“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Warren mutters behind me.
I ignore him, just wrap my hand around Lana’s, and together we follow the hallway until it dumps us into the main space of the cellar, a wide, low-ceilinged, windowless den that looks like it spans the entire length and width of the house. The ceiling is peppered with small, blinking lights, and the floor is shiny as a still mirror, reflecting back the lights on its glossy black surface, which creates the effect that we’re walking over a field of stars. There are a few trees lining the perimeter of the crowded room, oaks with arms that stretch and bend like they’re being animated by a magic wind, with leaves that rustle and sway, all tucked away in the basement of Sigma Phi.
All of this will be gone tomorrow. All pure magic is real, a true manipulation of reality, but it’s fleeting. From sorcerer’s shine to magic replicas, force fields, and every type of trick, all of a sorcerer’s magic is condemned to fade away after a day. Most people think that makes sorcery even more mesmerizing: getting a glimpse of a world that’s better than our own, but one that only lasts for a moment. But magic’s taken too much from me to see it as anything but a swindle.
“I feel like we’re flying.” Lana takes my face gently and presses hers into it, her cherry lips on mine, before she pulls away. “More magic,” she says. “Take me.”
I scan the room. The crowd is divided into clusters, anywhere from ten to about thirty college kids arranged in a semicircle around each of the three hired sorcerers on the floor. Each holds their audience’s attention with a small, space-friendly trick, performing it parlor-style for their enraptured crowd on repeat.
My eyes rest on the nearest sorcerer, a few feet away. He takes his time fanning playing cards into a rainbow above his head, and then folds them back into a perfect deck that lands softly on his outstretched hand.
“Come on”—I pull Lana toward him—“you’ll love this.”
She practically coos as we watch the trick once, twice, three times. I bet the show must seem even more wowing when she’s on shine. She sneaks me another kiss as we stumble over to another performer, one who holds a small sphere of fire in his palm, waving it back and forth and jovially threatening to hand it over to a particularly shell-shocked dame on the sidelines. Lana whispers, “That light is so hot, so blinding, Alex.”
As she leans into me, I can’t help but agree; it’s bright in here, warm and familiar. If I just focus on this girl, the way she’s looking at me, on the jazz music blaring and the faint scent of privilege that perfumes the cellar, I can forget. I can lose myself in the now.
“I want to get so lost,” Lana whispers into my ear, then pulls away from me suggestively. I want to get lost too. “Come find me.”
“Wait, Lana,” I laugh. But as I move to chase after her, Warren steps in my way.
“You can stop, all right?” he says flatly, yelling into my ear over the jazz. “Uncle. You want to feel like a big man? I say uncle.”
I shake my head. “What are you taking about?”
“God, you’re really going to make me spell it out?” He looks around uncomfortably, blushes. “I have my eye on Lana, all right, Alex?”
An electric feeling, shiny and heady, lights me up from the inside. “That’s funny, ’cause it seems like she’s got her eye on me.”
“Yeah, as a joke, as a trip, same as the shine,” Warren snaps. “She’s the daughter of a freaking senator. Don’t kid yourself.”
And despite the blood sport we’re playing, the hard daggers we’ve been slinging at each other, I’m still surprised silent by his cut. My eyes pinch without my permission, and I have to look at the floor.
“Jesus, what are we doing, Alex?” Warren says. “Look, I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You’re right, I’m not.” Warren runs his fingers through his hair, gives me that infuriating, borrowed hair toss again. “I’m tired of this. It’s awful what your father did, it really is, all right? And I felt bad for you. Sometimes I still do. But you’re becoming poison,” he says. “Happy? There’s the truth.” And then he turns to walk away.
The anger starts to boil, overflow inside. I need to direct it, somewhere, anywhere else, besides letting it burn me inside out. So before Warren gets away from me, before I think better of it, I take a step forward and give him a sharp shove to the back.
He stumbles forward, and a couple of chaps and dames on the edge of the nearby performance circle stop talking and stare. Warren whips around. “Are you serious?” He takes a few running steps toward me and pushes back. “Leave. Just go home, Alex.”
But I shove him again, sending him off balance.
“Keep your dirty hands off me,” he seethes, as he barrels back into me. I grab his neck into a headlock and send us both scrambling to the floor.