The Master Magician (3 page)

Pyre magic was the last materials magic Ceony had tested for herself, for one slip could injure her or burn down the house. She
had tried out her first spell with her feet submerged in the bathtub. Fortunately, she had only suffered a rather nasty blister. Now she confined herself to small, novice spells.

She used the tiny flame to caramelize the tops of her crème brûlée. Hearing Emery’s steps on the stairs, she blew out the fire rather than commanding it “Cease.”

“Smells wonderful,” Emery said, stepping into the dining room. “Ah, I got lost in myself. I should have set the table,” he added when he saw she had already done just that.

“I needed something to do while I browned this pastry,” Ceony said, grabbing a towel and carrying the kidney pie to the table.

Emery stroked her neck with the back of his fingers, sending cool shivers down her shoulders. “Thank you,” he said.

She smiled, feeling the slightest pink prickle her cheeks. Emery pulled out her chair and she sat, tugging off her apron and slinging it across the back.

Absent-mindedly, Ceony stuck her hand in her pocket and ran her fingers over the matchbox. She’d need to restore her bond to paper as soon as dinner concluded. Surely Emery wouldn’t give her a surprise test midmeal, not after she’d handled the Holloways’ party for him.

She stabbed a slice of kidney pie with her fork. In a way, the magic—the bond breaking—felt like cheating.

The man she had learned it from would probably agree, were he still alive.

C
HAPTER
2

A
FTER DINNER
E
MERY
washed the dishes and Ceony hurried upstairs to her room, phosphorus in hand, to break her bond to fire. She resealed herself to paper while stroking Fennel’s hairless body, then took out her rubber buttons for examination. She wanted to use them to create sturdy padding for Fennel’s paws. They were close to the right size, so hopefully she wouldn’t have to manipulate the material too much. She could hardly ask for Emery’s assistance in such a task.

She paused, rubber in hand. Did she really have time to be doing this?

After learning the secrets of bond breaking in Mg. Aviosky’s home nearly two years ago—a secret only she knew—Ceony had awoken in a hospital bed. Her body, which had been sliced open like a Christmas turkey, was intact, having been healed by an Excisioner. The magician who’d saved her life was legally sanctioned to work with his material, but the idea of anyone using blood magic on her was horrifying, particularly at that time, only moments after she’d watched an Excisioner murder her dear friend.

She had awoken as a Gaffer—a glass magician—having changed her material to save her life. After rebonding herself to paper, she had forced herself to forget Grath’s bizarre magic for two months.

But hers was a mind that couldn’t forget. She remembered everything, down to the most minute detail: her first spelling test in the fifth grade, the recipe for kidney pie, even the shoe buckles Mg. Aviosky wore the first time Ceony met her on September 18, 1901.

She remembered the way Mg. Aviosky’s body had hung from the rafters of her house, her wrists swollen and her head lolling to one side. She remembered every piece of glass that had cut through her own skin—she felt them slicing through her now and shivered, rubbing the gooseflesh away. And she remembered the terrified look in her friend Delilah’s eyes well enough that, had she any skill in drawing, she could sketch it blindfolded.

So she knew exactly how Grath Cobalt had broken and resealed his bonds to become an Excisioner.

She had told Emery about her new ability in the hospital—proved it, even—without sharing the details. He had never asked for them. What little knowledge he possessed about her ability to shift materials had not sat comfortably. Understandable—Ceony had more or less achieved the equivalent of breaking gravity. She hadn’t shared her desire to delve into the other magics, what with their newfound relationship being as precarious as it was.

Initially, she’d planned to never test her new, unwanted knowledge, and she’d allowed him to think she still felt that way. While she didn’t think he would judge her, she couldn’t stomach the thought of disappointing him.

So a secret it had stayed.

At first she set strict rules for herself: no studies in other materials magics until her Folding studies had been completed, along with all her other duties as an apprentice. She’d only broken her rule a few times, for spells too alluring and interesting to pass up, like enchanting bullets or altering her image in a mirror’s reflection.

But now, with the test for her magicianship only a month away, could she really spare time to adhere rubber to her paper pup’s paws?

She closed her fingers around the rubber buttons. A part of her knew she was ready. She knew how to mold and animate creatures made of dozens of pieces of paper. She knew how to create the most abstruse paper illusions, how to construct fifty-four different paper chains, and how to make paper vibrate so quickly it exploded. She could probably teach her own apprentice!

But still . . . Ceony didn’t know
what
she would be tested on, or how. Emery claimed he could not reveal any details about the testing process. For that reason alone, Ceony knew she should study harder. Study
Folding
, study every possible angle of paper magic. Any articles or essays that might be new to her, even if the content wasn’t.

With a sigh, she set down the rubber buttons. She still had leisure time. There would be the opportunity to upgrade Fennel then.

Glancing up, Ceony peered out her window, which was half-concealed by the branches of an alder tree. A brilliant pink highlighted the tree’s leaves, and the sky beyond looked lavender.

Tucking back that stray piece of hair, Ceony walked to the library, where the window was broader and un-skewed.

The view was beautiful.

Ceony had never appreciated sunsets until becoming a Folding apprentice. Her home in the Mill Squats had been surrounded by tall buildings, which blocked out the horizon and most of the sky. At Tagis Praff, despite having a room on the sixth floor of the student tower, she’d always been too focused on her endless mounds of homework to give heed to the palette of the setting sun.

Here at the cottage, where city met country, where no other people or architecture could obstruct her vision, Ceony had discovered the allure of sunsets.

Tonight several chunky clouds haloed the sun, acting as canvas to its dying light. They glowed a bright apricot where they were closest to
the cap of gold descending beyond the hills, turning salmon and violet farther out, until they met the deepening azure of the evening sky. The clouds looked like ethereal creatures, sky-fish swimming across the blue expanse, following the sun to the other side of the world.

A hand settled on her shoulder, just at the base of her neck, pulling Ceony from the mural beyond the glass.

“How hopelessly romantic,” Emery said, the corner of his lip tugging upward almost enough to make a dimple. His eyes took on a more olive hue in the window’s light. His fingers felt cold from the dishwater.

“Just like the novels,” Ceony agreed, stepping back into his arm and leaning against him. “The same thought occurred to me. I was rather hoping we could re-create a scene from
Jane Eyre
.”

“I admit I’m ignorant on that one.”

“Quite good,” she said. “In a sad way, but it ends well.”

Emery turned toward her and lifted his hand to her jaw. “As long as it ends well,” he said. He ran his thumb along her cheek and studied her for a moment, his gem-like eyes gliding over her mouth, her cheekbones, her eyes. Ceony loved it when he looked at her like that. It made her feel . . .
present
.

She stood on her toes, and Emery closed the rest of the space between them, touching his lips to hers.

Despite her keen memory, Ceony couldn’t recall how many times she’d kissed Emery Thane since that day outside the train station nearly two years ago. Many times, yet the feel of his mouth still filled her with childish delight, still made her blood course faster.

Perhaps too fast.

Her fingers danced up his neck and over his earlobes, traced the length of his sideburns and the day’s worth of stubble that bordered them. The smells of him—brown sugar, stationery, charcoal—filled her lungs as she broke for a breath. Then she kissed him the way a lady should never kiss a man to whom she was not wed.

The tip of his tongue slid over her bottom lip, but he wouldn’t oblige for long. Sometimes Ceony wished he would forget she was a lady. He certainly never forgot he was a gentleman, no matter how hard Ceony tried to coax the rogue out of him.

Her back met a bookshelf. She curled a lock of Emery’s hair around her pinky, enticing him further. It worked for a moment, a second, really, before the kiss began to slow, Emery reining himself in as always. Kisses like these could lead to other things, especially in a house where the only possible interruption came in the form of a paper dog. But Emery—noble Emery—would not do other things with Ceony outside the bond of matrimony, and he wouldn’t marry her so long as she held the title of “apprentice.” He had said so himself, twice.

All the more reason for her to test for her magicianship as soon as possible.

They broke apart, their breaths spanning the short distance between them.

Ceony opened her eyes. “Yes, just like in the novels,” she whispered.

Emery chuckled, then kissed her forehead. “These books you’re reading . . . I question your taste, Miss Twill.”

She straightened the collar of his maroon coat. “I’ll read what I please, Mr. Thane.”

“I have a suggestion,” he said with a wry smile, stepping away and glancing back at the sunset, which had already grown ruddier. “I have a dissertation on eighteenth-century Folding basics on interlibrary loan. It’s wonderfully dry and has all its nouns capitalized. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Ceony frowned. “You want me to study primitive Folding techniques?”

“Only subprimitive,” he said, a smirk playing on his lips. “It never hurts to go back to basics, even if you think you know them.”

“I do know them.”

“Are you sure?”

Ceony paused. “Is this a hint for my test?”

Emery stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. “I am not allowed to give you any hints, Ceony. I wouldn’t dare jeopardize your passing.”

His tone grew a little more serious on that last sentence. Stepping over to the table against the west wall, he patted his hand on a worn book as thick as Ceony’s wrist. Her shoulders slumped. Surely this tome wouldn’t help her win her magicianship.

But she was not any more willing to risk her chances of passing than Emery was. Sighing—louder than necessary—Ceony grasped the heavy volume in both hands and heaved it onto her hip.

The telegraph on the table began tapping.

Emery raised an eyebrow. Ceony held still and listened intently, translating the Morse code in her head.
An interesting query. I acce—

“Study hard,” Emery said with a hand on her back. He pushed her toward the hallway.

“But what about—”

His eyes brightened. “It’s a secret, dearest.” And with that, he shut the library door.

Ceony frowned, then pressed her ear to the wood, trying to make out the sound of the telegraph. Two seconds later Emery pounded against the door. He had already learned all her eavesdropping tactics during their time together.

Frowning, Ceony retreated into her bedroom and cracked open the dissertation, waving away the dust that spun up from its thick cover.

“Chapter One: The Half-Point Fold.”

It was going to be a long night.

The clouds thickened after the sunset, veiling the night stars. By the time Ceony turned off her lamp to go to sleep, rain had begun to
fall. It came first as a sprinkle, then a shower. A gale picked up and woke Ceony as it whistled through the eaves, ripping bits of paper illusion spells from the walls and fence. No amount of waterproofing could save the spells from a squall like this one.

As the night grew colder, rain turned to hail. It clacked against the roof and window like a thousand telegraphed messages. Covering her head with her pillow, Ceony returned to her slumber . . .