The Magician’s Land

Lionel and the bird had reserved three suites. The five of them sat on a vast beige sectional couch in one of the living rooms, waiting to be briefed. Betsy paged through the room service menu. The bird pecked at some nuts from the mini-bar. A clutch of Heinekens stood on the coffee table, but only Stoppard was drinking. From his expression it seemed not impossible that this was a first for him.

 

“All right,” Lionel said. “Here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t know.” He had the manner of a bored tech-support guy explaining something very, very basic. He was standing by the flat-screen TV, which he’d unplugged. He touched it and an image appeared—he was apparently able to project them straight from his mind, which was a trick Quentin hadn’t seen before. “This is the case. Not the actual one, but same make and model.”

 

It was a handsome but unassuming leather suitcase, pale brown, pleasantly battered, very English, with lots of nice straps and clasps on it. It looked ready for a weekend in the country.

 

“So we’re looking for Bertie Wooster,” Quentin said.

 

Nobody laughed.

 

“We’re pretty sure it’s on the eastern seaboard.” A map appeared on the dead TV, showing the eastern states with possible sites pinpointed and annotated. “We’re also pretty sure that the people who have it don’t know what they have. As far as we know they haven’t been able to open it.”

 

“Why don’t you just buy it off them?” Plum said. “If they don’t know what it is. You obviously have plenty of money.”

 

“We tried,” Lionel said. “They don’t know what they have, but they’re pretty sure they have something big, and they don’t want to give it up till they’ve figured out what. They acquired it as part of a cache of artifacts from a dealer, who we presume they killed. Unfortunately our attempts to purchase it from them have only confirmed their estimate of its value.”

 

“Wait,” Stoppard said. “They killed him?”

 

“Her. And yes.”

 

Stoppard’s eyes were wide. He looked more excited than appalled. He took another hasty swig.

 

“One thing you don’t have to worry about with these guys is your conscience,” Lionel said. “They’re assholes, major league. They call themselves the Couple.” Two photographs appeared, side by side, a man and a woman, both good-looking and in their early thirties, evidently taken from some distance away with a long-range lens. “They’re manipulators. They work behind the scenes, messing around with the civilians. They get off on it; it’s all a big game to them.”

 

Quentin frowned. He’d heard about magicians who did that: competed with each other to move the stock market, throw elections, start wars, choose popes. The mundane world was a big chessboard to them. Supposedly the whole electoral debacle of 2000 was mostly a shoving match between two magicians who were trying to settle a bet.

 

“How are we going to find them?” he asked.

 

“Don’t worry about it.”

 

“I still don’t understand why you want this thing,” Plum said.

 

“You don’t have to,” the bird said. “We are not paying you to understand.”

 

“Well, no. I guess not. It all seems kind of sketchy though.”

 

Betsy cackled.

 

“Sketchy! I love that. You’re talking to a bird in an airport Marriott.”

 

Betsy had a point. Quentin badly wanted to get Plum alone and ask her why she was doing this and what she knew about it and if she was all right. He was worried about her, and what’s more he needed an ally, and she was the likeliest candidate. Betsy picked up the phone and began whispering confidingly to room service.

 

“You’re sure we don’t need more people,” he said. “What about a psychic? A healer?”

 

“I am sure.”

 

“When do you expect this all to happen?” Pushkar asked. “How soon?” Of them all he looked the least like a master thief. He didn’t look like a magician at all. Maybe it was camouflage; he certainly seemed to be the most comfortable with the whole situation.

 

“We don’t know,” Lionel said.

 

“Yes, but weeks? Months? I must notify my family.” He was also the only one of them wearing a wedding ring.

 

“I am not living in Newark Airport Marriott for months.” Betsy broke off her phone conversation. “FYI. Or weeks. Or one week singular. The only natural fibers in my room are the hairs in the bathtub.”

 

“We’ll tell you as soon as we know.”

 

“So to recap,” Quentin said. “Two bad people—known killers who are, with respect, much scarier than we are—have a suitcase somewhere on the eastern seaboard, precise location unknown, contents unknown, under an incorporate bond. And we are going to take it away from them.”

 

“We have the numbers,” the bird said. “And the element of surprise.”

 

“If this works I for one will be very surprised,” Pushkar said cheerfully. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”

 

“What about that incorporate bond?” Plum said. “How are we going to break it? What with that being impossible and all.”

 

“We will have to do the impossible,” the bird said, “which is why I hired magicians and not accountants. I mentioned resources earlier. We will discuss each of your needs individually.”

 

The meeting gradually disintegrated. Quentin stood up. They could talk about his needs later, whatever they were. For now he needed some air, and some food, and maybe a drink to celebrate the beginning of his new life of crime. Something soft brushed his ear and prickled his shoulder, and he had to resist the instinctive urge to slap at it. It was the bird.

 

“Christ!” he said. “Don’t do that.”

 

Maybe you got used to it. Julia had.

 

“Do you know why I asked you here?” it whispered, putting its beak right up against his ear.

 

“I could make a pretty good guess.”

 

“It is not for your skill at mending.”

 

“That wasn’t going to be my guess.”

 

The bird flew off again, back to Lionel’s shoulder, which Quentin now noticed was worn and stained with use.

 

 

Plum agreed to meet him in the hotel bar.

 

The lights were too bright, and there were too many TVs, but it was a bar, and that was another place, like bookstores, where Quentin felt at home. Drinks were a lot like books, really: it didn’t matter where you were, the contents of a vodka tonic were always more or less the same, and you could count on them to take you away to somewhere better or at least make your present arrangements seem more manageable. The other patrons appeared to be business travelers and tourists who’d been stranded by canceled flights; looking around Quentin was pretty sure there was not one single person in the bar who was actually there by choice.

 

It was no time for half measures. He took a seat next to Plum and ordered a gin martini, dry, with a twist.

 

“I thought you were a wine person,” Plum said. She’d ordered mineral water.

 

“Lately I’ve had to up my dosage. I thought you were a wine person.”

 

“I’m thinking right now I’d better try to keep my wits about me.”

 

They watched TV for a minute, a soccer game. The green pitch looked cool and inviting; it was almost a shame it was covered with soccer players. She didn’t seem eager to go first, so he did.

 

“So how’d they get to you?”

 

“A letter,” she said. “When I got back to my room that night it was already on my bed. I’m still trying to figure out how they did that. So far it’s the most impressive thing about this whole operation.”

 

“Are you really sure you want to be here?”

 

“Of course I don’t want to be here!” Plum snapped. “I want to be back in my damn dormitory, finishing my damn senior year like a normal person! But that’s not going to happen. So.”

 

“I’m just concerned about the risk.”

 

“Well, me too. But I don’t happen to have a lot of other choices right now. Don’t worry about it. I’m not your responsibility anymore.”

 

“I know that.”

 

“And that’s not your cue to hit on me.”

 

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Give me some credit.”

 

He was pretty sure that it wasn’t really him she was upset with. He wanted to help her. His own transition from Brakebills to the real world hadn’t exactly been graceful either. When he graduated he’d thought life was going to be like a novel, starring him on his own personal hero’s journey, and that the world would provide him with an endless series of evils to triumph over and life lessons to learn. It took him a while to figure out that wasn’t how it worked.

 

His martini came. A thick curl of gold lemon peel lay sunken in its silvery depths; it had spread a thin oily sheen across the surface. He drank quickly, before it had a chance to warm up.

 

“Look, I’m sorry,” Plum said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. God knows this isn’t your fault. It’s just—I’m having trouble.” She shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t told my parents what happened yet. I don’t know how to do it. Brakebills was a big, big deal to them. I guess they’re kind of overinvested in me. I’m an only child.”

 

“Do you want me to talk to them?”

 

“Hmm.” She sized him up. “No, I don’t think that’s going to help.”

 

“I’m an only child too. Though my parents were more like underinvested in me.”

 

“Right, see, but for me, it’s going to mess them up.”

 

“But it’s good that they care,” Quentin said. “I don’t want to sound like a Pollyanna, but if they really love you they’ll love you whatever happens.”

 

“Oh, they’ll love me.” Plum’s voice was rising again. “They’ll love me, all right! They’ll just spend the rest of their lives looking at me like a sick bird with a broken wing that will never get better!”

 

She sucked fiercely at her mineral water through a straw. Then she went on:

 

“I don’t know. Anyway, this came along and I don’t know what I’m doing, and I thought I’d take a look, and here I am taking it. It’s different, anyway. What about you?”

 

“Similar,” Quentin said. “I got a letter. I was going to ignore it, but then I found myself suddenly without employment. I was curious. And here we are.”

 

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “I do feel some responsibility for that.”

 

“Forget about it.”

 

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