Wattys shortlist 2021. One morning the sun rises a few hours early, striking levitating skyscrapers in Soliara ahead of schedule. People in the streets stop to look up at the sky and then down at their watches. Most of them, puzzled but disbelieving...
Prospero gave the girls a tour of the cask-lined catacombs as he explained more about the rules and security features of Oz's magic school.
The steps led deep into a stone bar area full of students of all ages, books out on the bartop tables. Not just young people but gray-haired magicians whispering in debate so their fellow pupils could concentrate on their reading. It was like a library, but instead of books lining the wall, it was liquor bottles, lit from above by surprisingly bright light fixtures in the firmament of the vaulted ceilings. Seemingly everyone had a drink, if not an emptied brass stein, next to their stacks of books.
The books weren't kept on the premises, or even on this plane of reality, Prospero explained. As a measure against the unlikely event of a raid, no evidence of magic could be left behind; it was already the boldest move in the history of magic to record teachings in print, so the books would be sent into a realm he called 'the ideal' when not in use.
There were no sign-in sheets, not records, no attendance. Code names replaced real names. Malyssa chose Fog. Dianthea asked to defer the decision and take some time to think about it.
"So long as you know what to answer when someone inevitably asks what to call you. Don't tell your real name to anyone, not even me. In the meantime, I'm going to call you Frost."
"Frosty?" moaned Dianthea, her arms crossed in front of her and her icy eyes narrowing like the slits between two icebergs.
"Not Frosty. Just Frost. Like the first inkling of winter on the windowpane."
Malyssa weighed in, "Like the color of your eyes. Frost."
"Our eyes are the same color. We literally have the same DNA." Her voice, contrary to the very science she was currently espousing, came out deeper than her sister's.
"Yours always seem lighter." Fog's soft, higher-pitched voice sounded kind. "Like the greeny-blue sheen on a snowflake. Maybe it's magic!"
'Frost' wanted to know more about the mirror exam before anything else, and Prospero obliged. His voice just a bit louder than the murmuring ambient noise, he was the loudest speaker in the cavern. "You can imagine a certain wiggle room in the question 'Why are you here,' and thus room for a loophole. Perhaps one's primary motivation for arriving at Oz's Speakeasy Magic School is to acquire a drink of the one-of-a-kind amontillado sherry we store down here, the last cask dating to the year in which the Edgar Allan Poe story takes place. If, say, a police commissioner with a literary bent wanted that sherry badly enough, it might fool more preliminary sensors into ignoring a secondary motivation to arrest everyone on the premises.
"Yet it turns out it is impossible to truly lie to oneself. When one's own reflection conducts the examination, no desire can be hidden. Any will to persecute magicians will be unearthed, no matter how deeply hidden — which, in the case of an intended raid, would not be very deep.
"We cultivate high favor with the mirror world beings for their participation in our security system — but you may learn more about that in your studies."
As they passed the bar, more prohibition signs cluttered every space available, sometimes even blocking access to certain bottles. In fact, many weren't even anti-prohibition. Some expressed support of the dry laws. One on a stone and mortar pillar right next to the bar read:
CLOSED
For Violation of
NATIONAL
PROHIBITION ACT
By orders of
UNITED STATES
DISTRICT COURT
All persons are forbidden
to enter premises
without order from
the United States Marshall
Malyssa stopped to read. "Why are there prohibition signs everywhere?"
"We all benefit from the reminder that laws were made to be broken — and repealed."
Dianthea's mouth fell open. "Made to be broken? You don't mean all laws, right?"
"Yes and no. The justice system is no more perfect than the human race, and it is man-made. Laws can change. When they do, it shows the arrogance of locking away our fellow human beings for a crime that may not even be counted as such tomorrow.
"1920 seems so long ago now, yet think of the lives altered, the livelihoods ruined, by prohibiting a substance we allow today. Prohibition invented a crime out of an innocent pastime; it created criminals out of law-abiding folks. It fed the growth of the American mafia, cementing the necessity for organized crime. Laws make criminals. Without laws, there would be no convicts, no felons — no person whose right to work or right to vote in our democracy is obstructed. Would either of you like a sample of the Fino Amontillado?"
Out of nowhere, he was offering them sherry from a large jug right on the counter.
"We're underage," said Fog.
Prospero accepted her answer and waited for Frost, as if the one twin had not answered for both of them. The second sister eyed the tumbler glass next to the bottle. It was small. A brass thimble. "I would like to taste it. Please," said Frost.
The arm gesture from Prospero said, "Pour yourself a drink." As she did, dripping a few drops on the scaly old brass counter, Fog gave her sister a distinct side-eye.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Frost overturned the thimble into her mouth. As she swallowed, her face relaxed. Opening her ice eyes, she said, "It's easy to drink. I was expecting it to burn like a shot. It's a little sweet, and nutty. Like almonds."
Fog said, "I assume it's 17 percent alcohol. As strong as wine." She pointed to the label on a sherry bottle next to it on the counter.
"That's dangerous," said Frost, "because, unlike wine, this tastes delicious. It's like liquid dessert."
Prospero watched their interaction, hands clasped behind his back. Only when they had finished the conversation, with Fog seeming to stop on the brink of taking a drink, and Frost reining in the urge to pour herself another, did he speak.
"In these halls, you will be able to seek instruction from any teacher on any branch of magic, any subject your heart desires. There are no course requirements, no registration or drop-by dates, no certification, no graduation. You may attend, or not, as you like, and put the magic you use to whatever purpose you like. This institution has been founded on a libertarian principle. We allow students to guide their education and we abhor rules. The only principle we ask you to follow is the same: respect the autonomy, liberty, and civic freedom of your fellow magicians. Make it a practice not to impose your will on others. You must make your own decisions, and allow them to make theirs."
He nodded toward the sherry. "I'm a recovered alcoholic. Ninety-nine years sober." Both Malyssa and Dianthea wondered at the same time how old Prospero was now. "At this school, we do not use shame, punishment, incarceration, excommunication, or the threat of any of the same to guide behavior. Your freedom ends only and exactly at the end of the next person's nose. In other words, there is no law here."
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