy, this is kind of cool,’ to, ‘Those fuckers might blow up my cat,’ and it’s a bit of an adjustment.”

  “I swear to you, Madison, I will not let anyone—fucker or otherwise—blow up Noodle. Actually, you know what, I’m going to make Noodle a warded collar. I’ll messenger it to you at the office tomorrow.”

  “Thanks. Seriously.” Madison nodded. “Okay. What else?”

  “No problem. I love that furball. Anyway, your office is probably safer than your apartment—Prospero isn’t the only House that does business at Wellington & Ketchum, and besides, blowing up a law firm is a good way to call too much mundane attention to the Unseen World. Can’t have that. Still, you’ll receive an email with a 1:13 a.m. time stamp every Wednesday. It’ll have poetry in the body—lines from Seamus Heaney’s Sweeney Astray. The attachment will be an MP3 file. Download the attachment and let the song play all the way through. You don’t need to have the volume on, but let it play.”

  “I just hired an associate, specifically to help me deal with the new work for the Turning—lots of Houses trying to get their affairs in order. She seems trustworthy, and I’ve been thinking of giving her some of the peripheral work on your projects, too. Do I need to worry about her?” Madison asked.

  “I’ll modify the email so that the spell covers her, too. Just forward it once you’ve played it through.”

  “Thanks. Anything else?” Madison signaled for another round.

  “Can you find out why Grey was disinherited?”

  “Probably. It’ll take a while, though—that sort of thing is kept in physical archive only.”

  “Please look. I think it might be important. And if I can do anything to make that search go more quickly, let me know.”

  “Believe me, I will.”

  Sydney settled the bill and got up. “Watch your back.”

  “You too.”

  • • •

  Sydney walked into Laurent’s apartment and covered it in a blanket of wards.

  “I thought I had locked the door.” Laurent stood in the kitchen, right hand crooked into the opening of a basic defensive spell.

  “You did,” Sydney said. “I unlocked it.”

  “Oh.” He watched as she moved through the rooms like a very efficient hurricane. Then: “I live in a warded building.”

  “Laurent,” she said, in a voice that suggested that warded buildings were about as much of a challenge to her as a KEEP OUT sign taped to the door would be.

  “Right.” Shaking his head and slightly befuddled. “Right. Of course. I’d forgotten you were real-life Hermione Granger. Should I be worried that you can just walk in here like that?”

  “If it makes you feel any better, they were very high-quality wards, so I seriously doubt anyone else can,” Sydney said, continuing to cast a variety of spells. Look-aways and don’t-hear-mes. White noise and obscuring shimmers of air. Something complex and Slavic-sounding that left a compass rose drawn in smoke hanging in the air for forty-seven seconds, which Laurent thought was designed to confuse a mapmaker, though he wasn’t exactly sure what it would do in his apartment.

  “It makes you temporarily unfindable by GPS, both mundane and magically enhanced, as well as hiding you from locator spells,” Sydney said, answering the question Laurent hadn’t thought he had spoken aloud.

  “Oh,” he said again, feeling as if he, too, had been rendered unfindable. Whatever this was, it was not how he had planned to spend his morning.

  “I need to tell you something, and I need to make sure no one overhears, or even suspects that you know.”

  “Coffee,” Laurent said. He suspected that this was more of a whiskey conversation, but it was 9:23 and there were lines. “I need coffee for this.”

  Sydney perched on one of his barstools when she had the apartment secured to her liking. Laurent brought over a tray that had two cappuccinos and a plate piled with almond and anise biscotti.

  “This,” Sydney said, “this is exactly why I’m telling you.”

  “Because I made coffee?”

  “Because there are two cups on the tray. Because it wouldn’t have occurred to you for there to not be.” Sydney dunked her biscotti and ate half of it, then set her cup down. “What do you know about where magic comes from?”

  “Comes from?” Laurent shook his head. “I’ve never really thought about it. I guess maybe some kind of genetic mutation or something? You know, the kind of thing that explains why it runs in families, mostly, but then every so often someone like you or me shows up.”

  “That may well be part of it,” Sydney said. “Or, to be more precise, may be why some people can access and use the power, once it exists, but others can’t. But that’s not where magic comes from.

  “Magic, at its heart, starts with sacrifice. You have to give up something to get something, and because magic is big, with all that it allows you access to, what you give up has to be big. It has to be meaningful.

  “The sacrifice is the thing that runs in families.”

  “How?” Laurent asked, gulping down coffee and wishing his brain would finish waking up.

  “Because the fami
lies choose the sacrifice. Each House makes one, once a generation. Traditionally, it’s the firstborn.” The uninflected blankness of a teacher reading from a textbook.

  “The firstborn what?” Laurent asked, setting down his coffee.

  “Child,” Sydney said. “The firstborn child.”

  “No.” Laurent stood up. “No. What is that? Sacrifice the firstborn child? Like some fucking Greek myth? No. This is the twenty-first century. That does not happen.”

  “I assure you that it does.” Sydney met his eyes. “Quite easily, and without a lot of fuss. It has for four generations now. All it took was for one person to realize that magic hurt. That you could do a spell, but afterward you might be weak, or run a fever, or cough blood, or whatever it was that was your readjustment to what you had just done. Impossibility is supposed to be just that, and there are consequences when it isn’t.

  “So some people stopped doing magic at all, because it hurt after. And then someone thought—what if we could get rid of the pain? What if we could make someone else pay, instead? And then, better still, what if we took the magic from those kids and put it in the thaumaturgical equivalent of a pool, something everyone could draw from. Easy, convenient access.”

  “Okay. Let’s say you’re right. I mean, I get wanting things to be easy and not painful, but kids, Sydney? Kids?”

  “Easier to give someone up when you haven’t gotten to know them.”

  “That is some fucked up shit.”

  “Yes,” Sydney said.

  “But wait. Not everyone has kids. I mean, assuming you’re right—which is a big assumption, because seriously, if someone is going to show up and ask me for a child, they are out of luck. Or are they going to make me buy some orphan off the street? ‘Congratulations on surviving the Turning, Mr. Beauchamps. Now, where’s the baby?’ ” His hands went to his head as if by pressing on it he could press himself into the ground, into sanity.

  “That is precisely what they’ll do,” Sydney said. “It won’t be immediate, but it is a requirement to establish a House.”

  “You’re actually serious.” He sat down hard.