Fallen Magic

So we do. The room is a small one. No windows, bare walls. Just a plain wooden table and two chairs either side of it. It feels like I imagine an interrogation room might feel. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were its usual purpose, considering whose house we’re in.

The one exception to the emptiness of the walls is a set of ivory tiles similar to those in Electra’s office, which I assume serve as an interface with the wards in this room. Edward crosses the room to them and presses them down in a sequence he must have memorised.

Then he turns to me. “Okay. No-one can hear what’s said in this room except us. And possibly my dad,” he adds, “though I doubt even he would feel the need to bug his private room. Dad, if you’re listening, I’m not being stupid here. I know the risk of letting anyone know about that incident, and I’m telling Tallulah anyway.”

I force myself not to laugh. This is serious.

He paces over to the table, pulls out a chair and sits down. I hesitantly take the chair opposite. I’m not quite sure which of us is being interrogated here: he’s the one about to reveal his deepest secrets, but I’m the one feeling out of place and intimidated.

“So,” Edward says. “I used to go for walks. From here. An hour or so, around the City. My dad encouraged it. Said I can’t spend my life cooped up in a manor. I needed exercise, and I needed to see the world around me.”

I nod. It seems a sensible thing to do. Given where I suspect this story is going, though…

“We took precautions. Of course we did. I always left through the back entrance, wore clothes that let me pass for normal, didn’t keep to a fixed path each time. And I always had my ring with me.”

“It wasn’t enough?” I guess.

“It was the last couple of weeks. Before I turned sixteen, became a magician. All my life up until that moment had been preparing for that moment, and I was… stars, Tallulah, I was scared that despite everything I wouldn’t be a good enough magician.” He grimaces, takes a couple of breaths, and then continues: “I was a little scared I wouldn’t be a magician at all.”

I blink a few times. “Why – why wouldn’t you be? Siaril is inherit – oh.”

With the nature of his parents’ relationship, with the way it ended, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for rumours to spread that Sylvia’s son was not her husband’s. That Edward wouldn’t inherit Siaril from Lord Blackthorn because Lord Blackthorn wasn’t his true father.

And to a boy whose entire identity was built on the idea that he would one day succeed Lord Blackthorn as a Royal Magician? Even the slightest hint of those rumours would be devastating.

“I was Falling before what happened,” he says. “But I thought – I thought once I turned sixteen, once I knew one way or the other, I’d know for sure. Malaina almost never develops as a second School. Though that might be due more to the fact that… well. Most magicians are powerful enough that they won’t end up in the sort of situations where people Fall.”

I encountered that fact in my research, noted it as a passing interest and never paid much more attention to it.

“I got distracted. Lost in worries about that sort of thing. I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings.”

“Edward, whatever happened – “

“I made a mistake, Tallulah. The sort of mistake there’s no recovering from. If it wasn’t for my father, I’d be dead or worse.”

“Well,” I point out, “would I be right in assuming that if it wasn’t for your father you would have never needed to worry about things like that?”

He nods, once, sharply. “I wouldn’t have stood a chance anyway. Three magicians against one boy who might be one in a few days’ time? That’s not a fight. But I would have had a second’s warning, and maybe I could have used that second to send an emergency signal to my dad.”

I say nothing. I don’t know what I can say to something like that.

Edward shrugs. “Woke up tied up in a warehouse somewhere. Still had my ring – they weren’t that professional if they didn’t check for enchantments thoroughly enough – “

I can’t help a laugh at that. Only Edward would criticise the professionalism of his kidnappers like that.

“I couldn’t actually press it, though. My fingers aren’t quite that flexible. There was nothing I could do except sit tight and hope my dad came to save me, and then…they didn’t treat me too badly, considering. Nothing personal, we’re just using you as bait to try and kill your dad.” He smiles wryly.

“That was when I felt the first emergency signal from him. I was supposed to respond at once, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure what was worse: the thought that he’d come for me and walk into the trap and die because of me, or…” He breaks off and sighs.

“The thought that he wouldn’t come for you,” I finish. “Because it was too risky. Because he’s the monster who’s prepared to make that kind of choice.”

He nods. “You don’t need to tell me he wouldn’t ever do that. I know that now – we talked a lot, after – but at the time… in a position like that, you start to doubt everything. So that’s how I Fell.”

I don’t have the words to respond. I’m sorry. That’s awful. I didn’t realise.

“I don’t remember anything after that until waking up back at home the next day. But my dad was there straight after. He said I blew up the entire roof of the warehouse.”

I suck in a breath. I knew Malaina was dangerous, of course I did, but that level of destruction is far beyond what I expected.

“He said one of the kidnappers died in the explosion.”

“Ah,” I say.

That’s why it’s classified, then. It’s bad enough the world knowing he’s Malaina without knowing he –

Edward killed someone.

The boy sitting across from me, head in his hands, not meeting my eyes, killed someone. Stars.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I know you never would have done it deliberately.”

He shakes his head. “In that moment? To get out of there? I would have done whatever it took.”

I don’t know if I believe him, but I believe he believes it. They did kidnap him, I tell myself, they did use him as bait for his father. Legally speaking, what he did is probably justified, and I don’t think he’d be held responsible for the death given it was an initial Malaina episode, which the law treats a lot more mercifully than subsequent ones.

But it’s what would happen if this were to become known that matters. People hate the Blackthorns enough as it is. They’d twist a story like this and mangle it until everyone is convinced that he’s mala sia.

That’s why no-one has found out about this, and why Edward needed to bring me here to tell me.

I close my eyes for a second. He’s still the same person. Just because I know now that he’s killed someone, that he’s been through a genuinely traumatic experience like that, doesn’t change that he’s also the best friend I’ve ever had. I need to tell him that.

“This doesn’t change anything,” I say.

“Doesn’t it?” he asks.

“Of course it doesn’t. You’re still Edward. You’re still my friend.”

“You know what I am, now. A murderer – “

“It wasn’t murder – “

“I don’t care about your pedantic legal definitions. I killed someone. That’s murder.”

I shake my head. In this instance, the pedantic legalities are a better reflection of reality than Edward’s simple viewpoint. Killing in self-defence isn’t murder, and I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say Edward could well have died that day if he hadn’t Fallen.

“I’d do it again,” he says. “If I had to. Not because of Malaina. Knowingly, willingly. Stars, Tallulah. You’re a good person.” He hesitates. “I’m not.”

I hesitate, taking a moment to find the words, but this isn’t something I can argue in an essay. Whatever I say will have to come from instinct and knowledge of Edward alone. “They kidnapped you,” I say. “They were plotting to kill your father.”

He shakes his head. “That’s what my dad said. They deserved it. It was fine. But it isn’t, is it? Tom Parkins.”

I narrow my eyes, confused, trying to work out what the name means.

“That was his name. The man I killed. I asked my dad to find out for me. He was married. Two children. Two children who don’t have a father, because of me.”

And there’s my answer. “A bad person,” I say, “wouldn’t care about that.”

“It doesn’t matter how sorry I feel, does it?”

“It does. Because if you really feel that way, if you really regret it, then you won’t do it again.”

Edward sighs. “My dad once told me,” he says, “that this is why the compassionate approach doesn’t work. You always empathise with everyone, see the good in them, believe the best of them. And sometimes that blinds you to reality.”

Isn’t that what happened with the Cavendish affair? I saw Mildred as a girl afraid of losing her father, and I didn’t see the lengths to which she’d go to prevent that until it was too late. Lord Blackthorn’s words on the Abbey steps play in my mind: it is a luxury I cannot afford.

Is he right? Is that the price I’ll have to pay to play the game?

No. Instinctively, I know he’s wrong. “I’m not blind to your reality. You’re Edward Blackthorn, a boy scared and alone, doing what it takes to survive, and you are not a bad person. I know you, and I know that, as sure as I know anything.”

He closes his eyes and reaches out to me across the table. I take his hand and hold it there.

“Thank you, Tallulah,” he says after a long moment, opening his eyes again. “You understand now?”

“Why Elsie – the fortune-teller – yes.”

“It’s the inaction I can’t stand,” he says. “The not being able to fight to stop things like that happening. The powerlessness.”

“That’s why you were okay in the riot,” I say. “Because you fought there. You defended me, saved my life.”

“Yes. And earlier… it wouldn’t have been right to tear that tent apart, not without actual evidence that woman was a threat, so I couldn’t act. Maybe I shouldn’t even have threatened to do it, but… it was that or an active episode, I think. And that – that would have destroyed a lot more than just the tent.”

I imagine the fortune-teller crumpling to the ground, collapsing beneath the broken remnants of the tent. I imagine the entire Market turning to chaos and destruction. He’s right.

“I need to be better than that,” he says. “I got lucky this time – no. I didn’t get lucky. I had you with me to talk me down. And Elsie was fine. But I can’t afford an active episode, and I can’t afford to take measures like destroying the tent to prevent it.”

No; he can’t. Not without forever being seen as unstable, losing whatever credibility he has, quite possibly ruining his entire future.

But I’ve thought that way often enough to realise it doesn’t make anything better. Putting that much pressure on yourself never ends well. I’ve come a long way, these past few months; episodes are much rarer than they used to be now. A large part of why, though, is that I’ve confronted the source of my problems. I’ve got away from Genford, dealt with my mother, found somewhere I belong.

And maybe that works well enough for my ill-defined “trauma”, but Edward can’t directly face his in that way. Not without exposing himself to an awful lot of danger.

“It’s okay,” I tell him, not knowing what else to say. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”

“My dad still doesn’t know who those people got their orders from,” he says.

And Lord Blackthorn not knowing something is unusual enough to be concerning.

“Tom Perkins was the leader of the three who were in the warehouse with me. He might have known, if…”

“Don’t,” I interrupt sharply. “Blaming yourself doesn’t help anything. You made it out alive. That’s what counts.”

Edward sighs. “You’re right. It’s just…”

“I know.”