“I was in my youth. Which was a very, very long time ago.”
“I can tell,” Widget says as he replaces the bottle on the table. The man in the grey suit’s past stretches back a long, long time. Longer than anyone Widget has ever met. He can only read parts of it, so much of it is worn and faded. The parts connected to the circus are clearest, the easiest for him to grasp.
“Do I look that old?”
“You have no shadow.”
The man in the grey suit cracks a smile, the only noticeable change his expression has displayed the entire evening.
“You are quite perceptive,” he says. “Not one person in a hundred, perhaps even a thousand, notices as much. Yes, my age is quite advanced. I have seen a great many things in my time. Some I would prefer to forget. It takes a toll on a person, after all. Everything does, in its way. Just as everything fades with time. I am no exception to that rule.”
“Are you going to end up like him?” Widget nods at the window.
“I certainly hope not. I am content to accept inevitabilities, even if I have ways of putting them off. He was seeking immortality, which is a terrible thing to seek. It is not seeking anything, but rather avoiding the unavoidable. He will grow to despise that state if he does not already. I hope my student and your teacher are more fortunate.”
“You mean … you hope they can die?” Widget asks.
“I mean only that I hope they find darkness or paradise without fear of it, if they can.” He pauses before adding, “I hope that for you and your compatriots as well.”
“Thank you,” Widget says, though he is not entirely certain he understands the sentiment.
“I sent your cradle when you were born to welcome you and your sister to this world, the least I can do is wish you a pleasant exit from it, as I highly doubt I will be there to see you off in person. I hope not to be, in fact.”
“Is magic not enough to live for?” Widget asks.
“Magic,” the man in the grey suit repeats, turning the word into a laugh. “This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it. Look around you,” he says, waving a hand at the surrounding tables. “Not a one of them even has an inkling of the things that are possible in this world, and what’s worse is that none of them would listen if you attempted to enlighten them. They want to believe that magic is nothing but clever deception, because to think it real would keep them up at night, afraid of their own existence.”
“But some people can be enlightened,” Widget says.
“Indeed, such things can be taught. It is easier with minds that are younger than these. There are tricks, of course. None of this rabbits-in-hats nonsense, but ways of making the universe more accessible. Very, very few people take the time to learn them nowadays, unfortunately, and even fewer have natural access. You and your sister do, as an unforeseen effect of the
Widget considers this before he answers. Beyond the confines of the circus there seems to be little place for such things, though perhaps that is part of the man’s point. “I tell stories,” he says. It is the most truthful answer he has.
“You tell stories?” the man asks, the piquing of his interest almost palpable.
“Stories, tales, bardic chronicles,” Widget says. “Whatever you care to call them. The things we were discussing earlier that are more complicated than they used to be. I take pieces of the past that I see and I combine them into narratives. It’s not that important, and this isn’t why I’m here—”
“It is important,” the man in the grey suit interrupts. “Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that.” He takes another sip of his wine. “There are many kinds of magic, after all.”
Widget pauses, considering the change in the way the man in the grey suit watches him. He wonders if all the grand words earlier about stories no longer being what they once were was all for show, something that the man does not truly believe.
While before his interest level bordered on indifferent, now he looks at Widget as a child might look at a new toy, or the way a wolf would regard a particularly interesting piece of prey, scarlet-clad or otherwise.
“You’re trying to distract me,” Widget says.
The man in the grey suit only sips his wine, regarding Widget over the rim of his glass.
“Is the game finished, then?” Widget asks.
“Yes and no.” He puts down his glass before continuing. “Technically, it has fallen into an unforeseen loophole. It has not been properly completed.”
“And what of the circus?”
“I suppose that is why you wished to speak with me?”
Widget nods. “Bailey has inherited his position from your players. My sister has settled the business end of things with Chandresh. On paper and in principle, we own and operate the circus already. I volunteered to handle the remainder of the transition.”
“I am not fond of loose ends, but I am afraid it is not that simple.”
“I did not mean to suggest that it was,” Widget says.
In the pause that follows, a gale of laughter rises from a few tables over, rippling through the air before settling back down, disappearing into the low, steady hum of conversations and clinking glasses.
“You have no idea what you’re getting into, my boy,” the man in the grey suit says quietly. “How fragile an enterprise it all is. How uncertain the consequences are. What would your Bailey be, had he not been so adopted into your circus? Nothing but a dreamer, longing for something he does not even understand.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a dreamer.”
“There is not. But dreams have ways of turning into nightmares. I suspect Monsieur Lefevre knows something of that. You’d be better off letting the whole endeavor fade away into myth and oblivion. All empires fall eventually. It is the way of things. Perhaps it is time to let this one go.”
“I’m afraid I’m unwilling to do that,” Widget says.
“You are very young.”
“I would wager that combined, even beyond the fact that Bailey and my sister and myself are comparatively, as you say, very young, if I calculated the ages of everyone I have behind this proposition, the total might trump your own age.”
“Perhaps.”
“And I do not know exactly what kind of rules your game had, but I suspect that you owe us this much, if we were all put at risk for your wager.”
The man in the grey suit sighs. He casts a quick glance toward the window, but the shadow of Hector Bowen is nowhere to be seen.
If Prospero the Enchanter has an opinion on the matter, he chooses not to voice it.
“I suppose that is a valid argument,” the man in the grey suit says after some consideration. “But I owe you nothing, young man.”
“Then why are you here?” Widget asks.
The man smiles, but he says nothing.
“I am negotiating for what is, essentially, a used playing field,” Widget continues. “It is of no further use to you. It holds a great deal of importance to me. I will not be dissuaded. Name your price.”
The man in the grey suit’s smile brightens considerably.
“I want a story,” he says.
“A story?”
