“Did you honestly come here alone?” the first girl asked. She smelled strongly of cheap beer, and like all the patrons here, she wore crystal spellrings on each finger that glowed white with common magick. Alistair guessed they were filled with simple spells: Hangover Cure, Zit Zapper, Matchstick … whatever suited a Friday night pub crawl.
“Of course not,” the second girl said, smoothing down her violently red curls. “My friends are over there.” She gestured vaguely at the entire bar.
“I thought so,” sneered the tipsy girl. “You’re famous now, you know. There’s a picture of you on the cover of one of my mum’s magazines. You’re wearing sweatpants.”
“It’s been known to happen on occasion,” the redheaded girl grumbled.
“I heard the Darrows have chosen now, too. That makes three champions so far—Carbry Darrow, Elionor Payne, and you.” The first girl smiled viciously, in the kind of way that made Alistair guess the girls had once been friends. “But no one wants the Macaslans to win.”
Alistair realized it now—he recognized the redheaded girl. She was the Macaslan who’d been announced as champion months and months before the Blood Moon had appeared, and the paparazzi had branded her the face of the tournament ever since. Alistair wasn’t surprised that the Macaslans would stoop to such desperate grabs for attention. His grandmother had always described them as the bottom-feeders of the seven families, willing to use unsavory methods for even a taste of power. But the Macaslan girl’s designer handbag and pretty face didn’t give the impression of someone who would have to fight for attention.
At their words, several of the cursechasers stared, and the Macaslan girl cleared her throat and turned her back to them.
“Well, I don’t care what people think of me,” she said. But Alistair disagreed. No one wore heels to a dive bar if they didn’t care about their reputation. “The evening news already called me and the Lowe champion rivals. Because I’m the one who’s going to win.”
The tipsy girl rolled her eyes. “The Lowes haven’t even announced their champion yet. Whoever they are, they mustn’t be that impressive.”
As the bartender slid Alistair his drinks, Alistair fantasized about how quickly the Macaslan champion’s confident expression would fall when he held out his hand, a ring glowing on his knuckles and charged with a curse, and showed her exactly how impressive he was.
But there would be time for that once the tournament began.
Still, as he turned around, pints in both hands, he met the Macaslan girl’s eyes. They held gazes for a moment, assessing each other. But not wanting to be recognized, he walked away.
At the pinball machine, Hendry took the offered glass and shook his head. “I thought you’d start something.” A spell shimmered around his ears—a Listen In, probably. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Maybe I should’ve.” Alistair took a sip and smiled despite himself. He shouldn’t be excited for the tournament, but he’d been groomed for it since his childhood. And he was ready to win.
“No, definitely not. What is it you say about our family? ‘Grins like goblins. They’ll tear your throat and drink your soul’？ You can’t help yourself. You have no restraint.” Although it sounded like Hendry was scolding him, his smirk said otherwise.
“Says the one who brought a high magick spellstone to a dive bar.”
“Someone has to watch out for you,” Hendry murmured, repeating Alistair’s exact words from earlier.
Alistair scoffed and turned his attention to the pinball machine. Its artwork resembled the fairy tales he’d grown up with: A prince rescuing a princess from a castle, a knight riding into battle, a witch laughing over a cauldron. And Alistair’s favorite, the dragon, its mouth open in a snarl—worth one hundred points if the pinball struck its fangs.
While Alistair inserted a coin into the slot, Hendry sighed and changed the subject. “I had a dream today—”
“Typically, one has them at night—”
“—while napping in the graveyard.” Despite his charm and freckled nose, Hendry was still a Lowe. He had a little villain in him. The Lowe family graveyard was his favorite place, full of vague, unnerving epitaphs for those who’d died young—even excluding the tournament, their family had a surprisingly large amount of tragedy in its history. “In the dream, you really were a monster.”
Alistair snorted and mashed the game’s buttons. “What did I look like?”