Magic for Nothing

by Seanan McGuire

  I ducked my chin toward my chest, not saying anything. Let him take my silence for shock and anger, not for the fury that it was. How dare he? How dare this stuffed shirt of a man tell Timpani—whose background would have left her a little sheltered, a little credulous—that it was my family’s fault that hers was dead? That was a lie.

  But it was a lie being told to a lie, and it couldn’t be the thing that revealed me.

  “Since you’ve been with us, your blood has been tested repeatedly; your identity has been verified by our researchers; your intentions have not wavered. I am thus inclined to believe that you are who you seem to be, one more pilgrim in an unkind world, looking for the chance to avenge what you have lost. We’ll train you, if you truly want that chance. We’ll teach you what’s in the darkness, and how to defend yourself against it. In return, we’ll ask for your loyalty. We’ll ask for your obedience. We’ll ask for your willingness to accept that we have been fighting this fight in the name of St. George for centuries, and we have reasons for the things we do. I know unthinking submission to the law is not something that comes easily for your generation, but it is necessary, Timpani. Trust in the sword. Trust in the shield. Trust in the hand that holds them.”

  He’d been moving around the office as he spoke, lingering for a moment in front of each of the portraits. As he finished, he stopped in front of the largest painting, one which showed a man I presumed was meant to be St. George himself, standing atop the body of a slain dragon. It was a heartbreaking portrait of the death of a sapient being, and I was supposed to see it as triumphant and inspiring. Humans are the worst.

  “If you stay with us, you’ll be asked to swear to the shield regardless of your training, to keep our secrets and to protect the interests of the Covenant. Depending on where your strengths lie, you may be sworn to the secret and the sword, to go into the world and protect an ignorant humanity from the dangers that lurk in the shadows, unseen and unsuspected. Or you may be sworn to the pen and the page, to stay safely home and research ways of making this a safer place for all of us to live. The choice will not be yours. If all you seek is vengeance—immediate, unfulfilling vengeance—this is not the place for you. But if you would change the world for the better, if you would change yourself for the better, we can help you along that road. We can make you better. We can make you more prepared.”

  The opening narration from The Six Million Dollar Man was clawing at my brain, demanding to be recited. I looked gravely at Reginald Cunningham and said, “I would like that.”

  “Your training begins in the morning, Miss Brown. I do hope you won’t disappoint me.” He turned to the door, opening it to reveal Leo. “She’s agreed. You may take her to her room now. Don’t dilly-dally.”

  “No, sir,” said Leo, stepping nimbly around his grandfather to pick up my suitcase. “Come on, Annie, I’ll show you where you’ll be bunking until we either break or promote you.”

  “Thanks, I think,” I said. I still had my backpack. I swung it on, offered Reginald a quick, respectful nod, and followed Leo out of the room before either of them could change their minds.

  Being slightly smarter than the average bear, I waited until we had gone up a broad, lushly-carpeted staircase and were halfway down the hallway at the top before I asked, “Was there a point to all that?”

  “Yes and no,” he said. “I’m not going to say we’re hurting for recruits, because we’re not, but it’s a bit hard to get new blood when the official party line is ‘none of these things exist, we don’t exist, if you think you saw something, you’re wrong.’ Have you seen that film, Men in Black?”

  “Classic,” I said.

  “Well, it’s a bit like that. We get a decent number of recruits from the families who’ve been with the Covenant for generations, and sometimes one of them will marry out and bring in their in-laws, but for the most part, we’re a bit of a pyramid scheme gone wrong when it comes to getting new blood. As soon as we were sure you were human and who you said you were, you were going to wind up here, and he was going to give you that speech.”

  “So that’s the ‘no’ side, then,” I said carefully.

  Leo nodded. “There was a time when even getting this far would have meant three days of trials, riddles, and sword fighting and all that Camelot crap. But that was long ago. People were more willing to believe in dragons when they’d seen them with their own eyes. The danger hasn’t passed; it’s just become more clever and more secretive.”

  “So why keep this a secret at all?” I asked. “Why not tell everyone, right from the start, ‘Hey, PS, there are monsters, and we fight them, and if you send your kids over here, we’ll teach them to fight monsters, too.’”

  “We did in the beginning, when ‘here be monsters’ was a warning, and not something clever to put on a T-shirt. I mean ‘we’ in the academic sense here, not in an ‘I was there’ sense.” Leo chuckled. “If I were as old as the Covenant, I’d be something in need of hunting.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” I agreed. If this hall wasn’t the length of the house, it was close; we were still walking, and the far wall didn’t seem to be any closer.

  “But there were always noblemen who didn’t want us scaring people with our talk of monsters, and clergy who didn’t want us associated with the church—we’ve been an officially secular organization since the fifteenth century, when the archbishop declared that all monsters had perished in the Flood, and called us zealots and fools for thinking otherwise. Really, the church just didn’t like that women were allowed to do as they liked within the Covenant, because we couldn’t afford to turn anyone away. We didn’t have land or power or much to offer beyond a sword and a chance to make the world a better place.”

  “Huh,” I said, as noncommittally as I could.

  Leo didn’t appear to notice my lack of enthusiasm. “As to why that little speech was important . . . this is dangerous work, Annie. Important, but dangerous. Three of the people I went through my training with are dead, victims of powers beyond our ken. The things we hunt, they’re not like lions or tigers or bears. They’re not animals. They’re monsters, capable of turning a man to stone or melting you from the inside out. They can kill with a breath, a glance, the slightest touch. You needed to understand that before you formally decided to join us.”

  “Was that also why you drove me here in the back of a van? To make me see how serious this was?”

  “That, and it was fun to watch you trying not to yell at me.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Watch it. I’m not handcuffed now.”

  “Ah, but now you’re a Covenant trainee, which makes me your superior. Yelling at me would be a breach of protocol.” Leo stopped at an unmarked door, rapping his knuckles against it and waiting for a moment before he pushed it open. “Here we are, then.”

  “Here we are,” I agreed, and followed him into what could have been any college dorm in the world. There was a bed on either side of the room; two nightstands; two bookcases. One side of the room was clearly occupied. There was a colorful duvet on the bed, there were books in the case, and most importantly, there was a large crossbow hanging on the wall next to the window. The other side was featureless and plain, waiting for an occupant.

  “This is where you’ll be sleeping, for now,” he said. “Your roommate should be along at some point. She’ll get you acclimatized to the way we do things. Meals are served in the dining room, and the kitchen is open between times, but only for those in active training. Have you got clothes that you can move in?”

  “You’ve been through all my stuff. You know I do.”

  “Ah, but you see, I’m allowing you the polite fiction of my not knowing what your underthings look like. I’ll wait in the hall while you get changed. Choose sensible shoes.”

  I blinked at him. “Why? What are we doing?”

  His smile was quick and sharp. “Skills assessment, of course. Hurry no
w, no time to waste.” He stepped out of the room, leaving me to stare in blank confusion at the door.

  Skills assessment. I should probably have been expecting that.

  With a heavy sigh, I hoisted my suitcase onto the bed intended for my use. Fortunately for me, my cover identity wasn’t one to travel without workout clothes. There were yoga pants at the bottom of the case, and a tank top from the first episode of The Devil’s Carnival, which seemed to be in both character and poor taste. I stripped quickly, changed even faster, and pulled my hair into a ponytail before unzipping my backpack and sticking my head inside.

  “I don’t know if it’s safe, so be careful,” I whispered. “But Professor Xavier is a jerk, so please, can you let me know that you’re alive?”

  A squeak answered from the bottom of the bag. Mindy was still with me. Relief washed over me, stronger than I would have thought possible. I hadn’t failed her before I even got started. I could do this. I was Antimony Price, youngest daughter of the greatest family of traitors these people had ever known, and I could do this.

  I straightened my shoulders and walked to the door. Leo was standing on the other side, patiently waiting for me. He grinned a little at my shirt.

  “Did you see episode two?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I liked the soundtrack for episode one better, but they both held together well. We going to do this?”

  “We are,” he said, and offered me his arm.

  I took it.

  Seven

  “There is no skill so specialized that it cannot be adapted to the business of survival. When all else fails, look to yourself for answers.”

  —Evelyn Baker

  In the training room at Penton Hall, trying not to freak out

  MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF the training room at Penton Hall was simple: I was back in high school, and this time there was no chance I was going to be able to get a pass to let me skip P.E. All the requisite athletic gear was there, the balance beams, the tumbling mats, the horse; the open area currently playing host to a vicious game of dodgeball, with the players hurling the red rubber sphere at each other like they were hoping for a fatality; the basketball hoops, the climbing ropes, and—slightly less standard—the competition-size trampoline next to the indoor rock wall. It was the sort of place you’d use to train for the next season of American Ninja Warrior, and it was swarming with Covenant operatives.

  Well. Maybe not swarming. There were maybe thirty people in the space, which was big enough to qualify as “Olympic sized,” and half of them were playing dodgeball. But this was still more Covenant operatives than I’d ever seen, and most of them looked cheerfully equipped to kill me if they thought they needed to. Chloe Cunningham was on the climbing ropes, having reached the top before locking her legs around her specific rope and flipping over backward. She hung there, content as a roosting bat, arms dangling and her fingers pointed toward the floor.

  “Okay, this is a lot,” I said, watching one of the trainees hit another in the face with the dodgeball. “I feel like I should go have a nap before I try doing anything in this room.”

  “It’s all right, Annie,” said Leo soothingly. “We just need to get a basic idea of what you can do, and then we can start your training. You grew up in the carnival. What can you do?”

  “Um. I’m pretty good on a trapeze, I can do trampoline, I’m really good at falling without freaking out about it . . . I don’t have the center of gravity for tightrope, but I’m a decent tumbler.” I was lowballing myself. A lot. I’m a great tumbler, and if I’d had my sister’s itty bitty build and willingness to risk exposure, I could have been a medalist. Sadly, I’m too big for the competition circuit, and too ethical to do that to my family.

  Being the good daughter that everyone thinks of as the bad daughter sucks.

  “Trampoline, okay. We can start there.” Leo started across the room, picking his way between the various pieces of equipment with practiced skill. “I don’t suppose you know how to use any weapons, do you?”

  “Um, knives.”

  “Knives?”

  “Throwing knives, you know.” I mimed a flinging motion. “I started practicing when I was a kid. Sometimes the townies could get a little aggressive with the carnie kids, and my mom wanted me to be able to take care of myself if something, um. Happened.”

  Leo’s face softened. “I’m sorry. This has to be bringing up a lot of painful memories.”

  “Yeah, but it’s going to equip me to avenge them. That matters more.”

  “Good way of thinking about it,” said Leo. He looked up and shouted, “Hey! Chloe! Get your worthless butt down here! I need a spotter!”

  “Fuck off,” replied Chloe genially, before flipping around and sliding down the rope. She landed primly on the balls of her feet, looking me over before asking her brother, “What, Granddad actually approved her membership application? We’ll take any old riffraff these days. What do you want me to do with her?”

  “I need to find some throwing knives while she gets warmed up on the trampoline. Can you make sure she doesn’t split her skull open?”

  Chloe rolled her eyes. “Not my job to babysit your recruits.”

  “And yet you’re going to do it anyway, because you don’t want to explain to Granddad how we just got this one and she’s somehow already dead.”

  I didn’t say anything. This was the sort of conversation I recognized from dealing with my own siblings, and I wanted no part of it. It would probably end in tears, or at least in someone getting punched.

  Chloe rolled her eyes again, harder this time. “Fine. Fine. But if she breaks a leg or something, it’s not my fault.”

  “It never is,” said Leo. He looked to me. “You okay to get started with Chloe as your spotter?”

  “Not if she has a tire iron,” I said. “Yeah, we’re fine. No one’s getting killed today. Go on.”

  “Going,” he said, and trotted off.

  Chloe looked at me. “You’re a scruffy little American thing that my brother dragged home for no good reason, and I’m not going to go easy on you. All right?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Let’s get started, so we can get this over with. I’m exhausted.” That, and I didn’t actually want to have a conversation with Chloe. She was clearly the younger sister, resentful of being told what to do, even more resentful when she had to do it. I knew the type. Hell, I am the type. Nothing good would come of my trying to talk to her when she was already annoyed.

  “Fine,” she said, and started toward the trampoline.

  Either it wasn’t a popular piece of equipment, or everyone else was on some sort of schedule and I’d been lucky enough to choose their off day. Regardless, no one was on the trampoline or the nearby climbing wall. I removed my shoes, dusted my hands and feet with chalk dust from a nearby trough, and climbed the ladder to the bounce mat. It was six feet off the ground, high enough that I could hit it without worrying about breaking an ankle. Also high enough that if I misjudged a landing, I could do myself some serious damage.

  “What in the world possessed you to learn the trampoline?” asked Chloe.

  She sounded genuinely curious: I decided she deserved an answer. “I was already learning trapeze, and the two complement each other. You can do a lot of tricks moving between them. So I asked some of the clowns to teach me.” All true, in a modified sense. Timpani was who I could have been in another life. That made it easier to stick to her story, because it was so close to my own.

  “It’s still odd.”

  “Odd but fun.” I gave an experimental bounce. The trampoline was top of the line, firm without being unyielding, springy without being squishy. Half the gyms I’d trained with would have killed for this trampoline. The Campbell Family Carnival would have committed acts of mass mayhem, and I would have helped them. I bounced again, higher this time, letting my legs get used to the ide
a that this was what we were doing now.

  The majority of amateur trampoline accidents involve bouncing off the trampoline and slamming into some hard surface that doesn’t feel the need to help you out. It’s a lot like jumping on a really big bed that way. The majority of professional trampoline accidents—and yes, there are professional trampoline accidents—involve muscle strain and dislocated joints, from getting started before the body is ready.

  I bounced again. Chloe was starting to look disgusted. I didn’t care enough about her opinion of me to hurt myself. I sat down on the bounce mat with my legs spread in a wide V, bending forward to press my forehead against the rubber as I reached for my feet.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Stretching,” I said. She knew that—she had to know that—and was being a snot for the sake of being a snot. Again, an impulse I understood, and sometimes even shared, but not one I could indulge right now.

  For all that I was basically going through my paces for the Covenant of St. George, I was excited by the opportunity to move. Endorphins are as addictive as anything else, and I’d never gone this long without a decent workout. If being potentially useful as a field agent meant I got access to this room while I was doing my recon, I’d take it. Letting myself get out of shape for the sake of maintaining my cover would just make it harder to escape when the time came.

  “You are very dull,” said Chloe.

  “Safety first,” I replied. My muscles felt sufficiently loose for some starting tricks, and so I climbed to my feet, beginning to bounce with greater enthusiasm. I kept my upper body straight while allowing my knees to bend on each impact, absorbing the shock and distributing it throughout my body. Once I had sufficient height built up, I bounced and flipped, doing a three-sixty in the air before landing on my feet once again.