A Criminal Magic (9 page)

“Thank you, Mark, Peter.” Gunn extends his hand, gesturing to the wide, flat stretch of clearing in front of the trees, on the left side of our crowd. “Why don't we begin?”

Mark and Peter glance at each other, once, before they follow Gunn to their makeshift performance stage.

“What do you think they're going to do?” I whisper to Grace, as Gunn guides Mark and Peter to either side of the long stretch of grass, so now they're standing face-to-face, about fifteen feet apart, like they're about to begin a magic duel.

Grace whispers back slowly, “Show Gunn what he wants to see.”

Mark begins. He stretches his arms out wide, stage-whispers the words of power, “
Grow. Bloom
,” and almost immediately, the grass underneath him begins to rumble. Out of the shifting green blanket, a tangle of roots emerges, like a monster's hands pushing out from the ground. As the crowd gasps, the thick
roots fold open, grow longer, and wider, and then the center root erupts skyward, twists into a trunk, thick and textured and now twenty feet high. It throws a long shadow over our crowd, before it splits into limbs that race to fill out the tree. The limbs divide, splinter into branches, which bloom into a tapestry of leaves.

Uncle Jed stopped sorcering manipulations around the time he lost himself to shine, but I remember this same awed feeling creeping over me and settling in, as I watched him conjure a lemon tree or shady oak in our yard. Creating something real from nothing, or protecting something with magic, or linking and binding things that have no business being linked: pure magic might only last a day, but its hold on you lasts far longer.

But before I can fully appreciate the tree, a blinding, white-hot blast of lightning bursts right down its trunk, splitting it open with a monstrous gash.

I whip around to find Peter—the lightning manipulation must have been his. I keep watching as he waves his hands forward like a conductor, and the lightning bursts into flames, red-hot orange waves that lap at the base of the tree, then climb onto its trunk, jump to its branches—

Mark returns. He throws his arms up to the heavens, commands, “
Fall and freeze
,” and a strong burst of wind comes shrieking around the charred tree branches, blowing the orange and red flames into a thick wall of gray smoke. Snow begins to fall, not a natural flurry, but an all-out, otherworldly blizzard, buckets of white clumpy snowballs caking the tree, burying it, snuffing the fire right out—

“
Rise and heat
,” Peter commands, and the sky erupts into a near-blinding brilliance over the clearing, as a gold, electrifying, magic-made sun takes shape. It sears the snow, and the large clumps of frozen ice that bury the remains of the tree and the clearing around it melt in an instant, trickle and run fast into the clearing grass.

“
Fall and freeze
,” Mark utters, and the snow begins hammering down again—

“
Rise and heat
,” Peter orders, and their stage begins to simmer once more under his magic, searing sunshine—

“Fall and freeze!”

“Rise and heat!”

And then, like the magic itself has surrendered, the mangled tree and its surroundings stop changing on a dime. The complex manipulation promptly shatters like a mirror, and tiny shards of the charred black trunk scatter across the sky like broken black glass. The shards whip into a dizzying dust so blinding that it takes me a near minute to realize that the magic swallowed Mark and Peter, and surrendered them right along with it.

“Oh my Lord,” I utter, before I can stop myself.

I look at Grace, but she's already searching the crowd for Gunn, for his reaction. The entire crowd of sorcerers shifts, mumbles, gasps—surely this was a mistake—

“Arrogance,” Gunn says simply, quieting us. No shock or surprise, no remorse in his voice. “Arrogance is the root of all downfall. Arrogance prevents us from working together.”

Wait. Gunn was . . . Gunn was
expecting
this. Hell, Gunn orchestrated this. Let two sorcerers blow each other up, so that he could prove his point? Grace exchanges a loaded glance with me, mouths, “Holy hell,” as Gunn's words from last night outside our cabin float out of the dark of my mind:
I can't guarantee you'll come home the same way you left
.

Because I might come back in a body bag. Because I might not come back at all.

I look around at the other sorcerers, the crowd of thirteen of us left. If Gunn is looking for seven, what Grace called the key to stronger magic, does that mean that six of us are expendable? That's little more than a fifty-fifty chance of surviving.

You're finished,
a small voice whispers inside me. I close my
eyes, imagine squashing the doubt, just like I'm killing a bug. I don't have the privilege of being scared. Not with what I've done. Not with who's depending on me—

“Now for the second part of my demonstration.” Gunn shatters my thoughts. He waves forward the sorcerer who had just brewed his shine at the altar moments before. “Billy, if you can come forward again. And I'll need another volunteer.” When no one moves, hell, no one breathes, Gunn adds, “A volunteer of a different sort.”

It takes a while before another sorcerer's brave (or suicidal) enough to step forward. A man sidles up to Billy, nods at Gunn. He's a short, stouter fella, maybe midtwenties I'd guess just by eyeing him up. “Ral Morgan. From Birdseye, Indiana.”

“Thank you Ral, and Billy, for this point of comparison.” Gunn ushers them into the clearing-turned-performance stage, and then takes his place in front of our crowd. “Now, instead of showing me the strongest sorcerer, show me the strongest magic.”

Ral and Billy glance at each other warily. Neither one wants to take a misstep after what we just saw go down.

“It's hard to fathom that they aren't the same thing, considering how, over centuries, our country has turned magic into a solo endeavor, into the guarded, singular work of a powerful sorcerer.” Gunn takes his fedora off and wipes his forehead. “But I'm going to free you from all your preconceived notions.”

As if providing incentive, Gunn folds his suit jacket back from his narrow waist. Even from here, I can see the glint of the sun reflect off a long silver pistol poking out from his holster. “Don't think of your magic as a weapon, but as a tool. Build a world together—how big, how much, up to you. But two craftsmen should be able to accomplish far more together than alone.”

Both Billy and Ral cast their eyes to the grass. I don't blame them. Never in all my life do I remember Jed and Mama casting
spells or attempting to perform together, and they were living under the same roof, tied by fate and family. Two strangers, standing in front of a crowd of competition, can't be feeling all that connected.

Gunn pulls his pistol out of his holster. “Shall I find two other volunteers?”

And then, like a reflex, Ral puts his hands forward, like he's pressing against an invisible door. He whispers words of power that I can't quite hear, and once again a tree begins to take root in front of us, a similar one to the one Mark had manipulated only moments before—a huge oak, with a thick, sturdy trunk erupting from the ground, writhing into strong limbs, branches dotted with robust leaves.

But then the tree begins to grow flowers. Almost tentatively at first, as if the oak isn't quite sure whether it's spring or if it's jumped the gun—a large purple orchid here, a fully bloomed rose there, a smattering of daisies. Judging by Billy's smirk and Ral's relieved laughter, I assume the mismatched flower arrangement is the work of Billy.

A slow, thick, rambling ivy begins to wrap around the trunk of the tree. A few moments later, I hear a creaking, crackling sound, like the sound of new wood being laid into the ground, and on either side of our audience, wooden, crisscrossed walls erupt out of the earth and merge together over our head as a gazebo. A sheath of the same forest-colored ivy races over its walls, and soon we're enveloped in a thick, lush, green blanket.

Before I can determine whether the ivy was sorcered by Ral or Billy, plants start to pop out of the earth around our feet—the kind of sharp-leaved, heady-smelling ones that belong in rain forests, or in dreams—and form a border around us.

And then things that don't exist, at least not yet, start appearing. Scaly, iridescent fish with wings flap over our heads, dive into the multiflowered tree. Large purple frogs with red spots
croak at the base of tall grass. Laughter starts from somewhere inside the audience's folds, a warm, comfortable laughter, a few sighs. Which of these creations are Ral's? Which are Billy's?

It no longer matters; the garden's magic is now something separate, something more, than just the two of them together. It's like one of them is taking inspiration from the other, both of them pushing themselves further than they'd ever dare or think of alone. Their magic garden is now everywhere, scented, heady. And I feel a tightness, small and clenched as a fist inside me, slowly begin to loosen. . . .

“That's enough,” Gunn says softly.

The two sorcerers drop their hands to their sides. The tapestry of magic that's been knitted around us is pulled apart, crumbles like dust in the wind, and spirals away. Gone. I feel a deep ache inside as it vanishes, almost like it took a part of me with it.

In front of us, Billy and Ral are panting, sweating. But there's also this glow to both of them, like something's lighting them up from within.

“If you were a customer seeking magic, which experience would you choose? Which show would keep you full but not satisfied, desperate to come back and live in it once more?” Gunn walks back over to the altar. He lifts the bottle of shine that Billy brewed a few moments before. “For the final piece of my theory brought to life, Billy, if you can please brew your shine once more.”

Billy crosses to the altar, all of us hanging on every movement, as if we're still under his and Ral's spell. Billy bends down to grab another bottle, and then places his hands around the glass. The water inside the glass soon churns into something magic, red and bright—

Billy opens his eyes and places his new shine right next to his old one.

Grace and I shoot each other another look. The differences are undeniable.

Both bottles of shine are red, glistening inside the glass like liquid rubies. But Billy's final one . . . it's rosy, almost like one more lightbulb lights it up from within. It looks more alive, fuller,
richer
. No doubt it's the one I'd pick if I drank the stuff.

“That's after just one trick.” Gunn addresses what everyone's thinking as we study the shines. “Imagine the changes to your shine after weeks, months, a lifetime of working together. If you were hungry for magic, for something otherworldly, which would you want?”

Gunn rounds the altar until he's directly in front of it. He leans back against it, crosses his arms across his chest, like he's about to begin another sermon. “This trial is about embracing your competition, choosing and elevating your allies so that they in turn can elevate you. It's about embracing the basest truth about magic, a truth that's taken me years of study to fully understand and accept,” he says. “So see if these little demonstrations can inspire you. Team up with someone, focus on creating the strongest magic—not showcasing the strongest sorcerer.”

There's a collective breath through the crowd, and then we fold into ourselves, devolve into whispers, conversations. Grace nods me forward without another word, our partnership already decided. We walk slowly across the grass together, over to Billy and Ral's old performance space, and take up residence in the far corner of the field.

The air of the clearing is loaded, changed. Gunn has shown us the game and the stakes. And while his message was partnership, the underlying one was louder: pick the right partners, or lose.

“Let's start with your strongest gift.” Grace sounds as nervous as I feel.

Strongest gift
. I've got no strongest gift, 'cause I came into my magic all of about a week before it ruined everything. “That's all right. Let's go with yours.” I'm not sure how much longer I can stall. “You mentioned you're a whiz at amplifying sounds, right? And mining into people's minds?” Not that I would begin to know how to go about doing either of them.
What the heck am I going to do, or say, when it's my turn?

“I think image mining's a good way to ease into connecting our magic.” Grace takes a few steps back, settles three feet away from me. “Let's start with you focusing on an object. Pick anything, and then I'll—”

But I can't bury the truth anymore, and I blurt out, “Seriously, Grace, why'd you team up with me?”

She looks at me funny, glances around, like she's worried about who else might have heard. “Told you I've got my reasons.”

But Gunn isn't paying any attention to us. He's busy watching two sorcerers dangle a rope above their heads with their minds and tie it into complicated knots in midair. “I—I hurt someone I cared about before I ever really grew into my magic.” I drop my voice to a hum. “I don't even know what I can do. I can't promise you that I can meet you halfway, that I'm even half as strong as you are.” I command myself to remember why I'm here—
I will win, I will sweat and bleed until Ruby and Ben have their corner in the world
—but I can't stop my mouth from moving. A gauntlet's been thrown down, and the words just keep rushing out. “I've accepted dying for what I need to do . . . but I've got no interest in taking someone else down with me.”

Grace looks around the clearing again. A hive of debates, conversations, words of power buzzes around us as the other sorcerers settle into their exercises.