The Master Magician (9 page)

Her gaze fell back to the shard in her palm. One thing she knew for certain—the shadowy figure that grazed its surface had headed
north
, toward town. Not south, east, or west, all of which would eventually lead him to the ocean. To potential escape.

If her calculations were correct, Saraj had bunkered down in England, not fled it.

She let a curse roll off her tongue and savored the sharpness of it. Her heart palpitated inside a rib cage made of needles. She fisted the glass shard until its edges threatened to split her skin.

He’s not coming for you; he’s not coming for you. Something else. Perhaps he went that way because the police were in pursuit from the south . . . or he wanted to avoid the naval base, that’s all. And just because he headed north doesn’t mean he
continued
north.

Why couldn’t the logic soothe her? But the answer to that question was apparent enough. She knew neither where Saraj Prendi was
nor his intentions. He’d left her—and the rest of Criminal Affairs—in the dark, again.

Ceony stood, brushing dirt off her knees, and slid the shard into her purse.

A yellow paper songbird glided overhead.

Pinching her necklace and uttering the words, Ceony returned to paper magic and beckoned the bird down. It swayed on the breeze and almost missed her hand. Its crinkled body looked weary. Ceony smoothed a bent wing.

This one had traveled far.

“What did you find?” she asked it, wishing the spell could talk. Would the paper bird be strong enough to make the trip back? Would Ceony be able to follow if the distance was as great as she feared?

She pressed her lips together and hummed. Scanning the sky, she saw no sign of her other two birds. Cradling the yellow bird in one hand, Ceony headed toward Gosport and, after a few attempts, found a buggy.

After the driver pulled over, she stepped up to his window and showed him the paper bird hopping on her palm. “I’m a Folder,” she said, for that morsel of information would make the rest of her request sound less foolish. “I need you to follow this yellow bird best you can, and I’ll compensate you when we reach our destination.”

The man eyed her and rubbed one eyebrow, then the other. “How . . . far? Will it keep to the roads? I’m not savvy with Folding, miss.”

“Not too far,” Ceony assured him, though she hadn’t a clue. “As for roads . . . well, he’s yellow. Hopefully that will make him easy to follow, regardless. I have absolute faith in your abilities, as far as traffic laws permit them to extend, of course.”

The driver inhaled deeply, held the breath in his cheeks a moment, then blew it out like he would cigar smoke. “I hope magicians tip well,” he said under his breath, but loud enough for Ceony
to hear. “Er . . . set the thing down on the hood, I guess. Do you need help in?”

“I can open my own door,” Ceony said, and she did, taking the seat right behind the driver. “Show me what you found!” she called to the bird.

The songbird beat its rumpled wings and flew a few feet ahead of the buggy. The driver took after it at a slow speed, but picked up his pace once the bird made its first illegal turn. The driver mumbled what could only be foul language not meant for a woman’s ears, while Ceony pretended not to notice. He wound west through Gosport, then north, honking on occasion at stopped carriages or pedestrians who seemed to be considering crossing the street. Ceony only lost sight of the bird once, when it dove behind a bank of grass, but it reappeared a moment later.

Meanwhile, Ceony quickly Folded a new bird, constructing it differently from the others. There were Folds one could place into a spell that enabled non-Folders to use it, else paper magicians would have a difficult time making any money. She incorporated these Folds now to disguise the fact that the bird had come from a Folder. Mail birds were common; this one would blend in with the rest, no more obscure than a purchased envelope and stamp.

Muddling her handwriting, Ceony wrote into the bird’s body,
Saraj headed north after his escape. Please follow. Do not attempt to contact me; I wish to remain anonymous.

After animating the creature and whispering to it the address for the Magicians’ Cabinet’s central building, Ceony let the bird fly out the buggy window and out of sight.

The buggy followed road after road for just over a half hour. The streets had become mostly residential, with a small shop set on approximately every other corner.

The yellow bird swung back around to Ceony’s glassless window and into her hands. So this was it.

“Cease,” she told the bird. To the driver she said, “Take this road slowly, if you would. I need to look around.”

The driver did as asked without so much as a grumble. Ceony pressed her back into the seat, keeping herself out of direct sight. As the buggy crept past the line of houses and buildings, she scanned them, noting the arc of the sun. She needed to return to the dressmaker’s shop soon if she hoped to make it home before Emery.

What caught Ceony’s attention first wasn’t what she saw, but what she heard and smelled. Beautiful music—almost festive, yet eerie in its own right. It was like nothing she’d ever heard. The melody played on the lips of flutes and the twanging of . . . well, Ceony couldn’t be sure.

She smelled meat, lamb perhaps, and spices. She picked out marjoram and curry, but the rest of the nuances eluded her.

Then she spied what the bird must have seen amid a cluster of squat homes: an Indian man.

Not Saraj: that much was clear. He wore an eggshell-white turban on his head and loose clothing that wasn’t quite a robe. A thick beard hid half his face. He carried several planks of wood on his shoulder and waved ahead to an Indian woman who was about Ceony’s age. The woman glanced in Ceony’s direction, but her eyes didn’t linger.

The music grew louder, then fainter as Ceony passed more homes. There were Indians of all ages, children playing with stones on porches and old women with long gray braids. She spied into a larger home and saw an enormous table set with shallow metal dishes full of foods Ceony had never seen in any English cookbook. People on the walk called to one another in a language she presumed to be Hindi.

An Indian neighborhood, an enclave—that’s what the bird had found. She knew of a much larger Chinese settlement east of London. She had given her paper spell specific characteristics to find, and it had found them.

But Saraj wouldn’t be here, would he? Surely he didn’t have family in England . . . at least, not family who would harbor him. The police force would have investigated that route without delay, and besides, the enclave was too close to the location of Saraj’s escape for him to feel safe. At least, were Ceony in his position, she wouldn’t feel safe.

I’ll find you, Saraj
, she thought, chewing her lip nearly hard enough to pierce it.
And if you’re still in England, I’ll stop you. For them.

She made a mental note of the area but didn’t feel confident it carried any sort of useful clue. She certainly wouldn’t go barging into these strangers’ homes searching for an Excisioner!

She rubbed her thumb over the paper bird’s back.

“Miss?” the driver asked. They had reached the end of the road.

“Oh. Turn right, please,” Ceony said, relaxing into her seat. “Thank you, that was all. But if you could be so kind as to take me to a dressmaker’s shop in Waterlooville, I’ll make it worth your while.”

She’d have to pay him the rest of the money from the Holloway job, likely, but she was used to not having spending money. The cottage had everything she needed, besides.

The cottage. The clock was ticking.

“Push the speed limit, if you would,” she added. The driver peeked over his shoulder at her. Ceony offered a small smile.

She got to the dress shop just before it closed and set up a special order, though she snuck away to the back room while the clerk looked up the item number in a catalog. She transported back to Parliament through the mirror maze, only to find the door to the lavatory unlocked—someone had called in a locksmith, then. She could have transported clear to the lavatory mirror in Emery’s cottage were it not for the bike.

Hurrying out to her bike, Ceony pedaled back to the cottage on legs somewhat unwilling to put forth the effort.

The front door to the cottage was unlocked. She let herself in, taking a breath to call Emery’s name and see if he was home, but it caught in her throat as she stepped into the hallway.

Emery stood there with his arms folded tightly across his chest, his green eyes blazing with a fire that could only be meant for her.

C
HAPTER
7

C
EONY RUSHED THROUGH
a mental checklist of her appearance: Her hair was a little windblown from the bike ride, her cheeks rosy, but when were they not rosy? Her blouse, dress, and shoes were acceptably clean. It wasn’t unusual for her to carry a purse, so that wouldn’t be a source of suspicion.

She glanced at her fingernails. Not too bad.

“Emery!” she said, missing only a heartbeat. She grinned. “I didn’t expect you home so soon.”

“I didn’t expect you home so late,” he countered, his eyes narrowing without losing any of their brilliance. “Did you take the scenic route from Patrice’s house?”

A flush inched up Ceony’s neck. “I did visit her today,” she said, adjusting her purse strap on her shoulder. She pressed her thumb into her collar as she did so, ensuring that it hid her new charm necklace. “How did you know? Did you run into her?” Ceony swallowed. “Did she . . . send you a telegram?”

Emery chuckled, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “Oh no. Why use the telegraph when a certain nosy apprentice might be around to swipe the message? She found me through the lavatory mirror. And I believe it’s been approximately six hours since you stopped by her home to ask her about Saraj Prendi.”

The creeping flush chilled white and sunk back into Ceony’s spine.
Aviosky! You couldn’t keep a secret if your life depended on it!

But of course Mg. Aviosky had told Emery. Ceony was only an apprentice; Mg. Thane was technically her guardian.

“I went shopping,” she said, wincing as the poor lie escaped her lips. She had no bags, no receipts. Nothing to prove it, and Emery knew her well enough to know she couldn’t tolerate window-shopping for six hours.

She swallowed a sigh and straightened, but her five-foot-three frame had nothing on Emery’s. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, moving down the hallway. She tried to pass him, but he caught her elbow.

“By all means, enlighten me on what you did do,” he said.

Ceony felt her own fire pulse outward from her chest. “I’m not dabbling with Excisioners, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she snapped, pulling her arm free.

The reference to Lira—Emery’s ex-wife—was too hard of a blow, but Ceony stomped into the kitchen before she could glimpse his face. Fennel jumped up from where he lay by the dining room table, but Ceony ignored him and fled up the stairs to her bedroom. She dropped her purse on the floor—kicking it under the bed—and yanked the clip from her hair. Uneven orange curls tumbled over her shoulders. She shook them out before placing both hands on her hips, then sucked in one deep breath. Another.

She didn’t even hear the paper magician’s footsteps approach her door, just his voice. “Ceony.”

“I went to Gosport,” she said, not turning around.

“Gosport and back in six hours?”

“You’re not the only one with a glider,” she lied, hoping he wouldn’t call her out on it. “Magician Aviosky couldn’t tell me much, so I went to Gosport to look around. I didn’t find much, but I
thought I’d make the effort. I’ve gotten weary of letting our enemies find me first.”

The door frame creaked as Emery leaned against it. “I thought you were over this—running off and taking matters into your own hands. I thought we talked about this. On several occasions.”

She turned around. The fire had left his eyes, but his face remained mirthless. “You talked
at
me about it, maybe.” She sighed. “I’m not jumping through mirrors hunting down an Excisioner with a gun again.” Half lie. “Saraj wasn’t anywhere near Gosport.” Hopefully a lie.

“But he could have been.”

“He could also be in my closet,” she quipped. “Or hiding in the ivy.” She gestured to the window. “Or having tea with the butcher, biding his time until one of us needs a pound of pork. You yourself said that Saraj has no reason to come after us.”
Or does he?
North. Why did he go north?

“Then you have no reason to go after him,” he replied. He stood straight and ran a hand back through his hair, making the waves fall unevenly about his face. “It makes me sick to think about it, Ceony. Lira, Grath . . . It’s like you have a checklist for dangerous criminals tucked into your pocket, and you won’t be satisfied until you’ve had a personal encounter with each.”

Ceony folded her arms, more for comfort than out of anger. “I just want to know my family is safe.”

“Are they?”

It wasn’t a mocking question, just a prod into what Ceony had found. She debated telling him, but she didn’t want Emery dwelling on her unnatural use of magic. She’d kept the secret for too long to tell him now.