Ruthless Magic Read online

“Tell me you’re joking,” she said.

  “Of course I wouldn’t joke about that,” I said. “I’ve just spent the last day listening to my parents try to talk me out of it. But it’s done. I spoke the words. They can’t stop me.”

  Her voice went ragged. “Why would you— Have you gone completely mental?” She walked away from me, her sandals rapping against the buffed hardwood, and spun back around. “Do you think you’re going to protect me? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re an idiot, Finn.”

  I winced. This was a rather different reaction than any I’d imagined. Prisha had never sounded nearly this angry with me before. I sank down on the edge of her four-poster bed.

  “That’s not it,” I said. “I mean, of course I hope we might be able to help each other, but we don’t even know what the tests are. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I’m not that much of one. I didn’t declare because of you. It’s just that seeing that even you weren’t Chosen made me realize...”

  “Realize what?” Prisha demanded when I faltered.

  “I didn’t deserve it,” I said, my head low. “Being Chosen. It wasn’t right. Even you know that.”

  “You don’t deserve to be burned out either!”

  That statement, maybe the first kind thing she’d said to me since I’d stepped into the room and yet also the most horrible, hit me like a sucker punch. I stared at her: my best friend, the girl who’d distracted our classmates from the library books I’d lugged to and fro in my attempts to prop up my talent, who’d made excuses for my secret study sessions, who only yesterday had claimed I was Chosen material, and for more than my name.

  She’d been lying.

  “You don’t think there’s any way I could make Champion,” I said.

  The fire in Prisha dampened. “I didn’t mean that, Finn,” she said, but I wasn’t sure I believed her. “Nobody has a guarantee in the Exam. You had one outside it. What does it matter why?”

  “It matters because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life tiptoeing along the edge of making my entire family ashamed of me. Audentes fortuna iuvat. If I can make Champion, maybe I’ll receive a placement that’ll let me truly contribute instead of going through life like a lotus-eater. And if I can’t make it through the Exam, then my parents will have to accept what I am.” A failure. A dud mage.

  I swallowed thickly. If that was what I proved to be, then I should face it.

  “You could have taken the easy course too,” I added. “You could have accepted Dampering. You’d still be part of the magical community that way, even if you wouldn’t be a full member of the Confed.”

  Prisha shook her head. “You can’t possibly compare our positions.”

  Her second-oldest brother chose that moment to poke his head past the open door. He surveyed the bedroom.

  Prisha stilled. “Yes, Daksh?”

  “Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m just imagining how I’ll arrange my furniture when this is my room.”

  Because he meant to win it. Calling the Mathurs competitive was like saying a Rolex was “a bit pricy.” The shouted exchange I’d heard between her siblings when I arrived was standard fare in the household. And bedrooms were reallocated biannually on the basis of net contributions to the family’s holdings.

  Prisha had cemented her place at the top with a prestige of unquantifiable value, but I hadn’t considered the potential result if she were Dampered and her remaining ability proved impractical to the family business.

  “It’s not going to be yours,” Prisha said to Daksh.

  “We’ll see,” he said with a sly grin. “From what I hear, you’d better pass this ‘exam’ with flying colors or you’ll have to work like the rest of us—and I don’t think you’ll catch up anytime soon.”

  He swaggered off. Prisha frowned at the doorway.

  “Your family is going to care about you no matter what,” she said. “If I lose this”—she snapped her fingers to form a spark of magical light—“then I’m worthless. I won’t even bring a husband’s assets into the fold. The magic is all I’ve got. I’m not going to lose it.”

  “Then we’ll both have to make Champion,” I said. “Shall we shake on it?”

  Her smile was thin, and she didn’t take my offer, but she did at least sit on the bed next to me. Her hands clenched on her lap, the curlicues of new henna tattoos flexing with the lighter brown skin beneath. She noticed my glance and rubbed her wrists. “My parents pick strange moments to go traditional,” she said. “They insisted. It’s for luck and strength.”

  The chime of a grandfather clock reverberated through the floor. It was already noon. In twenty-one hours, we were due on the Exam grounds.

  “I didn’t come just to tell you,” I said quickly. “I came to strategize. If we’re going to fly through the tests, we need all the advantages we can get.”

  Prisha’s lips pursed. “Fine. What were you thinking?”

  I leaned back against the bedpost. “I checked in with people from school. Of the thirty-three in our year, twenty-one were Chosen. Four of the others declared: you, our daredevil Paulo, Doria the know-it-all, and… Callum.”

  “Naturally,” Prisha muttered.

  “Since Angus’s sister made Champion, I hit him up for the lowdown,” I went on, “but he said she hasn’t let any clues slip and her mentor keeps her so busy she’s hardly ever home. And Shasti didn’t know much either. Evidently the Confed withholds the details of deaths from even the immediate family… I guess to avoid adding to the shame.”

  Everyone knew Shasti’s brother had died in the Exam when we were ten, but it was the sort of thing people only murmured about when the rest of the family wasn’t around, the way they might discuss someone shipped off for drug rehabilitation or fired from a placement. If his talent had been so weak he couldn’t even survive the tests, I’d have expected him to know better than to try, although I’d never have said as much to Shasti, of course.

  “So we’ve got approximately nothing,” Prisha said.

  “Not necessarily. It occurred to me... Margo mentioned dealing with the Exam committee via her job last year, so I invited myself over to her place for lunch.” I straightened up. “We should probably get going.”

  “We?” Prisha said. “Did you invite me too?”

  “She’s not going to turn you away once we’re there.”

  After starting her full-time work placement, my older sister had taken up residence in a Tribeca loft, somewhat to our parents’ dismay. “There’s a lot more to the city than the Upper East Side,” she’d told them.

  Indeed there was. As Prisha and I clambered out of the Mathurs’ chauffeured Bentley, my eyes caught on the mismatched twin towers of the World Trade Center—the rather drab gray one beside its taller shinier companion—looming in the near distance.

  “Is this where your dad gave his speech?” Prisha asked. She’d barely spoken to me during the drive over. I leapt at the chance at conversation.

  “Oh, no, he took us right up to the towers.” I’d been eight when the new one had been completed, and Dad had escorted me, Margo, and Hugh to visit them. We came out of hiding so we could protect our country from threats like the one that caused the destruction here, he’d said. Threats the Confederation continues to combat every day on behalf of those without our talents. Mages saved thousands of lives here, but no one will forget the two hundred thirty-six who were lost because we didn’t detect one plane in time to fully divert it. We must always be ready.

  If I were on hand for an attack like that, would I be of the slightest use? I dragged my gaze away. Maybe if I made Champion, maybe if I found the right mentor, then I could be ready to make a difference in the event of a next time.

  We tramped up the narrow stairs. My sister opened her loft’s broad steel door to greet us. Her rumpled hair, once as light as mine but now darkened to Dad’s ash brown, was pulled back in a loose braid with a green gel pen and several stray tufts poking out of it. Her jean cutoffs were flecked with ol
d wall paint. I wouldn’t have believed that this time tomorrow she’d be the model of a government professional if I hadn’t witnessed the transformation firsthand hundreds of times before.

  Margo’s dark blue eyes were as alert as ever. She looked at Prisha and then at me. I’d rubbed my thumb over my fingers in my habitual casting, and the tremor of terse anticipation that struck my skin told me she knew precisely why we were here. No doubt Mom had called her last night.

  If anyone could help me convince our parents that my declaring wasn’t a tragedy of the highest order, it was her. Margo was the Lockwood patron saint of justice—even when I’d been a little kid, she’d always insisted that I have a voice in family discussions. She’d always spoken to me like an equal and rebuked Hugh when he hadn’t, which was often. She had to understand.

  “Hi!” Prisha said with an awkward wave.

  I gave my sister my most entreating smile. “I didn’t think you’d mind Prisha coming too. I’m hoping you can help both of us.”

  “Well, you’re here now,” Margo said. “Come in. We’ll eat first.”

  Her loft was everything a loft ought to be: worn beams stretching across a high ceiling, exposed brick walls, floor-to-ceiling windows. The scrabble of tiny claws carried from the bedroom area that was sectioned off behind sliding barn doors. Margo had kept pet rats as long as I could remember.

  My sister directed us to the table and brought out cold cuts and fresh buns. We barely talked other than to say “Pass the turkey” as we constructed our sandwiches. I made it halfway through mine before the effort of pretending all was well closed my throat. I settled for nibbling at the rest until Margo had finished eating.

  “You talked about overseeing discussions with the Exam committee last year,” I began as she set down her napkin. “We—”

  “Finn.” Margo’s mouth tensed but her voice stayed soft. “The negotiations I assisted with had hardly anything to do with the actual trials. And anything I did hear is confidential. You know that.”

  “You couldn’t drop a couple hints for your kid brother?” I offered my most winning smile. “It’s not as if I’d tell anyone I heard it from you.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Prisha volunteered.

  “It isn’t that simple,” Margo said.

  “It kind of is,” I said lightly. “Either you want to help, or you don’t.”

  “I don’t want you to do it at all.” She pushed her plate away. “Do you think there’s something glorious about making Champion, Finn? Because there isn’t, and that’s only the best possible outcome. You were Chosen. You should have taken that. You should still take it if you can.”

  My spirits sank. Not her too.

  “And what’s so ‘glorious’ about being Chosen just so the Circle doesn’t have to fret that they’ve pissed off the rest of the family?” I said.

  Margo drew in a breath as if to respond, but all she let out was a sigh. She turned to Prisha, as if it were only her going in and not both of us. “I’ll say this much, because it should be obvious: Follow the rules they give you. And put everything you have into the tests, no holding back. You do that much, you’ll have a decent chance.”

  “Thank you,” Prisha said with a bob of her head.

  “I’m not doing it for glory, you know,” I said. “I just want it to be something I actually did.”

  “I know,” Margo said. “I get it.” As she cleared the dishes, she added over her shoulder, “Prisha, would you mind if I take a few minutes alone with my brother?”

  “Of course not,” Prisha said.

  Margo motioned me into the enclosed bedroom at the front of the loft. Her bed was neatly made, but otherwise the space was messy. Various pieces of clothing had been flung over the armchair in the corner. News magazines scattered the top of the rosewood vanity beside the three-tiered rat cage that contained her furry companions.

  My sister sang a brief verse to create a partition of silence. Then she paused, standing motionless by the closed door. “I meant what I said before. I think you should do whatever you can to get out of this.”

  “Then you don’t get it,” I said. “This is my last chance. I’m just a... an inconvenience right now, one that Granduncle Raymond is looking to tuck out of view. What sort of life is that?”

  Margo studied me, and I stared straight back at her. If I let my resolve shake, then I’d have even less respect for myself than if I’d accepted my Chosen spot to begin with.

  Finally, she looked away. “You’ve always been too damned stubborn,” she said, sounding so hopeless that I wavered for the first time. She ran a hand through her hair, dislodging more strands from her braid. “I can’t tell you anything. I don’t even know exactly. It’s just, reading between the lines... I can show you the picture I’ve pieced together.”

  She stepped past me to the vanity. Her rats—one white, one brown, and one black-and-white hooded—scrambled up the bars of their cage with a clinking of claws as Margo tugged open the vanity’s top drawer. She pressed her knuckles to the front of the cage for them to nuzzle. With her other hand, she drew out a sleek silver rod about the length of her palm and as thin as her baby finger.

  “If you insist on continuing even after you see this, I’m going to give you something,” she said. “From what I’ve heard, you’ll be allowed to take at least one possession with you, without restriction. If it’s only one, make sure it’s this. Not many of the other examinees will have access to magical tech of this caliber.”

  She held up the rod. “Handle it with extreme care. Never open it unless you’re going to use it immediately. You push the lid like this.” She touched her thumb to the small protrusion at the upper end. The lid popped up and over. A tiny needle poked a quarter of an inch from the rod’s inner tip. “To activate the function, you press the other end of the rod and apply the needle to your target.”

  I might have cracked a joke if she hadn’t looked so pained. “What is the function?”

  “Like I said, I’ll show you,” she said. “That’s your best chance of understanding.” A quaver crept into her voice. “I don’t want to do this, okay? But it’s the best way to drive home what you’re getting into. What it could require of you. I can’t let you go in blindly.”

  She turned back to the rat cage and opened the hatch. A cluck of her tongue brought the hooded rat scampering onto the upper level. She scooped it up with a stroke over its back and set it on the pile of magazines. Her hand trembled.

  “Margo,” I said, and didn’t know what to add. My skin was creeping.

  “The ’chantment on this is drained through usage,” she said, lifting the rod, “but it can make an impact very quickly. You don’t need any combat skill at all.”

  She set her thumb against the rod’s base and jabbed the needle into the rat’s side.

  The rat flinched, and a squeal broke from its mouth, shattered by a wet cough. Red slime dribbled over its snout. Its body shuddered and tipped, its legs twitching. Then it went still as a gush of red colored the magazine’s headlines.

  I was shuddering now.

  Margo retracted the rod—the weapon. A pinkish wound about the size of a nickel remained in the rat’s chest where its flesh had melted down to its innards. The whole demonstration had taken less than five seconds.

  Margo blinked hard. “The ’chantment will dissolve any organic material in its path,” she said in a scarily flat tone. “The longer it’s held on target, the wider the effect will be. If it could save your life, don’t hesitate.”

  She flipped the lid back and passed the rod to me. My fingers closed around it automatically. Nausea gripped my stomach.

  Margo turned away from the ruined corpse of her rat and grasped my shoulder. Her eyes searched mine. “The Dull have a saying about not buying a gun unless you’re willing to shoot it at someone. Think about that when you decide what you’re going to do tomorrow. Could you use that weapon on another living being, Finn? Do you really want to become someone who has? Because if t
he answer is no, then you shouldn’t set one foot on Rikers Island.”

  During the drive home, I welcomed Prisha’s uncharacteristic reserve. The silence gave me space to consider my emotions. My shock edged away, leaving hollowness behind.

  I peeled myself out of the Bentley with only a vague recollection of our journey. The tumble of the dying rat and the awful look on my sister’s face ran on a loop through my mind.

  Margo had said she barely knew anything about the trials, but she knew enough to warrant killing her beloved pet... just to frighten me into rethinking my decision? Why couldn’t she have simply told me whatever it was she suspected happened on the island that would require that kind of weapon?

  A few people from the Academy declared every year. Most came back Champions or Burnouts, neither looking terribly worse for wear. It took some time for the Burnouts to adjust to the total inability to hearken, so they sometimes behaved a little oddly, but nothing outrageous. The Champions were so occupied with their exhaustive studies and the intensive work placements that followed, they rarely showed up at social gatherings to be observed. Clearly they were functioning just fine, though.

  I couldn’t reconcile those facts with the scene my sister had laid out for me. My mind kept spinning. So when I walked into the foyer to Dad’s warm “Oh, good, Finn, you’re home,” it took me a second to haul my awareness back to the present—and to register how strange that tone was from the man who should have been furious that I’d ventured out against his express instructions.

  “Yes?” I said as he hurried over to meet me.

  He clapped me on the arm. “I have great news!” There was a briskness under the warmth. “The Circle has agreed to arrange a last-minute meeting for us with the head of the Exam committee so you can rescind your declaration. We need to go right now.”

  I snapped fully out of my daze. “No.”

  “I know it’s embarrassing to back down when you’ve already committed,” Dad barreled on. “But they understand... adolescent passion and recklessness. No one else will even be informed.”