Magic Unmasked

  When was the last time I’d sat down with someone around my age and just chatted without it feeling like some kind of exam? Someone who meant what they said instead of picking every word with extreme care? I hadn’t really thought of myself as being lonely before, but a strange little ache bit into my chest now.

  I felt more at ease, more like I could be myself, with this girl I’d only met yesterday than with the fellow mages I’d seen nearly every day for years.

  “Let’s see,” I said, coming back to her nudge about “dirty laundry.” I could have made up something salacious, but in the face of her honesty, the idea made me feel rather ill. “There’s not a lot to tell. My parents are still together. I’ve got a little sister—eight years old. My dad and my uncle make something of a sport of being at each other’s throats, so there’s that.”

  “And you live in the city, I guess?”

  “Upper East Side.”

  “That figures.” She grinned, obviously more relaxed than when she’d first met up with me. Seeing that, I relaxed a little more myself.

  “Are you going to explain what’s up with this earthquake obsession?” she asked, digging back into her cheesecake.

  “It’s just for… sort of a family project,” I improvised. “My parents come up with subjects they want me to research.” Although my actual research hadn’t gotten very far yet. I’d stumbled on this more immediate “project” along the way.

  “Like college prep,” Amy said. “I can see that.”

  I couldn’t tell her I was already in the closest thing I had to her sort of college. Not yet.

  She hummed happily as she rolled her last bite of cake around in her mouth, the sound falling into a faint melody. The thrum of magic in the air around us responded immediately. Not powerfully, because she wasn’t directing it at all, but with a faint rippling any mage paying attention could have sensed.

  The numbers jumped and blinked on the digital watch of a man walking by. Electronic devices were always especially sensitive to magical fluctuations. “A curse,” Amy had called it when she’d talked about the phone’s random ring. But it wasn’t.

  It was a gift. A gift she’d been denied her whole life so far.

  I swallowed a sticky sweet bite of my peach pie. My heart started beating faster, even though I hadn’t said anything that crossed the line yet.

  She deserved it, didn’t she? This open, straight-forward girl who’d been abandoned by her mother, set adrift in an entirely new city… There was a whole world she could belong to, one she’d never have to leave once she’d gained admittance. And I could lead her there.

  People like my uncle would have said to just leave it—like that woman bleeding on the street. Let the Dulls take care of their own. If she hadn’t figured out her powers without help, why help her?

  Because it was the right thing to do. Because now that I knew, I owed it to her.

  And maybe just a little because if I didn’t, I couldn’t justify getting to know her any better than I already had. The thought of simply walking away from her warmth and her smile made the ache inside spread deeper.

  I was going to do this. All I had to do was bring her talent out a little, teach her to work with it in the simplest ways. Then I could bring her to the Circle, and they’d have to admit her for full training.

  When Amy set down her fork, I motioned to the waitress for the check. “Amy,” I said, weighing my words, “there’s something I’d like to show you. Are you up for a walk in the park?” That seemed the best possibility. We could find a quiet spot out of view. I’d rather have had someplace away from Dulls completely, but I didn’t know her that well that I expected she’d respond well to the proposition.

  “Show me?” Amy repeated, her eyebrows jumping up. Evidently I’d already somewhat put my foot in it.

  “Nothing, er… Nothing unsavory,” I said, my face heating. “It’s just hard to explain.”

  She paused and then shrugged. “All right. You’ve got me curious.”

  Lots of people had decided to visit Central Park on this picturesque spring day. I scanned the grounds as we ambled down the path and finally spotted a cluster of trees and shrubs where our activities could go unseen. Motioning for Amy to follow me, I veered across the grass.

  She came, her head cocked, but she balked at the little grove. “You know, you’re really kind of weird. What’s going on?”

  I laughed. “I suppose I am, and I’m sorry, but I really have to show you for you to understand. Trust me.”

  She studied me for a moment. “Okay. But if you do anything really crazy, there are dozens of people around who can come running if I yell.”

  She was only partly joking, but that was all right. I sat on the ground in the shelter of the grove, and she hunkered down across from me, leaving a couple of feet between us. “So…?”

  If I’d thought my pulse had been quick before, now it was racing at a sprint. My mouth had gone dry. I swallowed and smiled.

  This was the right thing. Someday soon hopefully we’d be revealing our talents to everyone, people of all sorts. She ought to know.

  I needed her to see the power coming from her. Not part of my weirdness, but something from inside her. Something that belonged to her.

  “Think of a song you like,” I said. It wouldn’t be as effective as the classic verses I’d memorized at the Academy during the first twelve years of my education, but any melody could conduct magic at least a little. “One that has lyrics about floating, or flying—something along those lines.”

  She gave me another arch of her eyebrows, but then her lips pursed in concentration. “Okay,” she said. “I’ve got one. Now what?”

  I plucked a leaf off the sapling next to me. “Hold out your hands?” When she did, palms up, I set the leaf on them. “Now sing that song. Quietly, so we don’t get people coming over to see what’s happening. And think about lifting up into the air while you’re doing it.”

  She still looked bemused, but she played along. Probably expecting to laugh when nothing happened. She drew in a breath and started singing in a lilting murmur, so quiet even I couldn’t make out most of the words.

  It didn’t matter. The magic heard her. It might not have responded as intensely as if she’d been able to use the ancient rhythms of the Classic languages, but the tremor in the air around us shifted, vibrating alongside her intent. She raised her voice a little louder as she built up to the song’s chorus—and the leaf lifted up over her hands.

  It glided on that invisible force up in front of her face. Amy’s eyes widened. Her mouth snapped shut, and the leaf fell with the cessation of the music.

  A rush of triumph ran through me. “There,” I said. “That’s what I wanted to show you.”

  She stared at the leaf in her hands and then at me. “What the hell was that?”

  “That was you,” I said. “You’re magic.”

  Chapter Four

  Amy

  “Magic,” I repeated. I dropped the leaf, lowering my hands to brace them against the grassy ground, cool in the shadowy space of the grove. A giggle worked its way up my throat. “You’re crazy. Was that some kind of magic trick?”

  Jonathan looked at me, his expression totally serious. How could he be so freaking serious about this?

  “It wasn’t a trick,” he said. “You made the leaf float with your own power. There’s magic all around us, and you have the talent to conduct it.”

  Right. I was supposed to just believe that? I shook my head, pushing myself to my feet. “This is ridiculous. If there was magic, real magic, there’s no way the whole world wouldn’t know about—”

  Jonathan jumped up after me. He glanced around the park with a snap of his head and then pointed to a statue just beyond the bushes that had hidden us. A towering marble statue that had to weigh ten times more than I did, at least.

  A rhythmic phrase slipped from Jonathan’s mouth, words in a language I didn’t recognize, and the statue… swayed up into the air. High e
nough that I could see the bare, flattened earth where it had been resting.

  It lowered just as quickly and touched the ground with a soft thump. The whole demonstration had happened so quickly none of the people strolling through the park had noticed.

  I turned to Jonathan and found I couldn’t speak. My jaw was slack.

  “The entire world doesn’t know because we don’t tell them,” he said, holding my gaze. “And hardly anyone comes into magic who doesn’t have it running through their family. But you did, somehow. It’s why you make electronic devices act up. It’s why you’re drawn to music. There’s a whole other part of the world that belongs to you, that you can reach now—if you let me help you.”

  “So you’re trying to tell me that making computers fritz and phones ring is a magical power?” I said.

  He smiled. “You can do a lot more than that. Weren’t you watching?”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Now that the statue was back on the ground, it was hard to believe it’d been hovering up in the air a minute ago. But I had seen the leaf… I’d felt a strange tingling, faint but there, moving through my body as I’d focused on it. Right before it had risen above my palms.

  Wouldn’t it be nice to just believe Jonathan? But I knew how to think like a scientist. The simplest explanation was usually the correct one.

  “How do I know you didn’t set this up?” I asked. “You picked this spot. You told me what to do. Maybe there’s some kind of trick with the statue too.”

  Jonathan spread his hands in an appeal. “All right. You pick the place and the test then. Do you want to try your own powers again? It’s up to you.”

  The memory of that eerie tingling made my nerves quiver in a way that wasn’t entirely pleasant. “No,” I said. “If it doesn’t work, you could just say it’s because I’m new at it. You’re the one with all this experience, right? You show me what you can do.”

  “Like I said, it’s up to you,” he said calmly.

  I started toward the path, and Jonathan matched my pace. Scanning the park as we meandered on, I tried to think the problem through logically. Magic. What would be good enough proof?

  We reached the courtyard with the fountain, and I came to a stop.

  “I can ask you to do anything?” I said.

  “Well, I’m quite skilled for the level of experience I do have, but I do have a few limitations,” Jonathan said. “I’m not omnipotent. And it was to be something the rest of these people won’t notice.”

  So something small, but undeniable. My gaze fell on the cement rim around the fountain. I strode up to it.

  Someone had splashed a puddle of water onto the smooth gray surface. If we stood close, no one else would be able to see it.

  Jonathan joined me. I motioned to the puddle. “Can you make that disappear?”

  “Sure.” He rubbed his hands together and murmured another lilting line in that unfamiliar language.

  The splotch of water shimmered and shrank. In just a few seconds, it’d completely vanished, as if absorbed into the air. My heart thudded harder. I bent down to touch the concrete. The hard surface felt dry against my fingers.

  “How did you— Right. Magic.” The word didn’t sound any less ridiculous than it had before.

  I spun around, searching for another possibility. There were too many people around the fountain. I set off down one of the narrower paths and then wandered off it to weave through the scattered trees.

  Scraps of a leaf some kid must have ripped up were scattered across the grass. Small but definitely not simple. I pointed. “Can you put that leaf back together?”

  Jonathan cocked his head. “To some extent. It’s hard to determine if all the pieces are still here.”

  “Well, give it your best shot.”

  He flashed me that confident smile of his and knelt so he could hold his hands about a foot above the bits of leaf. I crouched down across from him.

  The phrase Jonathan rolled off his tongue this time he stretched longer, in a rising melody. The fragments of leaf trembled under his hands. They drifted across the grass to meet each other, rotating and flipping so their edges matched up. The seams met and melted together. My mouth fell open.

  Jonathan let out his breath and grinned wider. He picked up the leaf that was now whole except for a bit near one tip that must have blown away, and offered it to me.

  I ran my thumb over the fragile veins. I couldn’t even see where the fibers had been broken. No Frankenstein job here. The leaf looked as if it’d only just fallen from the tree.

  “No,” I said. “It’s impossible.”

  “Not impossible,” Jonathan said quietly. “Just magic. Although not even every mage could manage that. You found a challenging test.”

  Had I? I couldn’t deny what I was seeing, but my body balked anyway. My head was spinning. How could magic be real?

  An idea hit me so abruptly my pulse hiccupped. I spun around and spotted a stick lying a few feet away.

  “Still not enough?” Jonathan said.

  “No. I want you to—”

  I marched over and grabbed the stick. With one end pressed against the ground, I snapped it in half. The tip of the half I held jutted in a sharp point. Exactly what I needed.

  The only sure thing I had here, the only thing I knew no one could have transformed through some trick, was me.

  I flipped my hand over and brought the jagged tip of the stick to my palm. Bracing myself, I jerked it across my skin. Jonathan let out a yelp.

  Pain stung my palm as a line of blood welled up. I’d drawn a thin scratch about an inch long. I dropped the stick and held my hand out to Jonathan.

  “Can you fix that?”

  “Amy.” He took my hand in both of his, but his gaze stayed on my face. Searching my expression, his own… puzzled. And concerned. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know. I just… I need to know.”

  His fingers rested against mine gently, his skin warm. We were standing so close to each other now that it suddenly felt hard to catch my breath.

  “I’m not trained in any high level medical work,” he said. “I can seal the skin and numb the pain for now, but it’ll hurt again when that ‘chantment wears off.”

  “That’s good enough.”

  Jonathan lowered his head to consider my palm. He skimmed his thumb above the cut without touching the raw skin. A melodic verse fell from his lips—more of those unfamiliar words.

  My palm itched. Before my eyes, the skin knit itself back together. The pain prickled and then faded away with a tickle of cold.

  Jonathan hadn’t let go of my hand. My fingers curled around his, confirming that my palm was really sealed—confirming that he was really there, solid and real. I met his eyes, that deep dark blue, watching me as intently as yesterday.

  Like I was something special.

  “You really are magic,” I said.

  He smiled again. “And so are you. Everything I just did, you could too, once you learn how to control your talent. Just think—what would you do with that kind of power?”

  A jolt of exhilaration raced through me. I knelt again, snapping off a blade of grass and setting it on my hand. With conscious intent this time, I stared at it and sang that lyric about flying away, willing the green blade to rise.

  The tingle rippled through me. A faint murmur in the air seemed to ripple with it. And the blade of grass drifted up above my hand just like the leaf had.

  I laughed, abruptly giddy. Power. I had power. What would I do with it?

  My first crazy thought was of Mom. Of reaching out to her and dragging her back somehow, forcing our family back into the cohesive unit it used to be.

  But that wouldn’t really work, would it? I wouldn’t want a mother who was only here compelled by some external force, if it was even possible.

  There had to be other things, though. Other ways I could make life better. I could be so much more than some uncertain girl discarded by her mother, watching h
er dad slip away in his pain, helpless to change anything. Once I learned how.

  I glanced up at Jonathan. If I was magical, the only reason I knew it was because of him.

  “I still don’t understand,” I said. “How is this even possible? How does it work?”

  “There’s a lot I can’t tell you yet,” Jonathan said. “Not until you’re approved for a full mage’s education. But there are lots of others like us, people who’ll teach you once you reach that point. I can give you the initial grounding, help you learn the basics, and then we can show them together you’re ready. If you’re on board?”

  I held his gaze, a smile of my own stretching across my face. In that instant, I felt as if I could fly if I really wanted to.

  “Yeah. Hell, yeah. Can we start now?”

  Chapter Five

  Jonathan

  From my limited understanding of the traditions in non-magical society, it was relatively odd for a teenager to get a drive from their parents to school. But the main office building owned by the North American Confederation of Mages stood right around the corner from the College, so pretty much every College-going mage who didn’t have their own car ended up dropped off by one parent or the other—or a chauffeur driving the whole bunch—on the way to work.

  Usually Dad filled the short trip with energetic talk about the latest goings-on in the judicial department and questions about my current studies. Today he was unusually subdued. His eyes focused straight ahead as if he were watching the Fifth Avenue traffic, but the furrow in his brow suggested his mind was elsewhere. He rubbed his mouth when we stopped at a red light.