"You will," I said, clasping him on the shoulder.

He looked up at me, a slow smile on his face.

"We'll beat him," I reassured him.

Inside, I hoped so. And I could not shake the feeling that while the Shadow was off our trail, other problems still darkened our path.

17.

DUST MOTES.

"With each life, they learn more, they become the truer essence of themselves. With each passing generation, our children are growing into what we hoped they would be. Of course, there is always the threat that they will learn too much."

Translated fragment of Alder script.

The next day, we threw open every window of the Kymri Theatre, despite the thin layer of snow on the ground and the bite in the wind.

The work warmed us. We swept dust from the stage, and then sanded, stained, and varnished it until it shone. We scrubbed the aged velvet of the seats, mending the tears. We mopped the mosaics and glued the loose tiles back into place. We washed the stained glass windows. I climbed to the roof and made it possible for light to shine through the grimy skylights again.

Lily Verre, true to her earlier promise, helped us during two afternoons. Maske said nothing of their date, but I knew that they planned to meet again. Lily kept meeting his eyes and smiling as she chattered and dusted vaguely. She brought bouquets of roses "to freshen the air," even though it was rather pointless. No members of the public would enter the Kymri Theatre during the remaining life of the dying roses.

At the end of the week, the theatre was in a semblance of order. Decades of grease and grime no longer coated everything. We discovered the original pinkish beige of the walls before we coated them with warm yellow paint.

When the paint had dried, we surveyed our handiwork. My back ached from the dull, repetitive motion of scrubbing. I was weary to the bone, and my palms were wrinkled and chapped from filthy soap suds.

In that moment it did not matter. The Kymri Theatre sparkled. It looked like a place for magic shows and wonder. I could imagine audience members in the seats. The rustle of skirts, the waving of fans and the crinkle of paper as men and women consulted their programs. Before, the dusty seats only seemed like they could be filled with ghosts.

"Tomorrow is the meeting with Aspall and Taliesin," Maske said, breaking the silence of the theatre. "You three still want to participate?"

We did.

"Then we'll see this through to the end."

With that, he twisted the controls, and the chandelier of gas lights above us shimmered to life, bathing the empty theatre in a warm yellow glow to match the walls. I breathed in the smell of the varnish, lemon-soaped water, and roses.

It was not a circus ring, but it was our new stage.

To celebrate the scrubbing of our home, we invited Lily for tea. She hadn't reported us to the policiers, after all, and Maske wanted every opportunity to see Lily Verre. Around her, Drystan and I always wore our Glamours, just in case.

We cooked the most lavish meal within our capabilities, with Cyan making traditional Temnian dishes, the recipes passed on from mother to daughter for generations. Cyan wore a bittersweet smile as she kneaded the dough for mooncakes, the smell of yeast and spices in the air. She marinated chicken and vegetables in a thick, spicy sauce before cooking them on a skillet and made rice, a fluffy grain I had only tried a time or two before.

To showcase my cooking lessons over the past few months, I made little savory tarts filled with leeks, cheese, and bacon. Drystan made an old circus favorite for a second dessert a peanut brittle. It was an extremely disparate meal, but it was ours.

Lily brought a bottle of wine and a bottle of whisky, which I still could not stand to drink. She wore a russet dress, her hair tumbling from its chiffon in its usual disarray.

We gave her a tour of the finished Kymri Theatre.

"You worked your magic on this place, right enough," Lily said.

"Thank you, my dear Mrs Verre," Maske said.

We sat in the kitchen rather than the formal parlor. For a time, the only sounds were the clink of cutlery and the splash of wine into glasses, then Maske and Lily carried the conversation through the meal. I was too hungry from a solid week of cleaning to do much but put one spoonful of food after another into my mouth.

"It's a shame about those Forester protests, isn't it?" Lily said, fluttering her hand. "Frightful, really. Not that I'm completely unsympathetic to their cause, mind, but the protests are truly getting out of hand, aren't they?"

"Out of hand?" I asked.

"Well, there were those fights outside the palace the other week, and now there's the vandalism of the estates in the Emerald Bowl. They cut down all the trees around it and painted: "LEAVES TO ROOTS" across the windows. That's a bit much. They're even threatening a civil war if their needs aren't met."

Civil war? Surely it wouldn't come to that. "Which family was vandalized?" I asked, nervously.

"The Ash-Oaks, I believe."

They were staunch royalists. I knew them. Lord Ash-Oak was an adviser to the Steward and very active against the Foresters. Their son was only eight. He must have been so frightened.

"I bet the Steward wasn't too happy about that," Drystan said.

"I'm betting that's a gross understatement," Maske said. "That man will be calling out for their blood, and that leader Timur's especially."

"He won't be able to do anything to them. And no one knows where Timur is hiding, do they?" Cyan asked, biting her lip.

I felt a... knocking on my mind, like someone was asking to enter. Cyan's brows furrowed.

I know a few Foresters, she said in my mind. Some of those in the circus left to be Timur's followers.

I nearly reeled in shock at the sound of her voice in my head, setting down the wine glass with a clatter. Cyan's voice in my head. What had she discovered? What had I unwittingly disclosed?

Sorry. I didn't know if this would work. I won't do it without warning again.

Don't! I thought. I tried to push her from my mind, and "felt" her drift away.

I stared into the coffee cup. I did not like her invading my head at all. It felt like a violation. Maske and Lily continued speaking, but my mind did not follow the words. I clutched the coffee cup until my heartbeat returned to normal.

But then I wanted to know something. After the initial shock, it seemed silly not to take advantage of something so extraordinary. I did not relish the thought of her in my mind again, but at the same time, I was curious. I sent a wisp of thought toward her, which she met, almost like taking my hand.

Are you one? I asked. A Forester?

No, but I agree with some of what they want. Don't you?

I don't know. I guess they're protesting against pretty much everyone I knew in my previous life. I had overheard many heated discussions of politics, at dinners. The circus folk, after drinks at the bonfire, had also complained at length about the monarchy. Tin and Karg, the strongman and the dwarf, often had arguments. But perhaps now was the time to study all the sides of the issues and find out where I stood and what I believed.

Maske had been speaking: "...they may wish to overturn the monarchy and plenty of people are sympathetic, but these antics make them look like little more than petulant children full of theatrics. What happened to petitions and due process?"

"Petitions were ignored." Drystan swirled the wine in his glass.

The conversation meandered in that vein for some time, and eventually I grew a little bored. I didn't know enough to be able to add anything meaningful to the conversation. Ashamed, I focused on the food.

"Oh, did you read the paper this morning?" Lily asked. I took a large bite.

Maske shook his head. "Didn't have a chance to yet. We were busy finishing up the theatre. Why? More disaster and dismay?"

"A Shadow was murdered in prison last night."

I started choking on my food.

"Are you alright, my dear boy?" Lily asked. I nodded, my eyes watering as I forced myself to swallow. My throat felt raw.

"What Shadow?" I rasped.

"That one who was done in for fabricating evidence a few weeks back. Shadow Kameron Elwood? Shocking, isn't it? To think! My dear late husband hired him once to see if our supervisor was skimming from the top and sneaking off his shifts early. He was and was fired. But now I do wonder if perhaps he made the whole thing up!" She waved her hands.

"How did he die?" I whispered.

"Oh, it's terribly tragic," she said, sounding more delighted than saddened. "He was housed with one of the men whose evidence he'd fabricated. The man had been innocent of the crime he was imprisoned for, but he wasn't released quite yet as Elwood had notes that pointed to even worse crimes, so the constabulary decided to investigate. But the man had been in prison for over ten years a lost his business and everything. He'll be in that prison for a long time more now, though, on account of strangling Elwood in his bed."

I pushed my plate away, my appetite gone. I'd had no love for Shadow Elwood. He had tried to send me back home and was not the most honest of men, but that did not mean I wanted him murdered. Dead. If we hadn't turned him in, he wouldn't be, and there was no denying that fact. I felt sick.

I met Drystan's gaze and I couldn't read what I found there. Another death to our ledger.

Cyan whispered in my mind again: No, Micah. Elwood chose to fabricate the evidence and put men and women behind bars. The man chose to take Elwood's life. The fault is not with you.

Stay out of my head unless I invite you. It's crowded enough in here with my own thoughts.

She drifted away.

I said little for the rest of the evening. Lily seemed to notice she had upset me and grew even livelier to try and cover the silence. Drystan came to my rescue, bantering with Maske and charming Lily. Underneath the facade, though, I knew he felt as empty as I did.

It was such a simple thing, in the end, to sign a piece of paper.

We stood in the headquarters of the Collective of Magic itself, a large house in the Gilt Quarter. I felt grubby in my patched shirt and worn trousers. Somehow, in the last two months I had grown so much that my ankles peeked out from above my shoes. Showing my ankles in public. How my mother would have been scandalized.

I felt especially ragged next to Cyan's composed grace. She tucked her hands into the sleeves of her tunic, staring down her nose at Aspall and Taliesin. She could have worn an Elladan dress, but she wanted to look Temnian. Taliesin was unsettled by her, me and Drystan. We looked foreign to him.

Many older Elladans were still uncomfortable around foreigners, for they'd grown up during a cold war. The other islands didn't have as much Vestige a it had decayed in the warmer climates. Ellada held its power through its stockpile of Vestige weapons. Sometimes, the colonies would rise up but the skirmishes never lasted long. Older Elladans still remembered when the other islands were colonies, and few travelled between the islands of the Archipelago unless they needed to.

Our rivals, Sind and Jac Taliesin, stood across from us. They were short, with solemn faces and hair pomaded into perfection, their new, crisp clothing contrasting with ours. I could not tell them apart. They met our eyes with haughty gazes of their own. Maybe they didn't understand all they stood to lose.

Aspall read the new agreement aloud. A duel in three months' time a the winner could perform magic and would gain the other's profit.

The agreement was long and peppered with legal jargon. Briefly, I wished my father was here. He would have noticed any sneaky turn of phrase in a second and made sure the agreement was as fair to our side as possible. Homesickness echoed through me. Once, I lived in a place such as this: rich woods and fabrics, and a warm fire in every room. Now I lived in a draughty theatre that was never fully warm.

I lost the thread of Aspall's droning words, but his next words snapped me to attention.

"Now, for the specifics. How many performers?" Aspall asked.

"Two magicians and an assistant each," Maske said.

Taliesin waved his hand, his gaze lingering on Cyan. "No. No assistants."

Taliesin and Maske went back and forth, their voices rising in anger.

"Why shouldn't there be assistants? They were always a part of our shows!"

"Magic against magic, Jasper! No... distractions."

"You jealous old fool."

"You insufferable git. What, afraid if the audience looks away from your pretty Temnian girl that they'll see how poorly your amateurs perform?"

"It's nothing to do with that!"

"Please," Aspall said. "Let us discuss this rationally."

In my mind, I asked Cyan a question. She answered with a grim smile and a nod.

"I can step out, and Cyan can take my place, not as an assistant but as a full magician," I said.

The room grew quiet.

One of the twins spoke. "A... female magician?"

Cyan put her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes. "What's wrong with a female magician?"

"Nothing," the other said. But he muttered something to his brother, who fought down a snigger. I narrowed my eyes at them.

"Has... the young woman been trained?" Aspall asked.

"Yes, she has," Cyan answered, testily.

"Is that what you wish, Sam?" Maske asked.

"Yes," I said. "I'll be your stagehand."

"Does this meet your agreement, then, Mr Taliesin?" Aspall asked.

Taliesin looked shocked by the turn of events. "That'll do," he managed.

"Then we have come to an arrangement." Aspall noted the amendments. Maske managed to make one more concession: an assistant could appear as a prop in one illusion on each side, which tied into his mysterious finale.

Everyone signed the agreement, from Taliesin's blotty scrawl to Maske's impeccably tidy signature. Technically the contract was not legally binding for me, Drystan, and Cyan. We all signed false names in Temri script.

After the contract was signed and the seal pressed into hot wax, the head of the Collective of Magic himself, Professor David Delvin, came to congratulate us. He was a wizened old man, but the wrinkles on his face showed he spent most of his life smiling. He thanked us, shaking our hands. He discussed business and publicity, saying that he had some excellent plans for the final venue. The Collective, in return for its support and management, would take a fifty per cent commission of ticket prices. Steep.