Merlin ate as he read, cutting sliver-thin pieces of rare steak. The Turning wasn’t only a time to increase House Merlin’s influence directly. It was a time to be subtle. To push the Unseen World—both directly and less so—in his chosen directions. There would be people on the list who would help him do this, some of them even voluntarily. He made notes, highlighted names, shuffled his deck and his strategies.
He paused. Laurent Beauchamps had hired an outsider. Strange, that. Magic coming from outside the Houses was unusual enough, but for there to be two people, for them to both find each other and work together, that was even more so. He took another bite, washed it down with a swallow of an excellent Burgundy. That pair would bear watching if they made it out of the opening round. Any new source of magic was worth keeping track of, perhaps worth cultivating. And if it wasn’t possible to cultivate it, new magic was worth keeping out. There were such things as standards, after all.
He clicked to the next page and nearly choked. Merlin spat the piece of half-chewed steak into his napkin. Set down his fork. Looked at the picture again. He twisted his mouth and pushed the plate to the side. After tossing away his inheritance and disappearing for years, to come back like this. Slinking like a dog and lapping for scraps from Miranda Prospero.
Miles pressed a hand to his stomach. The news had given him indigestion.
Still, Ian was a smart boy. Now that his little fit of petulance was over, now that he was back in the Unseen World, he’d come to regret his decision, his foolish reasons for breaking with his family. Once he did, it might be useful to have an ally inside Prospero. Champions’ decisions were final during challenges. And if he continued to refuse to see reason, it wouldn’t be that hard to manipulate him into Miles’ own desired outcome. His son always was too soft-hearted.
Merlin made a note in his tablet to tell his daughter, Lara, that she’d stand as champion for the House in place of her brother when they had breakfast tomorrow. For all his flaws, Ian loved his sister and would never hurt her. And while Lara returned that affection, Ian’s soft-heartedness was not a flaw that Lara shared. Which meant that one way or another House Merlin could beat House Prospero in a mortal challenge. That would help his position in the Turning nicely.
There. He felt much better. He would, he thought, have dessert.
? ? ?
Ian’s wards slid into place as his door closed and locked behind him. Word would get out soon enough, if it hadn’t already, about House Prospero’s new champion. His father would be furious, and there were plenty of people willing to court Miles Merlin’s favor.
Easy enough for a stray spell to go awry, for a misplaced bit of magic to have unforeseen and oh-so-tragic consequences. It was a Turning; accidents not only happened, but they were expected, and if anyone knew how to help one along, it was his father. Miles probably had a list, rank-ordered and waiting, of people he could call on to assist with the problem of his recalcitrant son.
Ian made himself a caprese sandwich and took his laptop to his rooftop garden, where he could sit high above the city, above the noise and the crowds, surrounded by the fading flowers of late summer, Central Park green and blooming below him. He could see the shadows that clung together on the reservoir. They looked like nothing from here, though that was true for him even when he was standing on the reservoir’s edge. The House of Shadows knew how to stay hidden. But he knew it was there, even if he couldn’t see it, and its presence was malevolent. It was something that should never have happened, and it had been there for far too long.
He angled his chair away from the view and put Shadows at his back.
After he’d eaten, he pulled up his thin file on the one magician he didn’t know: Laurent Beauchamps’ champion, Sydney. No last name. The video he had started after the spell began, so he couldn’t see her set up. But the ease with which she stood and the command precision with which she worked was incredible.
He froze the screen, enlarged the image. She wasn’t even sweating.
Ian knew nothing about her. She hadn’t come up through the Houses or gone to any of the usual schools, but she certainly had been trained. Which meant she was probably a Shadow. Which was interesting. He’d heard nothing about one of them getting out recently, not even from Verenice. Maybe Sydney had been hiding, waiting until now to make her presence known. Surprise was as much a weapon as anything else.
Whoever she was, wherever she’d come from, he doubted she’d be any kind of secret much longer. He watched the video again. She was like no one he’d ever seen.
He looked up the list of declared challenges. He wanted to see her cast in person. Wanted to see her in person. Anyone who could do magic like that was worth getting to know, preferably before they met on opposite sides of a duel.
Ian closed his laptop and leaned back in his chair. The air felt heavy, electric. There was a storm coming in. He was ready.
? ? ?
“I would prefer,” Laurent said, “not to challenge Grey directly.”
Sydney looked up at him from her perch in the window seat, the whole of the city spread out below her. Laurent’s penthouse apartment stretched much higher into the air than her own seventh-floor rooms, and after the huddled darkness of Shadows, she reveled in high, open places. This much sky below her felt glorious. The sunlight, the empty space, all possibility.
“Any particular reason?” she asked. Shara had given her files, histories, background on the major players in the Unseen World, everyone she was likely to encounter and their connections to one another. She knew the two men were friends. But there was always more to relationships than facts in files.
“He’s my best friend. Maybe that sounds ridiculous, since this whole thing is full of friends and families who are competing against each other, but he’s the first person who told me I was a magician. He’s been there for me ever since.” Laurent shrugged, brushing the words away.
“You didn’t grow up here, either?” Again, she knew the answer, but wanted to hear his response.
“Here as in, in the city? Sure. Here as in the Unseen World? Not even a little bit. No, I got all the way through middle school before I clued into the fact that I was luckier than anyone had a right to be, particularly if I said out loud what I wanted to happen. I mean, for a long time, I just figured that ‘throw a penny in the fountain and make a wish’ stuff was true.” His grin lit his entire face.
“So how’d you figure it out?” Genuinely curious. There had never been a time when Sydney had not been at least as aware of her magic as she was of her skin. It had always been who she was.
“I wished to meet a wizard. The next morning I woke up with an intense desire—like an itch in my brain—to go to the Rare Books room at the New York Public Library. Grey was the only one there—he’d warded the room so that no one without magic would be able to get in. When I did, he very kindly explained to me that ‘wizard’ was the wrong word.”