Fallen Magic

My hands are trembling enough that it takes me three tries to cast a light-spell. The act of it calms me, though. Once the familiar starlight-silver glow has filled my palms, I look around the tent. It’s smaller than I expected: the canvas is high enough for a tall man to stand upright but no higher, and the floor space is completely taken up by a table, a chair either side and a stack of boxes and crates behind it.

The table is a battered old thing. A single unlit candle and a pile of sticks which must have some deeper significance are the only items on it, other than the cloth they rest on. My light isn’t bright enough to tell the cloth’s colour or the material it’s made of.

While I was casting, the fortune-teller slipped behind the table and into the chair facing the tent’s entrance. The other seat, then, must be mine. I don’t take it.

“One of us, you called me,” I say. “You mean…”

She confirms my suspicions by pressing a finger to the opposite arm, emphasising the darkness of her skin. In a place like this, I can see where the names of shadow-children and People of Shadows came from: she blends into them in a way most people never could.

“But I’m – “ I begin, and stop. I don’t quite know what I want to say, never mind how to explain it.

“You are one of us,” she repeats. “Whether you know it or not. Whether you want it or not.”

I want to protest, but the intensity in her voice tells me that I shouldn’t do that. “What exactly does that mean?” I ask instead.

“That you are an heir to traditions and practices as ancient and important as any this country has ever had. To a history that is not written in books. To a way of life that is dying, and that you have a duty to fight for.”

I instinctively take a step back towards the tent’s entrance. “No,” I say. “No. I’m not – I’m not going to fight for something I know nothing about – I don’t – “

“You are a historian, are you not? You believe in the preservation of knowledge?”

“Yes, but – “ How do you know? That’s what I want to ask, but there’s no point. I was wrong the first time we met, when I thought she was a fraud. She proved that she had true power to see that which she should not by revealing that Elsie had the same gift.

“Books are precious, true, but there are secrets that no books hold. Should those not be kept, too?”

“Yes, but – what do I – I can’t – “

“And you would not have come, if you did not think my knowledge was worth something. If you did not want some part of it.”

I can’t argue with that. She’s right. “I only – I want to help Elsie. That’s all.”

“Of course. But I cannot give you that for nothing.”

“You’re not talking about coin, are you?”

She merely smiles in answer.

“I won’t do it,” I tell her. “I know you think because I’m close to Edward Blackthorn – but he’s my friend, and I can’t use him.”

She makes a strange sound. I start for a moment and my light-spell flickers, startling me even more. But there’s no danger: after a second I realise she’s laughing.

What’s the joke? This isn’t funny. It takes all my self-restraint to not say that out loud, and to wait until her mirth ceases.

“You think your friendship with a Blackthorn is what makes you special, Tallulah?”

I freeze.

“It is remarkable, what the two of you have, and it will serve you well. But if you had never met him… it would not have changed who you are. What you are.”

“I’m not – “ But I am. There’s something strange about me, isn’t there? An anomaly in my magical signature. Doctor Wandsworth’s device detected it, and Electra destroyed it rather than let anyone know. If Edward’s mother noticed anything, she didn’t reveal it to either of us.

The fortune-teller – if that’s what she is – watches me calmly, waiting.

“Are you a sensitive?” I ask after a few moments.

She snorts. The sound is a strange contrast with her graceful demeanour up to that point. “You have to label everything, don’t you? I see what cannot be seen; that is all.”

She didn’t like being referred to as an oracle, either. This must be part of what she mentioned, the ways and practices of her people. My people?

“And you see… what it is. What I am.”

She nods, once, smoothly.

I feel as if I’m standing on the edge of a precipice. I’ve felt that way before, of course, with Malaina. But it’s different then: I know what happens if I let myself Fall. Peace. Destruction. Now? All that’s waiting at the bottom of this precipice is the unknown and the certainty that there can be no returning to where I was before.

Of course I ask, though. I have to know. “What am I?”

She’s not smiling any more. “One of those who came before. Who were monsters before. Perhaps you will be different, though.”

“That’s not an answer! What do you mean?”

“I told you before,” she says. “I can’t give you that for nothing.”

My light is flickering again. It took me this long to notice. Where am I with my list of kings? Eleanor the Bold. Timothy the Peacemaker. It brings me less comfort than it normally does. Here in this tent, the history that matters isn’t the one I’ve learnt.

It’s enough, though. I have to stay calm. Negotiate. “What is your price, then?”

“To know what you are? Or to know how to help your friend?”

“Either. Both.”

“For knowledge about yourself? More, I think, than you are willing to give.”

“Try me.”

“Solemn oaths,” she says, “to your people and their cause. To work always for it, for all your life. For that price, though, you purchase all the friendship and aid that we have to offer.”

I close my eyes for a long moment, and wonder who this woman is, and who and what she represents. “You’re right,” I say. “That’s more than I’m willing to give.”

“That offer will remain open for as long as you live and are not a monster. As for your friend… three promises.”

“What promises?”

“The first is secrecy. You will tell no-one save your friend any of what I reveal to you, and you will tell no-one at all who gave you the knowledge, unless they are of our people.”

More secrets. All I need. But setting that aside, if even half of what I’m beginning to suspect is true then I’m not surprised she insists on secrecy. And it’s a price I’m prepared to pay. I nod once, a silent request for her to go on.

“The second is to remember all that I tell you, even if it does not relate directly to what you need. To ensure that it will not be lost for as long as you live.”

That’s hardly a price at all. “And the third?” I ask, knowing that it may well be the one that ruins everything.

“Someday, when you know the truth of yourself, your choices will have great meaning. Remember then that our people have helped you, and do not repeat the crimes of those who came before.”

It sounds a simple thing. I’ve read enough history to know that it very much isn’t. One person’s crime is another’s act of cruel necessity, one person’s heroism is another’s evil. And I don’t know who those who came before are or what their crimes were. I could be agreeing to something that I’ll one day find unforgiveable.

“I don’t know what that means,” I say. “I don’t know what I’d be promising.”

“Does that matter?”

I pause. I could just say no, do what I need to get answers for Elsie. But that would be lying, to myself as much as to her. “Yes,” I say. “It does.”

“A pity,” she says, and nothing more.

For a moment I’m scared that I’ve lost my chance and that I won’t be able to help Elsie any more. Then I realise I’m being stupid. “You need me,” I say. “I don’t know why, because you won’t tell me, but if I’m as important as you say… then you need me.”

There’s a new wariness in her eyes as she watches me, still silent.

“So. If you want this agreement, then tell me what I’m agreeing to.”

“Your argument goes two ways,” she says. “Unless I have badly misjudged you, you would choose the answers you need over not making that promise.”

She’s right, completely so. But for some strange reason I don’t feel cornered in the slightest. “So what you’re saying is that either we can both win, or we can both lose? I know which option I prefer. How about you?”

I wonder in the heartbeat of silence that follows what possessed me to say that, and whether I’ve gone too far and lost my chance.

Then she smiles. “Very well. Let us, as you put it, both win. What you would promise, Tallulah, is not to do that which you know to be evil in pursuit of a greater good.”

“Thank you,” I say, and then pause in thought. Doing evil in pursuit of a greater good. That puts me in mind of Lord Blackthorn, who I know wouldn’t hesitate to do evil for what he believed the right reasons. These people who came before, were they like him?

I won’t become like him. If I told him that, he’d claim that avoiding that sort of choice was cowardice. That if I were powerful in the way he was, I’d understand too. I have to believe that he’s wrong, though. “That is… a promise I would make to myself, I think, if I did not make it to you. I will agree to your terms.”

“Good.” Am I imagining the relief in her posture, in her smile? I don’t think so.

“Do I… would you like me to swear it by starlight?”

She shakes her head. “Your word is enough. I will tell you of the gift of prophecy.”

And she does. Within what can only be a few minutes, the knowledge she gives me transforms my understanding of what oracles are and what prophecy is. It is just another form of sight, she says, the art of seeing what cannot be seen. That’s why many of the famous prophets and oracles are blind: those who do not see the world the way the rest of us do often learn other ways to compensate for such failings.

It functions in much the same way as normal vision. What Elsie has been doing, trying to supress her visions, is akin to forcing your eyes shut constantly. It works, yes, but only for a time, and it will permanently damage her gift.

But what if she doesn’t want the gift? What if she wants to see with only her normal eyes?

That can be done, of course. There are ways, but it is painful and unpleasant, and the woman who acts as a fortune-teller would no sooner do that than blind herself with a burning poker.

But she already knows her power, knows how to control it. Elsie is caught by surprise with visions that take her outside herself unwillingly. Surely there’s a way to stop that?

Of course. That is one of the first things all of our people with the gift learn, but there is no-one to teach Elsie. So my limited understanding passed on to her will have to be sufficient.

So it continues. “Can I write this down?” I ask eventually, my mind having absorbed enough information that I’m afraid of losing details.

She shakes her head. “Our people do not keep written records, save in our own language.”

“Own… language?” I repeat. “I don’t know anything about – “

“You wouldn’t,” she says. “All those who spread knowledge prefer this not to be well-known. But I will teach you, if you wish, for no price. You will find you have a gift for languages, I suspect.”

I remember my struggles with Sirgalese irregular verbs and doubt her words. That’s not what’s important here, though. “That won’t be easy,” I say. “I don’t live in the City, not permanently. I’m leaving in a week, and even when I’m here – Lord Blackthorn – “

She sighs disdainfully. “That man knows less than he thinks,” she says. “We have our ways.”

Oh, stars, I don’t like the sound of that at all. All this will have to be another secret I keep from him and by extension from Edward, won’t it? I’ve already promised complete secrecy. It makes no further difference.

But if my worst fears about all this are correct, keeping this secret from Lord Blackthorn could be a terrible mistake.