“This is something I should do alone,” Alistair said, reaching for the spellboard. He placed an empty spellstone at its center and slid the grimoire closer to himself.
Hendry sighed. “I wish you didn’t have to.”
* * *
Later that evening, Alistair changed into a fresh black sweater. He wore the cursering carrying the Vintner’s Plague, and though crafting it had earned him a stomachache and a dark bruise along his trachea, he was otherwise no worse for wear. The stone glowed garnet, like crystallized blood.
Alistair’s mother met him in the main hall.
“You did nothing about your hair.” Every word she spoke sounded low and eerie, like a minor chord.
“What’s wrong with my hair?” He blew a disheveled brown curl out of his eye.
She frowned. “You look feral.”
He grinned, imagining himself howling in the woods beyond the estate. “Good. So who are these guests?” The Lowes rarely had guests.
“You’ll see.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and led him down the hallway.
The Lowe manor resembled a home plucked out of a haunting fairy tale. Each hearth crackled with fire, making every piece of upholstery, every room, and every Lowe smell of smoke. Full of dark-stained pine wood and iron candelabras, it was where maidens pricked their fingers on spinning wheels, where every fruit tasted of poison and vice. The boys grew up acting out these stories. Hendry played both the princess and the knight; Alistair was always and only the dragon.
Glowering family portraits adorned every wall in the sitting room. His grandmother sat stiffly on the upholstered couch, and a group of adults stood awkwardly by the door, as if unwilling to approach her.
Hendry leaned against the back wall, their uncle and gloomy eight-year-old cousin beside him. Hendry’s hair was combed and his clothes ironed. Alistair joined them and discreetly tucked in his sweater.
“Alistair, Hendry, come sit next to me,” his grandmother ordered. The brothers exchanged a glance and reluctantly took a place on either side of her. She gave Hendry a tender squeeze on his arm. She gave Alistair a stern look. “These are the owners of every spell-or curseshop in town. As you two are both eligible to be named champion, they’ve each come to present both of you their wares.”
The spell-and cursemakers eyed them nervously, clearly considering themselves to be more like hostages than guests. Alistair studied them all. Most of them were from well-known crafting families. There was a woman with dark brown skin and hair styled in elaborate braids. An old man with fair skin who wore a monocle. A young man with far too much eyeliner.
And, in the corner, a woman in a brown pantsuit who observed with obvious disdain.
“And this is Agent Helen Yoo,” his grandmother introduced. “You remember when she visited last year?”
Alistair did. Agent Yoo worked for the government, in some department of the military or security or something. She and her team had nearly blasted down the Lowes’ door after A Tradition of Tragedy revealed that the family was in possession of the most dangerous magick in the world. At first, even Marianne Lowe had been afraid. For eight centuries, it had been the silent responsibility of the winning family to use some of its high magick to keep the tournament secret, in fear of this very moment. They muddled the memories of any townspeople not directly involved.
The government might’ve spared them for now, but Marianne had been forced to reduce her tyrannical threats, in case the government changed its mind. Villainy in the modern age was a delicate balance.
On his part, Alistair had a vivid memory of one official confiscating the diary he kept in his underwear drawer as potential evidence. He wondered if Agent Yoo had read it and knew that Alistair had once had lewd fantasies about a bad guy named Manticore in a children’s cartoon.
But when Agent Yoo fixed her gaze on him, it was serious. “Don’t mind me. I’m just an observer of the tournament.”
His grandmother looked like she absolutely did mind. But nevertheless, she turned back to the spell-and cursemakers. One by one, each of their “guests” placed a gift-wrapped box on the coffee table, as though this were Alistair’s wedding shower.
“These spells are the best protection the Aleshire Emporium has to offer,” the woman with the braids said coolly. “The Warrior’s Helm can block any curse through a class nine”—Alistair very much doubted any of the champions were capable of a curse past class seven—“and the Dividing Haze can reduce the effects of a curse by half. The Behind Enemy Lines prevents someone from detecting the caster through any sense other than sight.” Alistair’s lips twitched into a smile, imagining someone not being able to taste him and why he would need such a thing.