Rules for eating oysters

Rule Four: Don’t sleep with someone you could fall in love with. They are both a couple and not a couple. They have long, often uncomfortably personal conversations. Yet they still try not to touch each other — except for the occasional brush of hands. For a time, Racter and Shay manage to maintain the unspoken boundaries they’ve set between them. The first time they falter is during a kiss, unsteady and desperate, in the face of Qian Ya, the Queen With a Thousand Teeth. Her face, by the way, has nothing remotely human about it. Her voice thunders like a cart full of gravel crashing downhill, and yet, in some strange way, Qian Ya resembles the hexagram fortune-teller from that gray, rainy day. “You know, people say Hong Kong is just one big market…” the demon queen sneers, looking down at Shay. “How about this deal, pointed-ear: I take this city, and in return, you get fourteen years of luck? Maybe, just maybe, your poor little eye will even heal.” It’s bad. Really bad. Shay Silvermoon’s team isn’t made for this — they aren’t soldiers. Lately, they’ve been everything but: diplomats, spies, bodyguards, traders, actors. But in an open fight against the Queen With a Thousand Teeth, they don’t last long. They’re out of Doc Wagons. Gobbet is trying — and failing — to patch herself up in a corner where the energy flow is wrong and her magic depleted. Is0bel and Raymond, Shay’s adoptive father, lie motionless on the ground like bloodied rag dolls. Even Duncan, the sturdiest of them all, is barely breathing — his entire left side torn open, his arm dangling like it’s hanging by a thread. Shay’s face is a mess of blood, her right eye swollen shut. Scanning it does no good — it’s impossible to tell if it’s still intact. And Racter, from the outside, probably looks no better. For the first time in many battles, he’s been forced to rely on painkillers. And they’re not helping much. Detached, Racter thinks: This seems to be the end. Not for me, of course. At least, not entirely. Some fragment of him will survive in Koshchei. Even the worst outcome will be a fascinating experiment. He’ll simply transform — from caterpillar to butterfly, shedding the rags of his human body, transcending the limitations of this pathetic electrochemical brain. Personality, after all, isn’t the body, nor the brain, nor umwelt, nor Essence — it’s memory. Information. And yet, he can’t shake the feeling that whoever wakes up in his place will be someone else entirely. An ordinary man would say it simply: he’s afraid. Afraid to die. Strangely, deep down, Racter still believes they’ll make it out. That he’ll remain himself. That he’ll survive, in the most basic sense. Shay always has a plan — absurd, illogical, convoluted, but still… “Shay is Shay. She can do anything.” “Fourteen years of luck,” Shay repeats slowly. “That’s a good deal, isn’t it?” She glances around at the others, her gaze finally settling on Racter. He speaks softly: “Is it a good deal? There are no fair bargains in Hong Kong. If you use that time wisely, you could change the world for the better. But you know what you’ll lose if you agree.” They both know. At the very least, she’ll lose everyone she cares about. Duncan, the moral core of their team, would never forgive such a deal. Raymond, despite causing all this chaos, wouldn’t either. And while Gobbet and Is0bel have grown attached to Shay, they’d never accept her sacrificing their home — the city they were born and raised in — to the Queen With a Thousand Teeth. It’s fortunate they’re unconscious or too far away to hear this conversation, or they’d hate Shay even for considering it. Fourteen years that begin with your friends’ deaths? Hardly lucky. “But you…” Shay says half-questioningly, looking into Racter’s face. “I won’t lose you.” “Me? No. I’m not the kind of man to judge you. And you’re more important to me than Hong Kong.” “Fourteen years of luck,” she whispers, “for me — and for you…” Qian Ya stretches her thousand teeth into a victorious grin. Racter reaches out to touch Shay’s hair in a comforting gesture. His hand is sticky with blood, but her hair is already matted with it — there’s no telling whose is whose anymore. “Do you remember,” Shay suddenly says, her voice barely more than a whisper, “when we first met, you asked what I meant by ‘exactly like that’... I meant you — just as I imagined you. Long before I ever knew you, before we ever met… I’ve been waiting for someone like you my entire life. Every day, since I was a child.” She doesn’t take her eye off him — the one eye that isn’t drowned in blood. It’s alive with an inferno of emotions, and at its core burns fearlessness — not of death, nor of Qian Ya. These feelings, which Shay no longer bothers to hide or temper, are laid bare now. She knows that Racter can see everything about her, and in this moment, her gaze is an open door to her soul. Here I am, it says. This is what I feel for you. I’m an open book. Her fearlessness, her vulnerability, her desire, the strange power he holds over Shay — all of it hits Racter like a thunderclap. It stuns him, just for a second. And then he does the only thing a man can do in such a moment — he leans in and kisses her. (A wave of nausea rises in his throat. The last time he kissed a woman, human skin hadn’t yet reminded him of waxy cheese. The blood on Shay’s face and her wounded eye don’t trouble him. What turns his stomach is something else — the thought of damp, slimy membranes, of saliva, of the grotesque sight of blue veins crisscrossing the underside of a human tongue. It’s a good thing Shay can’t read his mind. To silence these thoughts, he focuses instead on her presence, perceiving it as a sound. Strangely, it isn’t cacophony — Shay emanates something pure and harmonious, even if tinged with worry. A clean kind of music.) Despite his revulsion, he does everything to make it good for her. Gently brushing back a stray wave of hair from her forehead, his fingers trace the curve of her cheek, careful not to touch the bloodied eye. His lips meet hers briefly, tenderly. His tongue grazes her upper lip — there’s the taste of blood, the taste of despair — and that’s it. He pulls away. Not a kiss, not really. Only the ghost of one. Shay stands frozen, her eye closed, as if listening to the echoes of her own sensations. A few seconds pass before she exhales softly, as though fighting an internal battle, and murmurs, “I’m sorry. For… giving in like a child, for confessing, and… also for the fact that we all might die right now.” She straightens, her voice growing louder as she turns to Qian Ya. “No, you old hag, I don’t want your luck. A wise woman once told me there’s no such thing as luck — good or bad. But I do have a counter proposal.” Qian Ya lets out a deep, thunderous laugh, every syllable dripping with menace. “And what could a little brat like you offer me?” “Your life,” Shay says, small and defiant, like Alice facing the Red Queen. “I know how to open a gate between our worlds. And once I do, the other kings of Yama will come here. I know what you do to each other. You’re always hungry. Two of your kind can’t coexist in this world. Only one will survive.” For a moment, Qian Ya seems struck silent, her massive form looming like a stone monolith. “You won’t have time,” the demon queen snarls, but her voice wavers, uncertainty creeping in. Racter can almost feel the waves of hatred radiating off her, mingling with the faint but unmistakable tremors of desperation... Who would’ve thought it? Shay Silvermoon, a scavenger from Seattle, outmaneuvering the Queen With a Thousand Teeth. Well — “outmaneuvering” might be a stretch. No surgeon, no healer, no master of acupuncture could say with certainty whether her eye would ever see again. But they’re alive. All of them. Racter, Gobbet, Is0bel, Duncan, and even the unlucky Raymond Black — whose real name is Edward Tsang, the man who started this whole mess. And Hong Kong is still standing. Shay has always been a puzzle, pieced together from discarded scraps. It’s nearly impossible to pin down who she is; she’s like the ocean, ever-shifting. She’s not a shooter, nor a decker. Racter’s seen her impersonate a wealthy heiress, a cybernetics specialist, a writer, a waitress, a shaman, and a medic — all with equal ease. He’d call her clever, but she often acts absurdly, childishly, seemingly without reason. He’d call her lucky, except her “luck” is always the result of careful manipulation of probabilities. No matter how much he talks to her, she remains a mystery — except for one thing. Shay Silvermoon loves life. Truly, fiercely, loves it. And she never stops surprising him. Her encounter with Qian Ya is proof enough of both. Shay tricked the Queen With a Thousand Teeth — and doesn’t even seem to realize how extraordinary it was. The Savior of Hong Kong. Silver Moon. Lune d’Argent. Lua Prata. Gin-no Tsuki. Her name now rings out in dozens of languages, carried by millions of voices. Babies are named after her. Luckily, only a handful of people connect the name to the girl with the crow’s nest of hair and the odd clothes. Otherwise, her career as a shadowrunner would be over. Right now, the living legend of Hong Kong sits alone in Kindly Cheng’s mahjong parlor, nursing a mug of Asahi beer. You don’t have to see the world as a tangle of waves and particles to understand one thing — Shay is sad. For a few days after the battle with Qian Ya, she mostly stayed in bed, recovering from her wounds, her right eye hidden beneath a crude patch of bandages. “Thinking of becoming a pirate? One-Eyed Shay Silver?” Racter teased her once. Shay snorted in reply, though no one could see better than him how much pain and fear she was in. How afraid she was of losing her eye. He wondered how many times during those days — when one doctor, then another, and yet another, failed to offer hope — she thought back to Qian Ya’s promise: the return of her sight and fourteen years of good fortune, the offer she’d turned down. Now, her eye has begun to heal, though as far as he knows, it still doesn’t see. Tonight, instead of wearing a patch, Shay has simply brushed her regrowing curls over that side of her face. When she catches him looking, she unconsciously turns her head slightly, her bangs falling over the ruined eye — a nervous, vulnerable gesture. If Racter were a more sentimental man, it might have twisted his heart. “Will you have a drink with me?” she asks hesitantly. “If this place can manage a decent cup of tea, then gladly,” he replies, stopping by her table. “You’re shattering every Russian stereotype.” “And you’re shattering every one about heroes. Aren’t you supposed to be feasting and celebrating with your friends after defeating a demon?” “Friends…” Shay repeats bitterly. Her emotional resonance feels like a pale gray cloud, swollen with rain that refuses to fall. “They’re all on The Leaky Tub. It’s like… it’s like they’re afraid of me now.” Racter says nothing — what could he possibly say to that? “Or at least… avoiding me,” she adds, uncertain. “But maybe I’m just in a foul mood today and imagining things…” She looks at him questioningly, her expression searching. “Would you look at that,” Racter says, as if to deflect. “Kindly Cheng has a surprisingly decent selection of Wuyi oolongs.” “Don’t dodge the question!” Shay snaps, unable to hold back. “I’m not imagining it, am I? They’ve pulled away from me. And they always will, won’t they?” “I couldn’t say for sure,” Racter replies after a moment. “But I suspect everyone needs time to process the fact that you’re… well, in a very different league now.” “What league?” Shay presses her palms to her temples. “I haven’t changed at all. I’m completely ordinary. I’ll never shoot or fight like Duncan, I’m not half the mage Gobbet is, and when it comes to tech, I can’t hold a candle to you or Is0bel. All I did was outsmart her… All I did was ask questions, dig through books… I just got lucky.” “Shay, you defeated the Queen With a Thousand Teeth. I can believe that right now you want nothing more than to believe you’re the same as everyone else. But you’re not. Power is a lonely feeling.” Shay falls silent, looking crushed. Then Racter asks, quietly: “If Qian Ya offered you the same choice again — fourteen years of luck, or saving everyone — what would you choose?” “Saving them,” Shay says quickly. “Even knowing you’ve gotten rejection instead of gratitude?” “That doesn’t matter,” she replies. “Because some things are… well, they’re just the right thing to do.” But her lips tremble as she says it. Suddenly, she raises her head, brushing aside the strands of hair to reveal her still-healing eye — pink scars etched into dark skin, the unmoving pupil dilated, as if under ecstasy. She looks directly at him, her gaze tense and unyielding. “Do you… are you afraid of me now too?” Her voice is taut, like a string stretched too tight. What is she searching for in his expression? Fear? Disgust? It’s clear she’s forgotten for a moment about his ability to “see” emotions; otherwise, she wouldn’t think her damaged eye could change how he sees her. But the question isn’t a simple one, and Racter takes a moment to consider how honest he should be. “I think it’s more accurate to say I’ve always known there’s something unique about you. Something that could be dangerous.” His tone is almost clinical, cold. But he softens it with a gesture — he reaches out and brushes her hair behind her ear, fully exposing her face, her eye. “Don’t look,” she whispers, barely audible. “It’s awful.” As always, she’s a bundle of contradictions, raw emotion spilling out of her every word. “Is it?” he asks, leaning his cheek on his hand, smiling faintly. “All I see is the same remarkable girl I saw before.” Racter is almost certain she’s thinking back to that moment with Qian Ya, when he kissed her — and she froze in his arms, fragile as glass, as though she might shatter into a thousand pieces. Her embarrassment grows, her emotions flaring brighter. “I’ve been thinking,” she begins hesitantly, “about your question… about… sex. About what I want…” “And?” “I still don’t know. But first… I want to tell you something about myself. About my past. If that’s okay.” Racter nods silently. “Something personal and… not very pleasant.” She hesitates again, as if waiting for reassurance. He nods once more. Shay tries to smile, but her voice shakes. “Remember my oyster rules? You know, I actually once seriously considered… sleeping with Duncan.” Shay’s explanation is like following Baba Yaga’s enchanted thread — it twists and turns unexpectedly, far from the straight highway of logic. “Hmm. Should I be jealous? Or…?” “No. Besides, Duncan’s gay. I didn’t know that at the time. But let me finish. Back then, I’d just… become this really pretty high schooler,” she says, her lips curling into a bitter smile. “And I didn’t have a cent to my name. No brains, no talents, no courage to earn a living any other way than… well, you get it.” She exhales sharply through clenched teeth. “I sold myself. I guess you’ve probably figured that out by now, haven’t you?” “I suspected.” “Well, I wasn’t sure I could survive without Duncan, and I thought… I thought maybe I could tie him to me forever if I started sleeping with him. Girls think that about guys sometimes. I’ll just say it wasn’t necessary — he’s always loved me like a sister. But that’s not the point. I was willing to do it because I knew it’d be safe — I could never fall in love with Duncan. Love always seemed to me like… like a blade to the throat. One quick slice, and that’s it. You’re no longer your own master. You know?” She pauses, studying his face. “Though I guess you don’t. That’s why I’m telling you this. Every time bedding with someone, I…” She covers her face with her hand, her voice muffled. “Not that there was usually a bed involved. It was usually a car. Or a bathroom.” Racter touches her other hand, the one resting on the table. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.” Shay’s fingers tremble, but under his touch, they slowly begin to relax. Her tone softens as she speaks: “Every time I had to sleep with someone, I measured how safe it would be. Not just in terms of survival but… emotionally too. But neither Duncan nor the ones I actually had to sleep with were… They weren’t the kind of people you could fall in love with. Thugs, drug dealers, greasy old perverts who haven’t washed in months, spoiled rich boys looking for cheap thrills…” Racter nods. He can imagine well enough what kind of people would pay for a destitute teenage girl. “I see. Don’t sleep with someone you could fall in love with. A rule that sounds very much like you.” Shay looks away, avoiding his gaze, but keeps speaking, even though it clearly costs her: “And now… I’m obviously in love with you, and you know it. You’re the first person this rule should apply to. But… it’s different now. You kissed me, and it felt… so good. I don’t know… terrifying… unlike anything else,” she says, almost angrily. She covers her face with her hands again, but she’s watching his reaction through her fingers. She looks uncertain, almost as if she wants him to convince her otherwise. “Shay, I have to ask you a rather insensitive question.” Shay stiffens but nods. “Have you ever enjoyed intimacy? Truly?” Shay flushes but seems to grasp the point of the question. “Y… yes. Sometimes. But…” She falls silent, and shame and guilt ripple through her electromagnetic field like jagged static. The ghost of emotions that always accompanied any fleeting pleasure she ever felt — if it could even be called that. The bitter aftertaste of betraying yourself when your body refuses to hate the person it should. “…It’s usually easier if I’m on cram or drunk,” she finally admits. Easier to pretend there’s only the physical pleasure, without the baggage of shame and guilt? Easier to numb yourself and feel nothing at all? Racter wonders. To hell with it, he’s no psychologist. Why is he even prying into this? Because he’s still drawn to locks and safes. A thought occurs to him: perhaps her secret — the thing that makes her extraordinary — is her pain and the humiliation she’s endured? Yes, but not just that… And then, as if hearing the click of a puzzle piece sliding into place, he understands. What allowed Shay to endure, to survive all of it — that’s what’s locked inside this safe. Strength. The same strength that helped her defeat Qian Ya. The strength he needs. The nature of strength is to flow from one vessel to another, like the ocean when the balance shifts… “Shay, you’re incredibly precious to me… our conversations, the time we spend together…” She nods. “Yes, and you to me… You’re the only person I’ve ever told this to.” “And after what you’ve shared with me, I must take back my proposal. I see now how cruel and thoughtless it was to suggest… sex. Let’s just stay friends.” “What?” A flash of surprise. Shay had clearly expected something else. She thought he would insist, push, try to persuade her. But perhaps her life has already had too many men who insisted on sex. If even someone whose lower half is made of steel, plastic, and synthetic skin started pressing her, it would cross the line into absurdity. And yet, maybe she was hoping for it a little. Racter watches her emotions closely: her shock begins to mix with offense and anger. Because now, in a way, he has rejected her. Still, among the kaleidoscope of feelings, he also detects a hint of relief. A strange combination, but exactly what he’d expected. And he presses on, speaking with as much sincerity as he can muster: “My friend, I don’t know if our relationship would survive if we… Your entire experience of intimacy has been nothing but trauma, forgive my bluntness. If we became lovers, I fear that after everything you’ve endured, you might come to hate me. And that’s the last thing I want. I’m terrified of losing you, Shay.” She listens intently, the boiling resentment in her electromagnetic field gradually subsiding. She seems a little lost, but calmer now. She likes his words. They sound reasonable, don’t they, Shay? Reassuring? “…So I suggest we pretend these conversations never happened. At all. Let’s forget that kiss and… your feelings. Because I’d like to think our relationship is above such a mundane game of hormones. Wouldn’t you agree? In time, you’ll put this little whim behind you.” People have an apt phrase for this: utter nonsense. And Racter is fully aware that everything he is saying right now is just that. "…I know it’s hard, but let’s try, shall we? The last thing I want is to create distance between us — I value nothing more than your trust, the fact that you share with me what you wouldn’t tell anyone else. I’m only suggesting that we steer clear of these slippery topics, avoid flirting — you were the one who brought that up, remember? And I’ve come to realize it’s quite sensible. I think, for your peace of mind, it’s the best course of action." What a joke. Every one of their conversations is one long flirtation. Every discussion inevitably loop back to feelings or sex. How has it come to this? A woman who has never allowed herself to fall in love and a man who has long abandoned interest in that realm — yet from their very first meeting, it was all they ever seemed to talk about. Even if some miracle managed to strip away all of that, they wouldn’t just become “friends.” No, the only thing left would be to walk away forever, strangers to one another. But knowing Shay, she’d never approve of that. In short: utter nonsense, through and through. And yet, Shay nods. She looks moved. "…And one more thing," Racter continues, "as a friend, I think you should find someone. Someone who’ll want to make you feel good. You’re a young woman with certain… needs. You might be surprised at what sex can feel like when your partner’s focused on giving instead of taking." For a brief moment, he allowed himself that smile. The one Shay had once described as the expression of a man who intended to survive the end of the world. Subtle, self-assured, faintly predatory. A smile that… sparked thoughts. But just as quickly, he wiped it from his face, replacing it with a look of earnest concern. "But I don’t want to be that person. I’ve already explained why — if things go wrong, you’ll end up hating me." The truth is, he’s only recently realized that he does want to be that someone. Because it is part of the path to what lay locked in her safe. But cracking the code so the lock opened on its own — that is an entirely different thing from fumbling with impatient tools. This requires time. "Does that even happen?" Shay says softly, shaking her head in disbelief. "Someone wanting to make it good for the other person… I don’t think I believe it." "Well, in Hong Kong, it’s true, not much comes for free," Racter chuckles. She doesn’t respond to the familiar joke. She just stares into the distance, her expression distant and bitter. Racter is certain he knows what she is thinking: people are like that everywhere, not just in Hong Kong. The rest of the world is no better. "Thank you for saying that," she says at last. Her voice is quiet but steady. "Your words… they’ve grounded me, in a way. Yes. Let’s do that. Stay friends and close that door. It’s the right thing to do." After a brief silence, she adds, even quieter, "After speaking with the Queen With a Thousand Teeth, I feel like… like a rickety fence. And I’m not sure whether it’s her words or yours — or that… that thing we agreed not to mention. I don’t know how to explain it. Fourteen years of luck… it felt so easy, just reaching out and taking it. It shouldn’t be that easy. It makes me angry. Deals like that always have a catch. And I think the catch is that if I say yes, I won’t be me anymore." "A fence?" Racter tilts his head. "What do you mean by that?" "It’s like everything I used to believe in feels so unstable, like the slightest gust of wind could knock it down. Like the fence of a hundred-year-old farmer. Don’t you ever feel that way? Like you’ve lost track of who you are? Like you’re not sure if you’re the person you want to be… or if you even want to be? Or maybe it’s just what other people want you to be. And they’re not even grateful… not even—" Her voice brakes into a whisper. "A rickety fence. That’s when I can’t shake the thought that the people I try to care about — they’re just strangers, washed up by the tide. Strangers I never chose, who don’t know me, don’t want to know me. And I… I don’t care about them either. They don’t interest me, they don’t matter to me. They’ve got nothing to give me, and I’ve got nothing to give them. And I… I don’t even matter to myself. And then… then none of it makes sense. What’s the point of a life like that?" She runs a hand across her forehead, as though shaking off a dream. Then she gives her head a quick, decisive shake. "No, no. Don’t listen to me. It’s nonsense. The main thing is, Hong Kong is safe, and everyone’s alive." "Right. A proper movie ending," Racter says with a wry smile, raising his tea cup to clink it against Shay’s beer mug. She laughs, takes a sip, then holds the glass up, studying the sunset’s golden light through the liquid. "Look at that. Isn’t it beautiful?" Her emotional wavelength has shifted. There is no trace left of bitterness, anger, or doubt. Only joy. "Yeah. Beautiful light. Photographer’s golden hour." "There’s so much wonder in the world. Even in little things like this." Her voice has a quiet reverence to it. "Sometimes I notice something so small, and I think I’ll never get tired of being alive. There’s just so much joy in living. Just being. Every step, every breath… Life will never lose its meaning. And that damned Qian Ya almost took it all away." Racter watches the sunlight cast a golden halo around her hair. In that moment, he glimpses another small piece of her mystery: the realization that there is something profoundly otherworldly about Shay. Not because she is an elf — that explains little. No, it is something else. Shay Silvermoon, as always, is wearing layers upon layers of clothing, absurdly heavy for Hong Kong’s warmth — a shirt over another shirt, a jacket, a fur-lined cloak — like someone who’s bought out a thrift shop and couldn’t choose just one thing, so she wears it all. But her legs are bare, goosebumped, and wet with rain from the eternal drizzle outside. It is the sort of outfit you’d expect from a creature that only appears human but lives outside the rules of this world. Like some higher-dimensional being playing at physical form, indulging the human custom of clothes with the detached amusement of an adult humoring a child’s game. Even her movements have that uncanny mix of grace and awkwardness, sharp and unexpected. Perhaps that’s how dragons move. Not that Racter has ever met one — not even Lofwyr. Fae and iron, she’s once said. The word "fae" suits her. Shay Silvermoon is no queen of noble elves out of fantasy novels. No, Racter could almost believe she belongs to the wild, mischievous, cruel, and selfish faerie folk of old myths. The kind humans once called the Good People to avoid their wrath, offering milk and bread to appease them, blaming them for stolen babies and broken lives. And probably, they’ve been right to. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Shay, like those faeries, feared iron — but just as the thought crosses his mind, she reaches out to stroke Koshchei. She does it so naturally, as if the drone were a pet. Worse, as if it were hers. "It’s like a blade to the throat. One quick slice, and that’s it. You’re no longer your own master." Back off, he orders the drone, but Koshchei doesn’t respond. It just sit there, basking under her touch like a traitor. For the first time in years, Racter feels something uncomfortably close to what humans might call unease. A strange, unfamiliar discord prickling at the edges of his mind like a needle in the heart. (He has steel for most of his body, but his heart is still flesh.) Shay seems to sense it. Her eyes meet his. "What are you thinking?" she asks. He is thinking of his childhood, of the Fifth World he has just barely glimpsed, and of how, after the Awakening, people’s eyes seem more lifeless than ever. Once, humanity dreamed of elves, dragons, and unicorns as glimpses of heaven, beautiful and unattainable, like a half-forgotten dream. But now, dragons run corporations and host talk shows. When humanity was granted miracles, it lost its ability to see them. But Shay — Shay still seems to come from a time when magic was magic. She carries with her something untouchable, something rare and sacred, like a burning bush or a sea parting for a nation. Something Racter has never found back then, as a child, among the steaming entrails of that chicken — among the skeins of thin, gray intestines, and bones, and fat, and feathers stained with mucus and blood. Something radiant. "Magic," he says at last. "I’m thinking about magic."