Illusions, Imposters, and an Offer

Even as the illusion rippled around them, a dazzling display of misty forest, he could feel the subtle tug of magic trying to lure them in opposite directions. He scowled at the subterfuge, insidious as oily poison in dark wine, and parsed the motives behind it.

“They want to split us up,” Charlie said grimly. Her face was set, that determined look that overlaid a surprising ferocity to her pretty features. “So let’s do it. Let’s find out what they want.”

Griffin nodded in agreement. He would have been happy to stand there mutinously for hours, unmoving and unresponsive as a stone, until their hosts grew embarrassed and gave up their plot, but Charlie, who otherwise had the willpower and stubbornness of a wild horse, possessed no ability to resist anything she perceived as a challenge. If you warned her there was a snake under a bucket and not to touch it, she would have to lift the edge to take a peek. She would rather face the danger than worry about it. Griffin accepted this about her readily enough because it was just who she was. It was his job, as he saw it, to get to the bucket first and kill the snake before Charlie had a chance to even go looking for it. And that was what he would do now, scout for whatever threat awaited them here and draw it toward himself so he could end it quickly.

Charlie took the chain with the silver key from around her neck and held it out to him. “Wear this. Hopefully it will cause spell interference. I still have the dagger.”

He slid the chain over his head and tucked the key beneath his shirt. The metal should have been warm from her skin, but it wasn’t. He would have preferred that she keep it, but she was right. He would do a better job of confronting their enemies if he wasn’t fooled by their magics, and her dagger was likely what was protecting her anyway. He kissed her quickly, his mind already focused on the next task. He was concerned for her in the vague way he always was, but he wasn’t anxious. Charlie could take care of herself just fine. He was more worried about who she’d destroy if they crossed her, and his lip curled into a slight snarl at the thought.

It only took a few steps for Charlie to be out of his sight completely. Griffin released any lingering worry he had about her with a huff of air and focused. He could feel the magic the forest was made of around him like a fog, though it looked breathtakingly real to his eyes. The grass even made shushing noises as his boots waded through it. But when he reached for a tree trunk, he felt only a faint impression of bark before his hand passed right through. Curiosity piqued, he began to experiment with the landscape more ruthlessly, pulling plants from the ground to watch them dissolve into motes of light and digging into the dirt to find the marble floor below it. The more he relaxed and enjoyed the scenery, the more real it became. When he fought to see through the illusion, it shivered and unraveled around him. For a moment he lamented they weren’t in the magic school under better circumstances; he loved magic and would have enjoyed spending hours exploring and playing in this place, trying to learn how it worked.

But he had spent too long being fascinated by the magic. Griffin pushed away through the trees again, heading toward the city. It came much faster than it should have, and he was irritated. Had he caused that by thinking about it too hard, or was the illusion just not capable of recreating the distance correctly? Experimentally, he envisioned the tower with the garden at its base, closed his eyes, and took a step. When he opened his eyes, he was standing at the base of the tower facing the arch that had drawn them to Amaranthina.

There was a man, one of the younger mages, standing by the arch as if he’d been examining it before Griffin arrived. They exchanged speculative looks for a moment. “It’s a work of art, isn’t it?” the man said conversationally.

Griffin wasn’t sure if he meant the city or the illusion, but he guessed the latter. “A work of deception,” he said.

“Life is rarely as honest as we’d like to believe,” the mage replied, returning to his examination of the arch.

It seemed like a non sequitur, though Griffin agreed. He tried the handle of the door to the tower, but it wouldn’t turn.

“Did you go inside while you were there?” the mage asked.

“No,” Griffin replied shortly, realizing now that that was why the door couldn’t open. The illusion included only what was known, and no one knew what was inside the tower. He also realized what was known about the city and the forest surrounding it was likely from what he and Charlie knew about it, which meant the mages had some kind of access to their memories. He narrowed his eyes at the mage, who was trying to read the symbols on the arch, as if the man might be responsible for the theft of his memories.

The mage hadn’t noticed Griffin’s glare. “Can you read any of these?”

Slowly, thinking, Griffin left the tower entryway and approached the arch. He already knew that he could not because the symbols had been inscrutable to him the first time he had seen them, but he was intrigued to see them sharpen before his eyes as if his thinking about them made them clearer to the illusion magic. “Can you read them?” he asked.

The man shrugged almost indifferently. He seemed less earnest than the others, as if he didn’t really expect to ferret any vital information out of the foreign guests.

Griffin contemplated for a moment before choosing his tact. “What do they want from us?” he asked in a low voice as they both continued to pretend to study the arch.

“To use you,” the young man said with another shrug. “How, I don’t know, but the Consortium and the Sodality are likely on opposite sides.” He flicked a glance up at Griffin, his brown eyes sharp and cautious.

Griffin nodded, understanding. “What do you want?” he asked, half-smiling.

A look of vague frustrating took over the mage’s face. “To practice magic and not be drawn into any schemes?”

Griffin gave a short, appreciative snort at that and left to walk back through the city again. If he wasn’t going to find anything useful, he should look for Charlie. Maybe she had learned something.

He caught sight of her through the trees when he returned to the overgrown road that led into the city, but as soon as her head turned, dark hair swinging like a silky curtain, an unexpected feeling of wrongness settled over him. Charlie smiled at him, and something cold crawled down the back of his neck. She didn’t seem to notice and came traipsing through the trees toward him.

Griffin stood still and studied the thing-that-wasn’t-Charlie as it approached. Was it something controlling her body, or something pretending to be her? Should he confront it at once, or play along? Truthfully, he was a poor liar. His only method of pretending was simply to not react at all, and he had already frozen upon seeing her, which was not how he would have been expected to react to seeing her.

If the impostor guessed something was amiss, she was pressing on gamely. “Griffin! I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Her expression was anxious, her blue eyes wide and guileless, her voice breathy. For a moment he was appalled at how poorly they had copied her. If they had expected him to believe this was Charlie, they’d paid poor attention to the work. How had they missed the determined way she walked or the canny way she observed everything around her? The impersonator was staring at him with adoring eyes, an expression he would have been uneasy to see on the real Charlie at any time.

“Did you find anything?” he asked as neutrally as he could manage. He realized his fists had clenched, and he relaxed them again.

False-Charlie shook her head. “I think they need our help to save the city. We could,” she ventured uncertainly, tilting her head as if hoping for his approval, “don’t you think? Maybe we could go back there and take them with us?”

“I’m not sure how that would save it,” Griffin mused. “It died a long time ago. Do they want to chop down all the vines and repopulate the city with settlers? Why? To solve their space problem in Amaranthina, perhaps,” he continued, more to himself. False-Charlie was shifting uneasily. “You’re trying to convince the wrong person, you know,” he continued conversationally. “Maybe you didn’t pay enough attention to our relationship, or maybe you’re just trying to convince both of us. How did you see this ending?”

“What?” false-Charlie asked uncertainly.

“Even if I didn’t realize you weren’t Charlie right away, I would have at some point, like when the real Charlie showed up.” He could feel the tension of anticipated violence tightening along his spine. “Was the plan to make an excuse to separate from me again and somehow hope Charlie and I never attempted to reference this discussion I was supposed to think we had?”

“The plan was for you to start divulging information about how you came through that arch; the familiar face was just to let your guard down,” a voice said grimly from behind him. Griffin had heard the man approach but hadn’t reacted because he didn’t want to let the impostor know. Now he moved so both people were where he could see them. The newcomer was a man in his forties wearing a mage’s robe that suggested a ranking that was senior but not on Palladius’s level. He nodded to the false-Charlie. “I told you this wouldn’t work on him.”

The thing that wasn’t Charlie shivered and was replaced by another of the mages. He scowled at Griffin. “It should have worked! They told me it was the girl who had the magic.”

“Perhaps your skills of persuasion aren’t what you think,” the man suggested sourly. He turned his gaze to Griffin, eyes half-shut as he studied the young man. “Or perhaps less delicate methods are needed. How did you come through the arch?” There was something dark and cool in his voice that raised the hair on Griffin’s neck.

Griffin felt something settle against his skin for a moment, soft like snowflakes drifting but with the tingle of sparks from a camp fire. He felt calmer than he should have for a moment, then the realization startled him back to alertness again almost at once. Magic, he thought. The mage was attempting to spell him somehow. He didn’t answer.

“How did you travel to Amaranthine?” the man persisted, and the sparks began to tingle again.

Griffin narrowed his eyes, and the magic ebbed again. He wasn’t sure if they could tell it wasn’t working. Should he pretend it was? Maybe they would talk too much if they thought he was beguiled.

The mage switched tactics. “We have a lot to offer you here,”he said. “Magic you couldn’t even dream of. That’s what you came here for after all, isn’t it?” He raised his eyebrows at Griffin.

If they captured his attention, they would capture his mind. “And for what price?” Griffin replied. He curled his toes in his boot until they hurt so the pain would keep his head clear.

“Allyship,” the man answered. “Use your knowledge to help us in our endeavors, and we will open our wealth of knowledge to you.”

The tingle was growing warm enough now that he was having trouble thinking. “You might have to be more specific about your endeavors,” he suggested.

“Our endeavors are to safeguard Amaranthina and her people,” the mage replied, his voice soothing and practical. “We can build a relationship that benefits us both.”

“That’s dandy,” Griffin replied. The man that had been impersonating Charlie was creeping closer behind him, and it took far too much of his concentration not to react. He focused his attention on the man speaking to him as if he was the only thing important in this strange place. The pleasant stillness that proceeded a battle filled him, and everything around him slowed and sharpened.

Griffin grabbed the arm of the man behind him as it reached for him, diverting a hand glowing faintly gold with magic meant for him. Using the captured arm as a lever, he slung the man forward into his companion, knocking both men to the forest floor. He waited impatiently for them to rise, bouncing on his toes in eagerness. They were both the sort who spent their days with books and quills instead of physical pursuits, and they were clumsy and slow. They did, however, he found when they stood, fight back with magic.

He dodged a wildly-thrown ball of something glowing, then swooped in to grab the first man’s arm again. He slammed the man into a tree trunk, only belatedly remembering the trees weren’t really solid here. But the mage contacted the tree with a satisfying thunk and a grunt of pain. Griffin tossed him into the older man again so they would be temporarily occupied with untangling themselves and turned his attention to the trees.

He tried to pass his hand through it and found that he could. Then he tried to touch it, and the trunk was solid. Delighted, he reached through the tree for one of his opponents, pulled him through the illusion, then slammed him back against the now-solid trunk. He could make the trees solid at will, it seemed. He squinted around at the forest and told the little white flowers growing at the base of the trees to turn blue. While Griffin had been distracted, the older mage had regained his composure and was mumbling under his breath as he prepared to launch another spell. Griffin yanked the man’s feet from under him with a tree root, the action happening as soon as he thought it. He stared at the flailing men, almost dumbfounded by his own actions because he wasn’t quite sure how he’d done them.

“Enough of this,” a voice said, and Palladius stepped from among the trees. He was so close Griffin should have heard him approach, but he hadn’t.

Palladius surveyed the mages, now on their feet though disheveled, with open disapproval. “You have attacked our guest who it is our honor to protect and have brought shame to this school.”

“We seek to protect this country in its time of need,” the older man replied, uncowed. “No harm has or would have come to him.”

“We do not allow our needs to drive us to methods unbecoming,” Palladius replied, the quiet authority in his voice permitting no argument. “Leave.”

Both mages bowed low, took several awkward steps backward in obeisance, then fled into the trees.

Griffin eyed Palladius cautiously. The old man had seemed to be on their side since they arrived in Amaranthina, but Griffin wasn’t foolish enough to trust he wasn’t allied with his colleagues now. Neither of them spoke for a time.

“I regret that whatever powers control the time and space of the universe didn’t see fit to give you to me as a student,” Palladius said soberly. “You would have been brilliant. Charlie would have been a good student because she attacks anything she wants to do with enough determination to tame a lion, but you—it is rare someone has such natural talent and rarer still that same person has the discipline and determination to train the talent. I didn’t speak lightly when I was impressed by how well you’ve taught yourself.”

Griffin let that settle in the air around them for a moment. “Not much point in railing against whatever powers control the time and space of the universe.” He said it as though the statement was intended for Palladius, but it was really meant for himself, and he had a feeling Palladius knew.

“I comfort myself with the knowledge that you will eventually find your way to the magic you seek and fulfill your potential if you try,” the older man said quietly. “You should go find Charlie. Together the two of you can halt the illusion, if you try.”

Griffin nodded once and stepped out into the trees without argument. A minute later he saw Charlie, and his heart rose. He stilled himself; it would do no good to be caught by the same trick attempted twice.

But she had seen him too, and she eyed him with a suspicion that brought relief. She was angry and slapping tree branches out of her way. If this was another copy, it was certainly a better one. But he was certain somehow that it was her.

“Ask me something,” Charlie demanded when she reached him.

She must have met an impostor as well. “Do you want me to just go kill everyone?” he asked her sincerely. “Because I will.”

Relief mixed with the irritation on her face. “Yeah, it’s definitely you,” Charlie muttered. She seized his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

“How?”

“This is our memories, so we think very strongly about something else to break the illusion.”

“The spot where we camped in the snow by the southern gate,” Griffin suggested.

They joined hands and walked. He thought about the snow and the little campfire in the woods, but mostly he remember Charlie falling asleep with her head on his chest, wrapped in a blanket. He gave that up and pictured instead the white-walled room where they had been before the illusion began. The walls appeared as the illusion dissolved, leaving the mages scattered all around the room. Griffin studied them as they gamely tried to return to the tour as though nothing were amiss. He could tell by Charlie’s demeanor that something she didn’t like had happened to her while they were apart, but he couldn’t talk to her until they were alone. Whatever it was, there was a reckoning coming, and he was ready for the fight.