“But?” Sydney asked.
“They call me an outsider. Like it’s a title, except a bad one. Because I wasn’t born in a House. House Dee wouldn’t even let me in the door last night, and no one said a word against that. I am the only person with skin darker than pale who is competing in the Turning, and I’d bet every dollar in my bank accounts that I’d be the first black man to be named a House.
“I want power. I won’t pretend that I don’t. But the other reason I’m in this is that there are kids like I was, and they belong here, too. Even if I can’t open up the entire Unseen World to them, I can open up my House and give them a place.
“So, sure. I’ll wait and see for now, and once things become clearer, I’ll decide who to challenge next.”
“All right, then,” she said. “One other thing I want to ask you to think about—what to do about Grey.”
“I said—”
She cut him off. “I know what you said. That he’s off-limits. I’m not saying to change that, but you need to keep in mind that at some point the challenges become mortal. You can only duel a House or candidate once.”
“So it might be better to do it early and risk knocking him out than to do it later and risk killing him.” Laurent looked unhappy. “I don’t like it, but I get it. I’ll think about it. I’m not promising anything else, but I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I wanted,” Sydney said, though it wasn’t, not really. She wanted him to consider that his own success meant the challenge might come from Grey, and what he might do about that, but this clearly wasn’t the time to have that conversation. “Send me the next challenge when you decide who it is.”
? ? ?
There were a number of spells put in place when the House of Shadows was established. One of those spells looked like an angel.
The Angel of the Waters, on top of the Bethesda Fountain, set in the red brick of Central Park’s Bethesda Terrace. Striding forward, her wings open, arms outstretched, a lily in one hand. Sydney stood, facing the cooing pigeons perched in a line atop the statue’s wings.
The statue wasn’t magic in and of itself. It had been there before Shadows was created—made as a celebration of clean water, a symbol of freshness, of purity, a fact that had rendered Sydney incandescent when she learned it. After its appropriation by the spell that created Shadows, that governed the magic that came from that place, it was neither of those things.
If it had been associated with anything other than Shadows, Sydney would have found the statue beautiful. But knowing what it was, even with the setting sun making a watercolor of the sky and clouds behind it, she could barely stand to look at it.
But to break a spell you needed to know how it worked in the first place. That required that she do more than look at the statue.
Sydney walked around the fountain, keeping it in the periphery of her gaze. Shadows clung more deeply to it than they did to the other things in the park. But the effect was a subtle one. A photographer or painter, someone who worked with light, might notice it, but it seemed unlikely that most mundanes would. It was a well-hidden piece of magic.
She spoke a word to draw the air around her like a cloak. Its syllables broke and fell like soft rain. She extended her hands, a mirror reverse of the statue, and she reached into the magic that was anchored in it.
Dark copper and rot, the feel of clotting blood between her fingers, and that was exactly what she expected to find. Shadows’ magic. This, she knew. This, she could unmake.
She breathed in, she breathed out, and sank deeper.
Magic whipped around her like ropes, like barbed wire, holding, pulling, sinking in claws. Hungry. Some other spell, knitted into the magic from Shadows. Some other spell, trying to pull magic out of her. Fingers clutching at her heart, searching.
Sydney gritted a word out through clenched teeth, singeing the air, breaking her connection to the magic running through the Angel. She spat a curse, the aftermath of that second, searching spell lingering in her mouth like bile. An ache, dull and hollow, crouched just behind her ribs.
She narrowed her eyes and resumed her walk around the fountain, this time in the opposite direction. It was possible that Shara knew about this other, second spell. That this was another test: Could Sydney discover it? Would she tell when she did? But none of the instructions Shara had given her, none of Shadows’ plans, involved the statue.
It was also possible Shara didn’t know about this other spell, and that was something worth thinking on.
There were rumors—Sydney had heard them; she had spent her first month out of Shadows learning how to function in the mundane world and her second month learning everything she could about the Unseen World—that there was something wrong with magic. Tiny spells that went awry, or that had to be recast, or that weren’t quite what was expected. Small rumors, but enough of them that she was sure there was truth lurking in the whispers.
Shara had said nothing about any of that.
Which made sense, if the problem was with the spell that was anchored in the Angel. The magic would be fine coming out of Shadows, and then here—Sydney braced and reached into it again, more cautiously this time, stopping just before that hungry, lurking presence. Just close enough to feel the emptiness underneath.
Whatever it was, this was where things were going wrong.
? ? ?
Laurent met Grey three times a week, early in the morning, to run around the Central Park Reservoir. Grey had gone on a fitness kick about three years back—he’d said being in better physical condition would help make their magic stronger, a healthy mind in a healthy body and all that. Grey was always getting ideas about what he could do to improve his magic, make it stronger, some of which were a little out there, but running was pretty benign, even if early mornings weren’t, so Laurent showed up and he ran.
They set a pace that was comfortable enough to let them talk. “How’d your first challenge go?” Laurent asked.
“Fine. Another candidate, some second cousin or stepchild from the Morgan family looking to establish their own House. Pissed at Miranda about something and looking to take it out on me. This whole thing will be much less of a pain in my ass once people realize that she won’t care if I lose, by the way. But I had choice of magic, and I chose locations and did an unfolding map spell, so I won.”
“Nice. What will you do next?”
“Trying to steal my strategy?” Grey laughed. “I’m going after one of the big Houses. Make a point. Beating them will show I can’t be fucked with. You?”
“Strategy first. Meetings. Drinks. All the background shuffling before I decide. You know how it is.”