Page 55 of Cathmoir's Sons

She grins, holds out her hand, and when I take it, tears open the aether with her claws.

I get a glimpse of Ceòfuar’s green fields and fluffy sheep but we don’t even take a step toward the stream before Kellan’s pulling me forward again.

We step out in Las Vegas.

Magickal Vegas isn’tthe same as mortal Vegas, although it has some similarities.

The lighting is softer, witchlight instead of neon and sodium, but perpetual fireworks shoot from the roof of Pandora’s Box, the mage casino tucked behind Excalibur. I stare up at the red, white, and blue explosions through the casino’s glass roof for a minute. Then my eyes are drawn back down to the gaming tables that box in the open central courtyard and lazily meandering river on all sides.

“Compulsion charm?” I ask Kellan, crossing my arms over my chest.

She nods as she follows my eyes down. “They can’tforceyou to gamble, but they can make it hard to ignore.”

“I think I’ve read that the human casinos do the same thing, just with their interior decoration.”

“Mmm.” Kellan flares her nostrils as she takes deep breaths. “Smell the Air? That’s a subtle enchantment. Mental stimulation but physical lethargy. Makes you seek entertainment but your body doesn’t want to go anywhere.”

I shake my head as I look around. The casino’s so large it doesn’t feel crowded, but there are many more magi here than were at Doctor Prince’s memorial. They’re clustered around the gaming tables; they’re lounging on chaises ringing the courtyard while men and women in white bikinis with feathered wings sprouting from their shoulders deliver tall, fancifully fizzing drinks; they’re floating round and round on the lazy river in rings glamored to look like sea monsters.

Despite the huge crowd, the casino isn’t noisy. There are no slot machines, because technology is so unreliable around magic, but some of the tables have soft chimes. There’s a constant murmur of conversation, broken occasionally by exclamations of victory or failure, but it’s a low buzz, quieter even than most classrooms before the lecture starts.

“Muffling charm?” I ask Kellan.

She tips her head. “I think so. Even subtler than the stimulation/lethargy. I can hear you without any trouble. But even when I try to pay attention to a conversation over there—” She nods at the nearest roulette table. “I can’t hear them clearly.”

“And surely those fireworks going off overhead are making some noise we should be able to hear?”

She nods. “Welcome to Pandora’s Box. This level is the geniuses: honors, pleasure, riches, gaming—obviously—taste,fashion, and false knowledge. We’re going down a level, but first I need to snag a deck of cards.”

“Okay.” I can’t imagine why she needs cards. Surely we’re not going to gamble and I have zero divination ability, so I hope that’s not necessary for Kellan’s form of Plane-Walking.

Puzzled, I follow her to a row of black-and-white striped canvas booths set back against the casino wall, away from the gaming tables. The booths are kiosks and with a quick sweep of my eyes down the row, I see they sell everything from Pandora’s Box branded dice, to designer clothes and bags, to a bewildering display of sex toys. Kellan peruses the hundreds of different tarot and playing card decks while I examine a butt plug bigger than my fist that seems to have a sparkler attachment.

She pays for a pack of cards, then peers over my shoulder. “Uh.”

I twist my neck to look at her. She’s gone an amusing shade of red.

“Yes?”

“I don’t, um, think that’s very practical.”

“Speak for your own butt.”

Kellan sputters a laugh. “Come on. I’ve got the cards.”

We walk along the marketplace to the middle of the casino floor where there’s a huge spiral staircase leading down. Where the geniuses level was artificially bright from the fireworks, the lower floor’s cast into gloom as soon as we descend the stairs. The legendNescitur Ignesciturburns over the staircase in fiery letters. Magi in everything from string bikinis to black tie ascend in the other direction, heading up into the light. Most of them are laughing but a few wear fear on their features.

Like the upper floor, the lower floor is richly carpeted, with the river from above extending down through the level like an aquarium.

When I see what’s lurking in the dark bottom, only ten or fifteen feet from the bathers splashing above, I gulp.

Kellan’s eyes follow a banded water snake as it winds away into the murky depths. “Ignorance,” she says. “One of the seven bringers of evil. Envy, remorse, avarice, poverty, scorn, inconstancy, and ignorance.”

“A reminder that things aren’t as they seem here?”

She nods.

We wind through more gaming tables ringing the huge aquarium. Finally, Kellan finds a pair of unoccupied chaises with a round table between them. When we sit down, a curious shark appears from the murky water and mouths at the glass, showing us rows of teeth.

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