Illusionarium by Heather Dixon

blur, he yanked a hanging plant off its chain and threw it at the glass. It smashed through the pane, shattering it as the masked guard seized upon him.
    â€”a strange, silent brawl—
    â€”that left three masked guards unconscious on the tile floor, the other guards tumbling back, their top hats strewn, and Lockwood had thrown himself out the broken window in a graceful arch. The brass buttons on his uniform glimmered in the sunlight.
    He fell.
    I raced to the window. The ledge below sported a pair of sooty footprints. Three stories below that, a wisp of blue uniform disappeared into a tangle of hedges. I peered through my broken glasses at the miles of broken hedges and buildings, massaging my arms as the blood returned to my fingers. Lockwood’s figure disappeared completely into the tangle of labyrinth.
    Lady Florel’s masked guard rose to their feet and gathered around me, picking up shards of glass piece by piece like a flock of crimson pecking birds.
    â€œLeave the glass,” said Lady Florel sharply. “Find Lockwood. Bring him back .”
    The masked guard dropped their fistfuls of glass. A pinging shower of shards at our feet was the only sound they made as they swept from the room. A moment later, they streamed out of the building’s entrance below, over the sweeping pavilion of marble and gardens, and into the maze. I bitterly rubbed my throbbing arms.
    Good riddance, I thought.

C HAPTER 9
    S till disheveled and streaked with soot, I followed Lady Florel through the theater. That was what this building was, Lady Florel explained, leading me down an ornate hall and an elaborate staircase. A theater where the monarch—who was also the best illusionist in Nod’ol—and the lesser illusionists lived.
    And it did look like a palace. But a strange one. Everything had been decorated as though the builders had taken pieces of architecture from the past five hundred years, chewed them up, and vomited them into building materials. Carved cupids were everywhere.
    Lady Florel was quickly explaining the nature of the illusionarium I’d be participating in in just a few minutes.
    â€œIt’s part of an annual festival we have here in Nod’ol,” she said. “A winter solstice festival. It’s called Masked Virtue .”
    â€œMasked Virtue?” I repeated.
    â€œQuite. This is the first illusionarium, and it’s a small one. It’s just for the miners. You’ll illusion with the only other two illusionists in the world. This world, at least,” she corrected. “They’re young, too. Your age, as a matter of fact. Each of you will illusion your own bit. If you do well, and it’s entertaining enough, the miners will decide to support your color in the festival, which begins tomorrow.
    I frowned up at a massive chandelier. I had no idea what I’d illusion. Gross incompetence hit me like an ocean wave. So far I’d only illusioned things like snow and arsenic. And temperatures. I’d done the Quickening Formula—that was a complex equation, right? It had flowed right from my fingers. And I’d transformed the corridor on the Chivalry . But was it enough to put an early end to the illus—illusiona—Whatever it was called?
    â€œLady Florel—” I began.
    â€œ Queen Honoria. Please, Jonathan.”
    â€œRight—that. Illusionarium. What is that, exactly?”
    â€œAh. It’s when you—the illusionist—illusion with an audience. Illusionists are rare, which means illusionariums are even rarer.”
    The hall opened up onto the main level, with vaulted ceilings, a mezzanine and a large staircase. The theater’slobby and reception hall. The wood floor gleamed below us. A ballroom, too. I’d never seen anything so grand. I tugged on my ear, thinking.
    â€œLady Florel,” I began again.
    â€œQueen—”
    â€œRight. Queen Honoria,” I said. “Look, are you really the