“Fuck. No. I’m not. I’m trying to tell you about that thing you wanted me to look up.” Frustration rang through her voice.
Sydney considered. “The disinheritance?”
“Yes. The sea overflows onto candy floss.”
“The binding seems to be fully in place.” It was almost, almost funny, Sydney thought.
“Damn it, yes. But Sydney, there’s no good to come of a universe in a house.”
Sydney stopped. Pinched the bridge of her nose. “There’s a difference between something that’s an emergency for me, personally, and something that means I should forfeit this challenge. I trust you, Madison—which is it?”
A pause, and then a breath blown out. “Fight your challenge, Sydney. Win. This will still be there for you when it’s over.”
Sydney hung up and turned off her phone.
? ? ?
Madison clicked her phone off and turned to Harper. “I’m guessing from your face that it sounded like I was talking nonsense to you, too.”
Harper’s eyes were wide. “That was bizarre. And probably also means that having her come here to look at the files herself won’t work, either.”
Madison said nothing.
“Right?” Harper asked.
Madison shook her head. “Sorry. Preoccupied. You’re right. Yes—what just happened shows the binding is keyed to people, not place. She wouldn’t be able to read it if she came here, and—if by some miracle we could get it out of the building—it would still read as gibberish if we brought it to her.”
“But that’s good, right? I mean, not in and of itself, but that we know that.”
“It is. I just . . . I have the awful feeling that I just gave Sydney the wrong advice.” She stared at the file on her desk like someone reading an augury.
“What else were you supposed to say? You literally can’t tell her what’s in the file, and even if you could, it’s not like she’s dueling Grey tonight.” Harper leaned against Madison’s door.
“I know,” Madison said. “But something is off. I can’t quite put things together, and I don’t like it.”
“She’ll win, though, right?” Harper thought of those seconds of video, of flying cars and the woman who had made that look easy. She didn’t want to imagine the magician who could beat her.
“She should,” Madison said. “She should. Anyway, you should go—it’s late, and there’s obviously nothing else we can do right now. Oh, and you did great work on this, Harper. Thanks.”
“I did it for Rose. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like this job, but I did this for her.” She felt oddly washed out inside, like it hadn’t quite sunk in, what she’d found. She’d go to Rose’s grave this weekend, tell her. Not absolute proof, and not justice, not yet, but Harper knew in her gut that she was close.
“I get it,” Madison said.
“Anyway, good night.” Harper went to her office to close out a few things and gather her stuff. It took longer than she’d planned. There was always one more email, and her brain felt like it was thinking through mud. As she was finally leaving—so ready to go home, have a hot bath and the world’s largest glass of wine—she heard Madison’s phone ring, then heard Madison say, “Oh my God.”
She dropped her bag and ran to Madison’s office.
? ? ?
There was no party this time. Nothing fancy. No passed champagne or elegant gowns. Only Sydney and Ian and death between them.
Even now, Ian thought, Laurent looked more nervous than Sydney did. He looked fidgety, stressed, closed off. Not his usual collected self. Ian couldn’t read Miranda either. She had chosen to attend, which she hadn’t done for any of the challenges that weren’t attached to social occasions. Though, he supposed, this one was, in its own way. Nearly all the other Houses, candidate and established, their Heads and heirs and champions, were in attendance. Blood in the water and all that. Miranda looked preoccupied, focused on Sydney as if she would be the one dueling her.
Sydney looked as calm as ever, as if they were standing in the center of the room to shake hands or exchange recipes. Not to cast magic at each other until one of them was dead. There should have been words. He had words for so much magic, but no magic word to help him understand what she was doing.
She had to have a plan.
His father was there, because of course Miles Merlin was there. Ian wasn’t sure if Miles was more looking forward to seeing House Prospero or Sydney lose, never mind that in one of those scenarios his own son died. Lara stood, blank-faced, next to him. Ian felt like he should say something to her, but other than, “I’ll try not to die,” he wasn’t sure what.
He had written her a letter, just in case. Verenice would give it to her, if. He had not written anything for his father.
Verenice stood in the back of the room, clear of the press of the crowds, watching Sydney.
Grey Prospero stumbled into the room, clearly in a bad mood and possibly drunk. He headed for Miranda, but Merlin pulled him aside, whispered something to him, and Grey stopped.
Ian felt disconnected from the people, the place, like he was watching a film from behind a window. It was such an ordinary room.
He didn’t particularly want to die today. He didn’t want to kill Sydney either.
He knew what he had to do.
The clock rang the hour. The challenge began.
? ? ?
Sydney opened her hand. Power knifed between them.
Ian stumbled back, shouted a word that rippled the air and raised his hand to shield himself as he fell.
A line of red appeared across it, and blood ran down his arm. “Sydney!”
“I’m sorry. Did you not hear that we were starting?” She coiled shadows like snakes and sent them slithering. They crawled over Ian, wound their way up his legs, holding him in place as he tried to stagger to his feet. “Or were you just planning to not fight back?”
A window exploded behind Sydney, shards of glass in the air like death in pieces. She didn’t even look, simply raised a hand. The glass paused in its fall, an afterthought of shattering, then changed shape and fell as snowflakes to the floor.
“Ian, do better.” Her face was a terrible thing.
Ian bent his hands at such severe angles, it looked like they would snap. He spoke a phrase that scorched the back of his throat, that spattered blood across his lips and sent a dragon of flame rising into the air.
“Thank you. It was like you weren’t even trying.” Sydney raised her hands in the air and the room darkened. Shadows, creeping from their corners, growing and rising and thickening. The shadows carried terror. As they grew, Ian felt his own heart grow darker, lonelier. The small part of him not focused on controlling his magic registered the sounds of weeping from somewhere in the room. The shadows resolved into a shape—reverse negative of the dragon. It opened its mouth impossibly wide and began to swallow the dragon of flame.
Somewhere in the crowd a scuffle. A snap of magic that was neither of theirs—a spell that shouldn’t have been cast. “Sydney!” Ian shouted.
“I’ve got it!”