Smoke and Mirrors

           

Moths flickered around the only light in the room, a lone candle sitting in the middle of a dusty chalk circle scattered with various totems.

The two people sitting opposite each other across the circle cast only in the firelight and the reflection of that candle in the nearby mirror keep silent counsel.

"Do you think this will work?" Alice asked, her voice weak and tinny in the large chambers of the empty lecture hall.

"There's only one way to find out," replied Penny with equal uncertainty.

***

The Beast stood feet from Quentin, his right arm outstretched, fingers contorted in a choking motion.

Quentin struggled, in a flurry of thrashing arms and legs, as he was unwillingly raised inches off the ground – a couple at first, then six, until levitating a clear foot.

Frantically he flashed signals with his hands, twisting them this way and that, contorting in motions in a desperate effort to hold the Beast at bay.

A flurry of moths danced in the darkness inches from Quentins's face, the jerking motion of his stricken body jackknifing his head back and forth.

His hair tosses like the most nightmarish proxy of a product commercial, the motion violent enough to swat the closest of those moths into oblivion.

Somehow they sustain the blow and circle back to swarm at the head of the Beast.

Sparks of aborted magic, like electrical sparks fire off in the half light, pass in the stead of death screams.

A flick of the wrist, a sweep of the left hand and an improbable turn of the right wrist at an impossible angle and all of a sudden a sonic boom of invisible energy erupts.

The Beast is blown off balance, but not totally off his feet.

Quentin falls to the ground, but has enough leverage to turn and scramble away. His shoes finally find purchase on the slick surface of the polished Brakebills' hallway floor and he begins to run.

***

In a place called Fillory, on a tree stump in a green field overlooking a sunlit meadow shielded by a copse of trees sits a man. He looks uncomfortable, with a bag sloped awkwardly across his shoulder and weighing against the opposite hip. His left leg is trembling, his knee bobbing up and down constantly.

Seemingly aimlessly, he is waving his hands in patterns in the air.

Almost as a reflex, he reaches back with his right hand to push his hair behind his ear. He is surprised to find that he can't because his hair is shorter. Then he remembers.

In the distance through the trees shy of the meadow, a group of people approach.

***

"Do you think it will be able to tell the difference?" Penny asks.

Alice is already conjuring, her hands and movement in a blur of almost preternatural speed. Every now and then she pauses to flick the page of a tattered notebook at her side, barely legible in the dying candlelight.

It is harder to see now as there are more moths circling the small flame, blocking out the light.

She glances up briefly, adjusting her glasses, then returns her focus to the circle.

"Does it matter? We'll know when we get there. Keep concentrating."

Penny mimics her movements, though he isn't sure he's making any contribution. It's just better than the alternative.