The train lets us off near the Timbers stadium, and I glance around nervously. The sun has set while we were heading into the city, and the street around us feels sort of sketchy and a little too abandoned, but I forget to be scared when Jeremiah grabs my hand. "Come on," he says, tugging me down a side street that is lined with old houses from the same era as the one I live in. Only about half the street lights on the block are lit, and the entire street has a gloomy, mysterious air. Like most parts of Portland, the street smells like a bizarre mix of food trucks, smoke, and urine; I've never been anywhere else, so I don't know if that's what cities usually smell like, or it it's just another thing that makes Portland...Portland. Miah lets go of me once we step onto the narrow sidewalk, since we have to walk single file to pick our way over cracks in the pavement and monstrous tree roots, but I keep hoping that maybe he'll reach back to me and touch my fingers again.
Get it together, Shelby. If you keep this up, he'll think you're some romantic, clingy sap. I stumble on a divot in the sidewalk, and Miah looks back over his shoulder.
"Sorry about the sidewalk. You'll get used to it."
My heart speeds up a little at his words; does he mean I'll get used to it because he wants me to come back to wherever it is we're going with him again? I shrug and watch my feet. "Not so bad," I say, even as I stub my toe on a tree root, and I wince.
"We're almost there," Miah says as he turns down a cross street and starts leading me up a steep hill. The houses have given way to empty lots and chain link fences, and I hurry to keep up with Miah, but he seems totally unfazed by the eerie, sketchy feeling of the street. My eyes swing back and forth, watching for cracks in the pavement, creepy people, and oncoming traffic, and I try to call up my mental map of Portland to see if I can figure out where we're going. Dad took me and Christina to a Timber's game a few years ago, but I'm about as athletic as a cabbage and Christina was more interested in flirting with the guy at the concession stand, so we haven't been back, and my mental map is pretty fuzzy. I feel like the zoo is around here somewhere, but I could be wrong; Kels usually wants to spend time at the flea market and craft stands down by the river whenever we come downtown, and we don't venture into many of the other neighborhoods that often.
We turn off the street onto a narrow footpath through the trees, and I hang back for a second. There aren't any lights ahead of us, and the woods look like a great place for all kinds of evil things to happen. "You're sure this is safe?" I ask, my voice shaking a little bit.
Jeremiah smiles at me. "I promise. I've been coming here all summer, and nobody's ever gotten hurt."
I swallow, looking at the dark path, and then I glance behind me at the deserted street. My eyes catch the corner of the moon, rising over the skyline, and something about that celestial sparkle makes me feel a little better. Turning back to Miah, I square my shoulders and try to look confident. "Then let's do this!"
Miah grins. "You're going to love it. Becca—" He trails off awkwardly, not meeting my eyes, and then he clears his throat. "Ladies first?"
I move ahead of him, watching my feet carefully to make sure I'm still walking on the dark path, but my heart has fallen into my shoes. Of course he brought Becca wherever he's taking me; they've been together forever. I try to squelch the niggling worry that he's just using me to pass the time until he and Becca get back together, since that's inevitably what happens every time they break up, and I bite my lip, suddenly feeling ridiculous. Maybe he just wants me for my spells, and when he realizes I can't scribe worth anything, he'll act like he was never interested in me in the first place.
My spirits are pretty low by the time I see a glimmer of light ahead on the trail, and I almost don't care one way or the other if we get mugged before we get to wherever we're going.
"Hurry up, Shelby," Miah prompts, his voice close to my ear. "I don't want you to miss this."
I step to one side. "You go ahead. I mean, you know these people..." I pause, trying to ignore the goosebumps that are sweeping across my skin. "We aren't out here alone, right?"
He chuckles. "You're funny, Shelby. Come on." Reaching for my hand, he pulls me the last few feet out of the woods, and my jaw almost hits the pine needles under my feet.
"Please tell me we aren't breaking into the zoo," I say, eyeing the gate with the familiar sign. Dad used to take me and Christina to the zoo all the time, but I've never been here at night, and it's pretty obvious that they aren't open for business right now; there's one lone pickup truck in the parking lot, and the gates to the zoo are pulled shut.
Letting go of my hand, Miah approaches the gate. "We aren't breaking in," he says, holding his hands up and staring at the padlock intently.
I tense, waiting for a flash or an explosion, but nothing happens to the gate, and I shift nervously on my feet. "Then what—"
"Shhh," he says, still staring at the gate. I stare at it, too, and after a minute, the metal starts to shimmer. It looks like some kind of tinsel curtain, and when it's super sparkly, Miah walks toward the gate and disappears.
"Miah?" I squeak, looking around in confusion. Did he just walk through metal? I am so in over my head with this boy.
In answer, his hand sticks through the shimmering curtain and beckons to me. Tentatively, I reach forward and take it, but before I can prepare myself to walk through the gate, Miah gives me a yank and pulls me into the zoo. Caught off guard, I stumble forward, bracing myself to hit the pavement, but instead, I land on Miah in a tangled heap just inside the gate.
Trying to ignore the way my body heats up from being pressed against him, I scramble to my feet, embarrassed. Miah grunts and stands up.
"Sorry," we both say at the same time, and Miah raises an eyebrow. I gesture to the pavement. "I'm not usually that klutzy."
"No, it's okay. I'm sorry I had to pull you through, but the spell was starting to wear off, and I didn't want you to get shishkabobed by the gate."
I swivel around to look at the gate in question, my stomach feeling queasy. "Has that ever happened before?"
"No, but better safe than sorry, right?"
I nod, trying not to show him how freaked out I am by the idea of the gate slicing through me. The zoo is dark, except for a few lone street lights scattered over the animals, and my blood is pumping from the combination of fear, danger, and excitement. I glance at Miah questioningly, and he grins.
"Promise you won't tell your sister about this?"
"Of course. But...what is 'this'?"
Miah chuckles. "You'll see."
The animals are silent around us as we follow the path deeper into the zoo, but I can't shake the feeling that we're being watched. I glance back in the direction of the exit, but I can't see the gate anymore. I clear my throat. "Aren't there security cameras here?"
Miah laughs. "That's always the first thing the champion takes care of. Don't worry, Shelby; no one knows we're here."
Before I can ask any more questions, we round a dark corner and emerge next to a humongous fake baobab tree, right into the heart of the "Wild Africa" habitats where the lions sleep in the sun on their large rock enclosure during the daytime. More than the lions waits for us, though; the large walkway is filled with people dressed in black and purple, talking and laughing quietly. Anticipation buzzes in the air, and I freeze for a moment, taking in all the other casters and scribes. I recognize some of the kids from our neighborhood, but most of the faces belong to strangers, and I take an unintentional step back.
Miah tugs on my hand. "Come on, Shelby. I want to introduce you."
I let him tow me into the crowd, my eyes skimming over everyone as a mounting sense of panic builds in my chest. What am I doing here? Whatever this is, it's something magical, and if Miah had any idea just how un-magical I am, he'd never have invited me. My fingers feel sticky inside his grasp, and I want to pull away, to turn and run and never look back, even if it means kissing my chance to impress Jeremiah Smallwood goodbye. Instead, I force a smile and step closer to him, the way I've seen Becca do a million times.
We stop in front of a tight huddle of four, three guys and one girl. One of the guys is shuffling through a stack of notebook paper, looking like he lost his homework, and he almost drops it when we walk up. Miah holds out his hand, and one by one, the guys give him a friendly fist bump, but notepaper guy looks distracted, and then Miah gestures to me. "This is Shelby. King," he adds meaningfully, and one of the guys looks impressed.
The girl raises her eyebrow. "I thought you only scribed for your sister."
I shrug, trying to act nonchalant, but I'm sure she can smell my fear...and my lies. "I'm not here to scribe," I say, hoping I sound casual. "Just wanted to check things out."
Miah drapes an arm across my shoulders. "She said she'd think about scribing for me, and I wanted to show her what it's all about."
The girl smiles and sticks out her hand. "I'm Jessica."
After I shake her hand awkwardly, Miah introduces the guys. "That's Jorge, he works with Jess, and Sampson and Manuel are a team, too." He rocks back on his heels, letting go of my shoulders to tuck his hands in his pockets. "Manuel, you got any spells you can share with me?"
Manuel raises a bushy eyebrow and holds his papers a little tighter. "You're the one who's always saying we gotta stick with our teams."
Miah pouts. "But I don't want to have to sit out. You know I love this."
I glance around at the milling crowd of casters and scribes, but before I can ask another stupid question, a bell chimes and everyone falls silent. Their eyes swivel to a bench in front of the lion enclosure, where a tall, slender girl dressed in a black leather jacket over black skinny jeans stands looking out at the crowd. She grins, a wicked glint in her eyes. "First up, Sampson and Delilah."
Sampson groans. "The names don't mean anything!" He calls, but people around us are already laughing as he and Manuel break off from our clump and move toward the girl on the bench. A petite girl with curly auburn hair is already standing there, next to a guy with more piercings than I can count in his face. I take a step closer to Jeremiah. "Are you going to tell me what this is, or do I have to guess?"
He looks down at me with surprise, like maybe he forgot I was there. "Spell battle. Totally illegal, but wicked fun."
I'm still completely confused, but Jessica slides her arm through mine and tips her head close to my ear. "You know how normies do stuff like poetry slams and rap battles?"
I nod. Our English teacher showed us a video of two poets eviscerating each other with their words at the end of last year, and it had been pretty amazing to see the power that non-magical words could hold. "This is like that? Only...with casters?"
She smiles. "Exactly. You can see why our boy here wants some of your spells; with a King on his side, Jeremiah would blast the competition to smithereens."
Or get blasted by one of my crappy, backfiring spells. I lick my lips, hoping she can't read my mind, and wonder why I let Jeremiah talk me into coming tonight.
While we talked, Sampson had been conferring with Manuel, their dark heads close together, shuffling through the stack of papers Manuel is holding. They're his spells, I realize, and suddenly I understand his nervousness. I've never let anyone handle my notebook but me, but here he is, surrounded by people, with his spells ready to blow away in the first gust of wind. The girl, Delilah, hasn't said a word to her scribe; she's too busy examining her nails to seem like she's paying much attention to anything around her. But when the girl in black leather claps her hands again, Delilah barely acknowledges Sampson's polite nod before her lips are moving, casting the first spell.
Sampson tries to speak over her, but his spell is still half-formed when he begins to lift off the ground. It's like there's a rocket strapped to his back; he shoots into the air above us, and a few people clap and whistle, cheering for Delilah. I can't hear what Sampson says, but clearly, the spell works, because in an instant, he stops flying and hovers in place, like he's standing on a glass platform over our heads.
Delilah opens her mouth, but before she can get her next spell out, a blast of purple fire knocks her over. She summersaults and lands on her feet in an instant, but I can tell by the way she clenches her fists that she's mad. "Sampson shouldn't have done that so soon," Jess murmurs next to me, and I can tell that she's worried, too; the red-head may be small, but she's clearly a powerful caster.
Just as that thought crosses my mind, the girl flicks her hand and Sampson begins to fall through the air. He doesn't fall straight down, though; it's like he's caught by some powerful wind, and he falls sideways. With horror, I watch as he plummets into the lion enclosure. The crowd around me inhales sharply in excitement, and a few people whistle.
I grab Miah's arm. "Shouldn't we do something?"
He looks down at me quizzically. "He's got this. You don't think that girl would actually hurt him, do you? This is all just for fun, Shelby."
But somehow, I'm not sure.
Sampson staggers to his feet and shakes his head like he's trying to get rid of a bug, and over his shoulder, I notice one of the sleeping lions twitch. My heart is pounding in my throat, but Miah is right; by the time Sampson has taken stock of the situation, he's already started to cast another spell. This time, he flips through the air like a gymnast, landing in front of Delilah outside the lion enclosure. She has a smug expression on her face, but her smile turns to a grimace as Sampson lashes out with his magic, pulling her legs out from under her. She lands in a puddle, and a few people chuckle.
Sampson raises an eyebrow, like he might ask the girl if she's ready to give up, but before he can say anything, she lifts both hands and blasts him with a spell. Manuel sees it coming and hollers, "Use the counter spell! The one I wrote last week!" But Sampson is too slow. A whirlwind tears at his clothes, ripping the fabric and tossing him around in its embrace, even though there isn't so much as a breeze where I'm standing. In an instant, the wind dies down, and somehow, Sampson has been stripped down to his plaid boxers, socks, and shoes. He flushes from the tips of his Mohawk all the way down to the waistline of his underwear, and then he hangs his head in defeat.
Everyone cheers, and Delilah takes a prissy bow. Sampson immediately casts a silent spell, and he's dressed again like it never happened, except for the tell-tale blush on his face. Miah crosses to him and claps him on the shoulder, probably saying something encouraging, but I'm not listening. I glance behind me at the lion enclosure, and my eyes meet the golden gaze of a lioness. She's awake, and she's watching the people around me with a calculating expression. I almost imagine that I can hear her thoughts, sizing up the casters and deciding which ones might make the most delicious morsels, and I swallow my fear. After a moment, the lioness looks away and puts her head down on her paws, closing her eyes as if she's asleep. Before I can worry needlessly about what could have happened, Jess gives my hand a squeeze.
"Not everyone fights like Delilah," she says softly. "The next round should be fun."
And she's right; the rest of the battles are fast, furious, and frighteningly fun, and nobody else gets tossed in with any of the sleeping animals, but I stick close to Miah and his friends, knowing that I'd be toast if anyone decided to fly me in with the lions. Sure, the casters are the ones who are battling, but a little voice inside my head warns that things could turn ugly fast if anyone in that crowd had a score to settle with a caster... or a scribe.