“What?”
“Before the Turning started. Shara had a whole plan for how things would go, and I had one of my own, which diverged from hers at a few key points.”
“Okay, that part doesn’t surprise me. Actually, if you only had one plan, maybe it does.”
Sydney laughed. “All right, yes, there was more than one plan. But in all of them, I had to be named a champion, and so I gave Madison some characteristics that I was hoping for in the House or candidate that I would represent and asked her to find people for me. I’d hoped that she’d find someone who would be impressed enough with my magic to stay out of my way.”
“Hence that first illusion,” Laurent said.
“Hence.” One side of her mouth quirked up. “But as it turns out, she couldn’t have found anyone better. You didn’t stay out of my way. You helped me. So thank you.”
“I think that’s my line,” he said. “My doors are always open, Sydney. I’m glad you walked through them.”
And they sat together for the rest of the evening, catching up on all the pieces of life that made a friendship and watching the sun set over the city and all its wonders, both seen and unseen.
? ? ?
Sydney walked through Central Park with Madison. They paused at the Angel of the Waters. Sydney tossed a penny in.
“For luck?” Madison asked.
“You never know,” Sydney said. The statue had been mended, not by magic, but by the city, all traces of its connection to the Unseen World gone. It still wasn’t an object of beauty for her. It probably never would be. But she could stand to look at it now. Small things.
“Is it true the only reason Prospero wound up at the top was because you forfeited to Ian?”
“Funny how that worked out, isn’t it?” Sydney said. “Grace will do an excellent job. And there’s no chance anything like Shadows will happen on her watch.”
The air was warm and green, lush with thick grass and flowering trees. Joggers ran past, a small flock of children with balloons tied to their wrists shrieked in delight as a gust of wind made the balloons wiggle and dance. The ball for a pickup soccer game scooted just in front of Madison’s feet. Spring had arrived early, and everyone was indulging.
Madison nudged the soccer ball pack to the waiting players. “If it weren’t for the part where you lost your magic, I’d think you planned all of this.”
“If it weren’t for that part, yes.”
“Is it still . . . ?”
“Always,” Sydney said. “I think the answer to that is forever now, and I can say that word and it almost doesn’t hurt. I can still light a candle. Still do, every day, still try to find some scrap of magic left inside me that will let me do more, because apparently I am exactly that sort of person. Oh—you’ll love this—Lara offered me the stolen magic that Miles had tucked away.”
“Seriously?”
“Not directly, at least—she made Ian ask. And I think she genuinely thought it was a kind offer. I laughed so hard before I could answer that I think he was worried I’d finally cracked, but yeah.” It had been an easy thing to say no to—all it would have done was extend her time in the Unseen World, let her cast a spell here and there, been a clock running down to remind her of what she wasn’t. It wouldn’t have been real magic—it wouldn’t have been hers. And the place it had come from, the taint of it . . . She’d told Ian to break the flasks.
“Have you decided what you’re doing next?” Madison asked. “You could always go to law school.”
“What was it that you said when I told you I’d give you Prospero if I could? Oh, right: Bite your tongue.”
Madison laughed.
“But maybe school of some sort. The money I earned working for Laurent—it was a lot. I don’t need to worry, and I have time to try things out.” There might be a pleasure in learning something arcane and complex, a challenge that could make her forget the way her hands ached for magic they no longer held, that would make her stop checking, looking for pieces of shadow that clung anywhere to her, hoping there might somehow be something left.
“And the freedom to do it.”
“And the freedom to do it. Which is weird. But good. Good weird.”
“Much like you, my friend,” Madison said. “Drinks?”
“Drinks.”
There had been a plan, of course. One imagined in the darkness, in the Shadows. It had ended any number of different ways, most of them eventually painful—there were always consequences to magic. Shadows knew that better than most, and even without magic, there was a part of her that would always be a Shadow.
But for all her plans, for all the possible outcomes she saw, Sydney had not imagined the ending that had happened. Had she been offered the choice, the loss of her magic might not have been a consequence she would have agreed to bear.
She had been at peace with the idea of dying, if her end meant the end of Shadows. That had been the weight she was willing to place on the other side of the scales, if it had been called for. She was not yet at peace with a world where the only magic she had was the small flicker of a candle.
As she walked through the green, spring light with her best friend, Sydney bent her hand into the shapes of spells.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Megan Kurashige, whose feedback on an early draft not only helped me see the shape of the story that I needed to tell, but also kept me from deleting my draft in despair.
I am also so grateful to friends who offered support and encouragement as I was writing this book: Maria Dahvana Headley, Cat Valente, Theodora Goss, Gwenda Bond, Neil Gaiman, Roshani Chokshi, Sarah McCarry, Monica Byrne, Martin Cahill, Christie Yant, Dot Paxton, Keri Blatt, Becky Krug, Jen Miller, and Nicole Saharsky.
This book would be only a pile of words without my fabulous agent, Brianne Johnson, and my terrific editor, Joe Monti. Thank you both. Thank you also to everyone at Saga for your help and hard work, and in particular to Lizzy Bromley, Saga’s art director, and Vault 49 for my amazing cover. I’m so lucky to be working with all of you.
And of course, all my love and gratitude to my family.