“She’s better than he is,” Sydney said, her voice matter-of-fact. “Your sister. She’s smart, and she’s strategic. Bryce thinks he has twice the talent he actually has, and he underestimates everyone else.” She moved her hand until the back of it was—just—touching Ian’s.
“She used to do this thing when she was little, when she was just learning magic,” Ian said, his eyes never leaving Lara, who stood in solitude at the front of the room. “She called it setting booby traps. She made little pockets of magic that would be triggered when you’d do something like open a door. They’d go off, and you’d be covered in glitter or feathers or something ridiculous, and she’d cackle like a tiny witch. I’d set them off on purpose, just to hear her laugh like that.
“But the best one—my dad was having a dinner party. Very fancy, Heads of Houses, all that. Lara heard ‘party’ and didn’t understand why she couldn’t go. So she—I still don’t know how—made a booby trap full of tiny frogs and set it to go off when my dad sat down in his chair. They hopped everywhere—the plates, the water glasses, people’s laps . . .”
The beginnings of a laugh escaped Sydney, and she bit down hard on the inside of her mouth to keep the rest of it in. “I think I might like your sister.”
“I think you would,” Ian said.
The challenge began.
It seemed at first as if Lara were doing nothing but standing still. It happened, sometimes, magicians who did not understand the gravity of a mortal challenge until they were in the middle of one and froze. Bryce was visibly casting something—his hands and mouth were moving, and the air around him was shaking. He flung something unidentifiable at Lara, tossing the spell like a softball. But beyond raising a hand to deflect whatever it was, she did nothing.
The crowd rumbled, feral and hungry.
Ian drew tighter and tighter, tension vibrating through him. Sydney watched neither of the men, her focus completely on Lara’s hands. “Oh, I do like your sister. I like her very much,” she whispered.
Ian turned and stared at her in shock.
“Just watch,” Sydney said.
Then Bryce wiped his arm across his forehead. Red smeared across his skin and his sleeve. As if that was a cue, blood dripped from his hairline, his eyes, his ears—faster and faster until he ran with red, the floor slick with it beneath him. In less than a minute, he had collapsed on the floor. In less than two, he was dead.
Lara straightened her cuffs, then left the room without speaking to anyone. Ian watched her go. Only when he could no longer see her did he look for his father.
Miles Merlin had not been in attendance.
? ? ?
When Miranda walked into her office the next morning, Sydney was waiting behind the desk. “Don’t bother to check your wards. I took them down after the House let me in.”
“The House let you in.” Miranda’s left hand flickered against her side.
“I asked it nicely, and it opened its door right up.” Sydney lips curved up, an expression so bright and fake that it was the funhouse version of a smile, and she batted her lashes. “And don’t bother with that spell you’re starting either—I could stop your heart before you finished casting. You’ve seen my magic, so you know that’s true, and you’re smart enough to know that if I wanted you dead, it would have been a spell waiting in here for you, not me. So why don’t you trust that all I want is a civilized conversation, and have a seat.”
“I suppose you have some reason for your theatrics.” Miranda settled into one of her own guest chairs, her back pin-straight, her legs crossed at her ankles. She took her time, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from her skirt, brushing invisible lint from her jacket. She glanced up at the mirror, but it was frustratingly blank. The House was not going to offer her any clues. They would have words, later, about why it hadn’t warned her, and—more important—about why it had let Sydney in to begin with.
“I have a message for you. I wanted to be sure it was delivered.” Sydney slid the envelope with the challenge in it across the desk.
Miranda left it untouched.
“The challenge was Shara’s directive. She says it’s to allow me revenge, though I’ve never heard of the House caring about any of the children who were tossed into it being allowed to take vengeance on the parents who abandoned them there. There are so few of us, though, so I could be wrong. Anyway, with Dad already dead, you’re it. Mom.”
The color drained from Miranda’s face as Sydney spoke, leaving her pale as her silk blouse. “I don’t find that at all funny.”
“Neither did I, when I found out. Shara doesn’t tell us which Houses gave us away. ‘You’re all Shadows now. That’s all that matters.’ She’d say that over and over to those of us who survived long enough to ask. I think it was to make us feel like we were special, instead of like we’d been thrown away.
“But to be able to leave, to be able to convince the House that I was strong enough to walk through its doors and survive crossing that threshold, well, that took time. There were tests to pass, secrets to be learned.
“I learned a lot of them. Though I do wonder: Was it because Grey was the boy and you’re just conservative enough to think that those feudal guys were right about primogeniture, or did you flip a coin to decide which of your kids Shadows would grind up and use for magic?” Sydney drummed her fingers on Miranda’s desk.
“You.” Disbelief and hope warred in Miranda’s voice. “Alive.”
“Yes. Me. Alive. Sorry, Mom.” A quick, casual shrug. “Why else do you think the House let me in?”
“What you’re suggesting is impossible.” Eyes not leaving Sydney’s face.
“I’m surprised you admit that. I thought people like me were the fairy tale you all told yourselves about Shadows so you could feel better. ‘But some of them get out!’ I mean, there have only ever been two of us. Verenice and me. And it’s not like the rest are on extended vacation somewhere. But, you know, two is more than one, so that means some of us got out.”
“Shara promised me. I begged her. I bribed her. And she promised me she would tell me if my daughter made it out,” Miranda said.
“Shara says a lot of words that sound like promises. I’ve learned it’s smarter to not believe any of them that aren’t written down. Shadows does love its contracts.” Acid in Sydney’s voice. “Like I said, the House let me in, and yes, I did things the old-fashioned way and gave it my blood, but if that’s not enough, I can prove who I am now, if you’ll agree to the casting.”
“A Perdita spell?” Miranda asked. She didn’t see how the House could be wrong; she was terrified that it was right.
“Seems appropriate.”
“Fine. I assume you have something sharp.”
“Always,” Sydney said. She spoke a word that shattered against the air and drew a fingernail over the pad of her thumb. The skin parted in a precise line. She squeezed three drops of blood onto Miranda’s desk, then held out her hand to her mother. Miranda’s hand shook in hers as she repeated the action. Sydney said a line of poetry, and the scent of lilies filled the room.