Chapter 1
Maybe it was the jeweled autumn leaves swirling around me, or the oddly pleasant scents of car exhaust and woodsmoke on the breeze, or the cotton-candy sunrise I had watched from the train, but there was definitely magic in the air before I reached Mystic Con.
I tossed back my braid and looped a scarf around my neck as I left the train platform and headed north toward the convention center a few blocks away. The air chilled the skin between my pleated skirt and my boots, but I didn’t mind. I grinned and lifted my chest, showing off the Saint Wesleyan Academy logo on my new sweatshirt. It was Saturday, which meant I could wear regular clothes if I wanted to, but why would I want to look regular when I had just scored a full scholarship to the classiest boarding school on the East Coast? Forget jeans and sweaters, I wore my uniform everywhere…except to bed. I wasn’t a total nerd.
The convention center came into view a block ahead of me, where the sidewalk teemed with people. A sign floated above the crowd, proclaiming MYSTIC CON: THE WORLD’S BIGGEST AND BEST ENCHANTMENT EXPO, SHOWCASING YOUR FAVORITE CELEBRITY SPELL CASTERS. FOR ONE DAY ONLY…MAGIC IS IN THE AIR!
A miniature fireworks show had begun, multicolored bubbles that floated upward and popped into glittering rain. A few people reached up to catch the sparkles, even though the fireworks weren’t real. They were only enchantments, and flimsy ones at that. The serious magic was inside, where we had to pay to see it.
A line of ticket holders had already formed at the main entrance, corralled into the sort of chrome partitions used at amusement parks. It looked like a thirty-minute wait to get in, maybe longer. Anxiety tightened my chest, urging me to hurry. I had already bought my ticket online, but something about a line full of people made me want to join it as fast as possible, and I doubled my pace automatically.
My heart put a stop to that nonsense.
I wheezed like I’d inhaled a cherry pit. Sweat broke out along my upper lip, my mouth already half-numb. The familiar spots dancing in my vision warned I would throw up if I pushed any harder, so I veered toward the nearest building. I tried to look chill while I caught my breath, hiding beneath my sweatshirt hood, pretending to check my phone. I had learned the hard way that
strangers would call an ambulance whether I wanted one or not. They didn’t know how much an ambulance cost, or how “normal” these symptoms were for me. And since a trip to the ER wouldn’t do anything except stretch my dad’s medical payments into the afterlife, I avoided eye contact and waited for my pulse to slow.
By the time I made it to the convention center, the doors had opened, so the line was shorter than before. I took my place behind a group of old men who were probably there for the same reason as me. Modern medicine had limits. Take my Swiss-cheese heart, for example, full of leaky valves and weak, flimsy tissue that gave a surgeon nothing to work with. But a Mystic—a truly powerful healer—could manipulate the laws of science and make miracles. That was worth the price of admission.
Or so I hoped. It had cost me everything.
And judging by the phone blowing up in my pocket, my dad had finally noticed the withdrawal from our joint checking account…all the money I had saved for a car so I could drive home and visit on the weekends. We’d had it all planned out: I would find a Chevy Chevelle SS—late sixties or early seventies—something with a solid chassis and a working engine, not too much rust, and we would restore it together during school breaks. That was our thing, fixing up classic cars. Now I would have to start saving up again.
I cringed and peeked at my screen. Eleven texts and two missed calls.
call me right now
money missing from your account
a lot of money
holy shit talia
almost all of it gone
did you do this or
or was your card stolen
did you get hacked
should i call the bank
or the police
damn it call me talia
He wasn’t using capitalization or punctuation. A bad sign. No way I would call him, but I could at least let him know I was okay.
Don’t worry, I texted. Wasn’t hacked. Can’t talk right now, but yes I used the money.
For what? he asked, grammatically calmer. Did you find an SS? I told you to call me before you pulled the trigger. I wanted to help inspect it, make sure it was a good deal.
Not a car.
What then?
I didn’t know what to tell him. It was bad enough that I’d spent my car money. When my dad found out how I had spent it, his head would explode. He didn’t trust Mystics, and that was putting it mildly. He had low-key hated them ever since he’d bought my mom a healing spell from a “certified” Mystic website that turned out to be fake. Then, just to twist the knife even deeper, a famous Mysticgrammer jumped the line at my mom’s favorite restaurant and stole the table she’d reserved for her and my dad’s last anniversary together. Their last one ever. For my dad, it was personal. But my mother would have approved of me coming here. These Mystics were the real deal.
Tell you later, I said. Can’t talk now.
Where are you? he asked. I didn’t answer. But because I was an idiot and forgot to turn off my location services, he figured it out. In the city??? The convention center??? From there, all it took was a Google search for him to put the pieces together, and he slipped into all-caps hysteria.
WHY ARE YOU AT MYSTIC CON???
NO YOU DIDN’T
SAY YOU DIDN’T
I TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM THOSE PEOPLE
LEAVE RIGHT NOW, TALIA
I MEAN IT, THEY ARE GREEDY AND THEY LIE
GO BACK TO YOUR DORM
I WILL GET YOU A REFUND
DO NOT…
I muted my phone and tucked it in my pocket. There was no point in trying to make him understand. He couldn’t, because he had never seen a miracle. He would feel differently if he had met Amy Kwan, a sophomore at the academy. I’d seen yearbook pictures of how she used to look—a crutch under each arm, her legs encased in metal braces from a car wreck. Then last summer, her parents had paid a Mystic to come to their house in the Hamptons and heal her. Now Amy ran varsity track.
If it had worked for her, it could work for me. My dad would understand later, after I left the convention with a healthy heart. My ticket had cost me everything, but it was still cheaper than a transplant—and faster than waiting for a donor match that might never happen.
A bargain, really.
Just one thing bothered me.
What my dad had said about Mystic greed wasn’t completely wrong. I had read a comic book once about a world where superheroes were managed by a giant corporation and contracted out like professional athletes. The superhero industry was a cash cow, fed by photo ops, movie deals, theme parks, product endorsements, you name it. Mystics did the same thing. They cashed in on their power instead of helping the people who needed it most, the ones who couldn’t afford to pay.
But I tried not to think about that.
I made it to the front of the line, where an usher scanned my digital proof of purchase. “Talia Morris,” he read from his tablet screen. “Photo ID, please.”
I flashed my shiny new student ID from Saint Wesleyan Academy. The usher matched my name to my face and handed me a plastic lanyard on a string. My ticket had a special enchantment of a tiny beating heart in the upper-left-hand corner, to set me apart from general admission. I had paid extra for a private session with the “Legendary Madame Hector,” the tour’s master healer. I hadn’t found much information about Madame Hector online—Mystics had a way of staying, well, mystical—but anyone who could charge nearly a thousand dollars a minute had to be at the top of her game.
“Don’t lose this,” the usher said, pointing at my ticket. “No replacements, no refunds, no exceptions. Got it?”
I nodded and looped the lanyard around my neck, tucking it into my bra for good measure. The usher waved me inside to the security checkpoint, two lines leading through a metal detector and an X-ray machine. The old man in front of me frowned as he emptied his pockets, grumbling to one of his friends, “Why do they need all this nonsense? They have magic, don’t they?”
To me, the answer was obvious. No one was untouchable, not even Mystics. Normal people outnumbered Mystics ten thousand to one, and every once in a while, some psycho with a grudge managed to get past the concealment charms and protective wards into a Mystic community and make the news. Magic could only do so much against an ambush.
After making it though security, I picked up a map of the convention center. The main attractions all took place on the second floor, but that could wait. I couldn’t risk losing my ticket or missing my session with Madame Hector. I found her station on the map—the third-floor ballroom—and took the elevator straight there.
I should have expected another line waiting for me. And since it wasn’t moving very quickly, I sat down on the carpeted floor and surveyed the corridor. There were no more firework spells or floating signs, just the center’s ordinary decor. I had hoped for more enchantments at a magical convention, but maybe the
Mystics had saved their best work for the spells that mattered.
As time went on and my turn approached, a riot of anticipation fluttered in my stomach. It seemed surreal to think that in a few minutes, I would exit the other side of the ballroom a different person—stronger, faster, unstoppable. I wouldn’t have to ride the elevator to the second-floor exhibition. I could take the stairs. I could speed-walk, or even jog, up and down the aisles of booths, without stopping to catch my breath. At the end of the day, I could run all the way back to the train station if I wanted to. And I did want to. The mental image excited me so much it hurt.
When my turn finally came, my hands trembled, and it took a few tries to show my ticket to the usher guarding the doors. I walked into the ballroom on shaky knees, vaguely noticing the stacks of empty tables and chairs lining the periphery. I only had eyes for Madame Hector.
I searched for her and found two people in the room, both of them men, one standing in front of the opposite doors with his arms tightly folded like a security guard, and the other sitting behind a long table draped in gold linens. The second man was brawny and bearded, dressed in a turtleneck beneath a black suit jacket. He seemed like the dramatic type, or maybe it was the candles floating in the air around him, casting shadows on his angular face. He clasped his hands atop the table and studied me as I approached, tilting his dark head, pinching his eyebrows together as if grading me for an exam I hadn’t studied for.
I glanced from one man to the other. “I, uh, I’m Talia Morris. I came here to see Madame Hector. Is she—”
“She is me,” the bearded man said with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s a stage name—a nom de plume, if you will—forced upon me by the vulgar marketing department.”
Definitely dramatic.
“They insist,” he went on, “that eighty percent of the population prefer a female Mystic healer over a male.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Antiquated notions of fairy-tale witchcraft, I suppose. Anyhow, I can transform myself into an elderly woman if you wish.”
I shook my head. “That’s okay.”
“Then please,” he said, indicating a chair that had just appeared at the opposite side of the table. “Make yourself comfortable.”
I settled across from him and discreetly wiped my sweaty palms on my skirt. Both of us sat at the same height, but Madame, or rather Monsieur Hector’s gaze had a way of making me feel small.
“So,” he began, leaning forward and boring those dark eyes into me, “tell me why you’re here, Talia Morris.”
That part was easy. I had even brought a summary of my medical file, which I unfolded and slid to him across the table. “I have a congenital heart disease. Genetic, if it matters. My mother had it, too.”
“Had?” he asked.
“She died two years ago.”
“My condolences,” he said. “Go on.”
“Well, that’s it, really.” I pointed at the paper, which he hadn’t touched. “I want you to fix my heart.”
“Hmm. But that doesn’t tell me why you’re here.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“I want you to dig deeper,” he said with a theatrical hand flourish. “Think beyond your physical symptoms and the clinical terms you use to define yourself, and tell me what it is you want. What does Talia Morris truly want?”
I didn’t know why he cared, but I blew out a long breath and considered his question. “A future, I guess.”
“You already have one.”
“A longer future, then. Longer than the one my mother had.”
“That’s fair. What else?”
“Strength,” I said. “And stamina.”
“But why?”
“So I can walk to class without wheezing like a grandma.”
“But why?” he pressed.
I shook my head, unsure of what he was looking for.
“Think, girl. Think!”
Frustrated, I threw my hands in the air. “Because I don’t want to be a spectator anymore. I’m tired of sitting on the bleachers and watching other people play. I want to play. I want to run.” And dance, I thought to myself. Especially dance. With homecoming a week away—my first big event at Saint Wesleyan—the only
thing I had to look forward to was wearing a dress that showed off my legs. “I want to have fun. I want to be normal.”
Hector raised an eyebrow. “Normalcy is a terrible thing to wish for, my dear.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I told him. “I just want to act my age, do what my friends are doing. Right now, my roommate’s at a corn maze—something I can’t handle. Tonight she’s going out with her boyfriend.” And probably hooking up, something else I couldn’t handle.
“You can date,” Hector said. “Nothing is stopping you.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. Except the only boy I wanted to date was Nathaniel Wood, and he made my heart do sprints and cartwheels and all sorts of acrobatics. Just thinking about him set my cheeks aflame.
A slow smile curved Hector’s lips. “Ah, there’s a boy.”
I blushed harder.
“Tell me about your boy.”
“He’s not mine,” I admitted. Not yet. But unless I had misread a hundred signals, it seemed like he wanted to be.
“Is he special?”
That made me laugh. Only the president of the junior class, homecoming prince, first-string quarterback, and former child actor. Oh, and crazy rich, too. Nathaniel came from old money, the kind of family that had a wing of the academic building named after them. But none of that mattered to me. The best part about Nate was everything we had in common. We both liked pineapple on our pizza. We watched the same true-crime dramas. We listened to classic rock. We had grown up with a love of American cars, and—get this—had both helped our dads restore vintage Impalas when we were kids. It was eerie how well we matched. Nathaniel couldn’t be more perfect for me if I had made him in a computer.
“Sure,” I said. “I guess he’s pretty special.”
Hector nodded. “Well, now that you’ve manifested your desires to the universe, all you have to do is take what you want. The only thing holding you back is you, Talia Morris.”
“And my heart,” I reminded him.
“There’s nothing wrong with your heart.”
I probed my chest with my fingertips. Had he healed me while we were talking? I didn’t feel any different, but sitting down, it was hard to tell. “Did you fix me already? Is that what you mean?”
“No, I mean there’s nothing wrong with you.”
I blinked, waiting for the punch line that didn’t come. “Excuse me?”
“Your heart is healthy.”
“No, it’s not.” I pointed again at the printout he hadn’t bothered to read. “I almost threw up walking here from the train.”
“Bad food, perhaps?” he offered.
I glanced at the security guard for some sort of explanation, but he stared blankly ahead with his arms folded.
“I’m confused. Are you saying…” I swallowed a lump that had risen in my throat. “Are you saying you can’t fix me?”
“I’m saying I can’t fix what isn’t broken.”
“But…you haven’t even touched me. How could you possibly know anything?”
“I don’t need to lay hands on my clients to diagnose them.”
“You didn’t chant a spell.”
“My gift doesn’t work that way.”
“Your gift didn’t work at all,” I said, my voice rising. I pulled in a calming breath. “I want you to try again. Please.”
“Very well.” He peered at me for the span of two blinks and said, “My diagnosis hasn’t changed.”
Panic rose up inside me. None of this made sense.
Except it did.
My dad had warned me, but I had wanted so desperately for him to be wrong that I hadn’t listened. Now I could see the flaw in my logic. I had known there were powerful Mystics in the world.
What hadn’t occurred to me was that the “Legendary Madame Hector” might not be one of them. Hector could obviously cast enchantments—levitate candles, summon a chair—but he didn’t have the power to heal me. And he would never admit it, because that would mean no more sold-out tours, no more lines of idiot ticket holders willing to empty their bank accounts for a chance at a miracle.
Idiots like me.
And still, I wanted to believe Hector. Hope was such an easy thing to cling to, and I had come here with mountains of it, built during weeks of picturing a new life for myself. I couldn’t let go of that dream. I had to try again.
“My heart—”
“Is healthy,” he interrupted.
“No, it’s not.”
“Your symptoms aren’t real. You’re in denial, my dear.”
That did it. My control snapped.
“Liar!” I yelled, bolting to my feet. “Tell it to my cardiologist! Tell it to the blood thinners I take every day, or the lab techs who know me by name! Tell it to my dad, who works a second job to pay for my insurance, or my mom, who’s in the ground!”
Hector swallowed visibly, darting a glance at his security guard. He held a palm toward me. “Now, now, my dear, I can see you’re upset—”
“I am not your dear,” I ground out. And hell yes, I was upset. “Don’t try to mansplain to me what’s going on inside my own body. It’s my body! My life! I was there for all sixteen years of it. You weren’t.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“I know exactly what you’re trying to do,” I spat. “There’s even a name for it. You’re gaslighting me.” I had learned about it in psychology class. It was a mind trick used by abusers to cover up their lies by fooling people into thinking their suspicions were all in their heads. “It won’t work on me. I know what’s real and what’s not.”
“Perhaps I can offer you a different service,” Hector said, changing tactics. “I could clarify your skin or…add gloss to your hair? Or perhaps you’d like to eat as much as you want without gaining weight.”
“I didn’t come here for party tricks.” I gripped both hips and planted my feet. “I came here for a new heart. So make that happen, or give me my money back.”
“There are no refunds,” he reminded me, glancing again at his guard. “I don’t make the rules. You agreed to the terms and conditions when you bought your ticket.”
I stood firm and faked a confidence I didn’t feel. Hector couldn’t do this, could he? Lie to me and take my money? It was starting to look that way, but how could I stop him? I couldn’t talk to his manager or file a
complaint. Mystics didn’t operate like that. They had all the power, and they knew it.
“No” was all I could say. I gripped the back of my chair and repeated, “No. I won’t leave until you make this right. I want my money back.”
Hector snapped his fingers, and the chair vanished from my grasp.
“Fine.” I sat cross-legged on the floor. I knew how desperate I looked, but I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t let him win. “I’m not going anywh—”
My voice cut off as my lips froze in puckered formation. I couldn’t speak. Or move, I realized, except to breathe and dart my eyes from side to side. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the security guard staring at me and chanting under his breath. I couldn’t hear his spell, but I fought against it, pushing back with my mind, holding my breath and straining until my face felt like an overinflated balloon.
I exhaled hard. Nothing worked. His magic was too strong.
Hector hooked a thumb toward the exit. “Take her out the back. Use the service elevator. Make sure no one sees you, and disable the cameras. I don’t want video of this leaking to the media.”
The guard nodded. He murmured another incantation, and the next thing I knew, my body was standing up from the floor. The act felt dreamlike, similar to how I sometimes walked in my sleep, but with more awareness. I had no control over my movements or my voice. I glared at Hector, or tried to, but the gesture was ruined by a tear spilling down my cheek. I hated—absolutely hated—how helpless he had made me feel.
He gave me a pitying look that boiled my blood. “Oh my dear,” he said, one hand pressed dramatically to his chest. “I am sorry to have disappointed you, and for the unique predicament that brought you here. I do hope you’ll take my advice and shape the future you want for yourself. No one can make you a spectator in life without your consent.”
Consent? I couldn’t even lift my hand to wipe the rage tears off my face, and he was lecturing me about consent? My father was right. Mystics were nothing more than gold-digging, lying, power-hungry, hypocritical assholes.
The guard didn’t ask for my consent to puppet me out of the room. He put my feet in motion and walked behind me to the service elevator, down two floors, and along a maze of empty corridors leading to the staff exit. He set a slow pace for our walk, pausing twice when I started to wheeze. Not that I would thank him.
He pushed open an exterior door and guided me into an alley lined with dumpsters. When we were just out of view of the sidewalk, he lifted my lanyard and said, “Your barcode is flagged, so don’t bother trying to get back in. As for my spell, it expires with distance. You have to go a little farther before you get your body back. I’ll start you off going south. You should have control by the time you make it to the street.”...
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
