The Master Magician (The Paper Magician Series Book 3) Read online

  “Is he a magician?”

  “No. Just me. But I have a sister-in-law who’s a Smelter.”

  He paused, turning his link over in his hand.

  You can still be a Polymaker, Ceony thought. She touched the collar of her blouse, feeling the charm necklace hidden beneath it.

  “You wanted to be a Smelter, didn’t you?” Bennet asked.

  She met his gaze. “I’m surprised you remember that.” When did I tell Bennet about Smelting? Her memory spun. Back at Tagis Praff, the Christmas dinner.

  “Are you . . .” He hesitated. “Are you disappointed? About Folding?”

  “I was at first,” she admitted, “but not anymore. I’m glad things worked out the way they did.”

  “Me, too, I think,” Bennet replied. “I mean, I guess I can’t really know without having a Polymaking apprenticeship for a comparison, you know?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m worried about leaving,” he added, resting his chin in his palm.

  Ceony wove her fingers together over her ledger. “You’ll make a fine magician.”

  “Not that,” he said. “I’m worried about leaving Magician Bailey. He . . . doesn’t have many friends. Hard to believe, I know.”

  Ceony snorted.

  “I’m sure he’ll get another apprentice quickly, but he takes a long time to . . . acclimate. As you’ve witnessed. But deep down he means well. He’s misunderstood. I think he’s had it hard, you know?”

  Ceony thought back to her journey through Emery’s heart, where she’d first seen Mg. Bailey, or Prit. She wondered how many people had bullied him and for how long. Would she behave the same way if she’d suffered his fate?

  “I know, a little,” she said. “But you can’t let that hold you back.”

  “I won’t. It’s just something I think about.”

  Ceony reopened her ledger. A paper slipped out from its back pages and onto her lap—a half-sheet of paper, roughly torn along one of its long edges. The second half of the mimic spell she’d left with Mg. Aviosky. Its face remained blank. She wondered if Mg. Aviosky knew about the anonymous tip on Saraj and suspected her. That was, of course, assuming anyone had bothered to relay the information to the Head of Education. Emery obviously hadn’t fact-checked with Mg. Aviosky, or they’d both be pounding down Mg. Bailey’s door.

  Bennet clasped his hands together. “Ceony, I—”

  “Could you excuse me?” she asked, standing from the table. “I need some of that ‘thinking’ time.” She held up the ledger. “I have a lot more work to get done.”

  Bennet nodded. “Of course,” he said, but he looked disappointed.

  She offered the man a smile before exiting the study. It had not been her intent to cut him off—the words had already been in her throat—but she was grateful for it. Bennet was a wonderful friend and, admittedly, a wonderful specimen of a man, but she worried over his friendliness. At that moment, her name had sounded especially friendly on his lips.

  “I’m awful,” she mumbled to herself, letting her feet carry her a ways down the hall before slipping the mimic spell onto the cover of her ledger. Leaning it against her left palm, she wrote, Have you heard anything? to Mg. Aviosky. She didn’t need to explain what she meant.

  She leaned back against the wall, holding the mimic spell in front of her, waiting for Mg. Aviosky’s scrawl to appear below hers. Seconds passed. A minute, two minutes, but the half page stubbornly remained blank. Of course, the mimic spell had no chimes or lights to alert its holder when writing appeared on it; Ceony would have to wait until Mg. Aviosky looked at her half of the spell. Her only hope for hearing word faster was to use a telegraph. She assumed Mg. Bailey owned one, as he owned a ridiculous number of things, but finding one and asking permission to use it didn’t rank high on the list of things she was eager to accomplish.

  She let out a long, slow breath and slipped the mimic spell back into her ledger. Outside, a cloud shifted in the sky, letting a ray of sunlight pierce through the hallway window. Stepping from its sudden brilliance, she blinked spots from her eyes. Before they had cleared, she noticed something perched on the eaves of the house. It stood about a foot high and, though it had no feathers, preened its right wing: a paper hawk.

  Ceony gawked for a moment before stepping closer to the glass, making slow movements so as not to startle the lifelike spell. Dozens of papers comprised its body, each Folded so crisply into the next that Ceony could barely spy the seams. Brown paper, though a few off-white pieces formed the hawk’s breast.

  The creature couldn’t have been Bennet’s handiwork, which meant it had to be Mg. Bailey’s creation. A cloud passed over the sun once more, allowing Ceony a better view of the bird. A fierce-looking spell, certainly, complete with tightly rolled paper talons and a sharp, cardstock beak hinged to open and close. Ceony hadn’t seen a single spell adorning Mg. Bailey’s estate besides the ones she and Emery passed back and forth. Had she missed this one, or was it new?

  And why a hawk, of all things? Surely Mg. Bailey wasn’t so sour as to want to scare away songbirds.

  The hawk’s wings spread, and it took off from the roof, flying out over the yard a ways before arching up and over the mansion, out of Ceony’s line of sight.

  “Hmm,” she hummed, pulling away from the window.

  Down the hall she spied Mg. Bailey speaking to one of the maids who came by thrice a week to clean the few lived-in portions of the house. Ceony hurried up to her bedroom before he had a chance to spot her.

  Ceony drew her thumb across the crease of a dog-ear Fold, careful to ensure its edges lined up perfectly before inserting the newly formed triangle into a notch on the skeletal arm she was constructing on the breakfast table. Another hour or two and she’d have it finished and ready to test. If it didn’t work, she’d have to go over each and every paper and Fold to find the mistake. If she couldn’t find it, she’d have to start over. Fortunately, she was confident that she’d seen Jonto’s arms enough times to get this spell right. The challenge was to make the arm act as its own whole, instead of a piece of a larger body.

  #1. Something to open a door. Once she made the wrist fully functional, this contraption would do just that, and she could cross the first requirement for her magician’s test off the list.

  Fennel barked from his perch on the bed, his paper body barely heavy enough to dent the mattress. He hovered over Ceony’s ledger and growled—which sounded more like a piece of paper flapping in the wind—then bit down on the mimic spell protruding from the ledger’s cover. Two jerks of his head pulled it free.

  Ceony bounced onto her feet and rushed over to the pup, tugging the spell from his mouth. As she watched, Mg. Aviosky’s stiff penmanship scrawled across it in black ink, as though it were being written by a ghost:

  I don’t want you involving yourself in this, Miss Twill.

  Biting her lip, Ceony took the spell to the breakfast table and wrote back, in pencil, You promised you’d tell me. I need to know.

  A dot of black ink appeared below Ceony’s words, growing larger with each passing second. Mg. Aviosky had set her pen down, likely debating her response, and the ink saturated the paper on her end. Finally she wrote, He was spotted in Reading not long ago. Yes, he’s still in England. Mg. Hughes believes he’s trying to collect funds and false papers in order to escape through Europe unscathed.

  Again the pen soaked the paper. Mg. Aviosky’s hesitant hand penned, Mg. Juliet Cantrell has been murdered.

  Blood withdrew from Ceony’s face and hands. Mg. Juliet Cantrell—Ceony knew her, though not personally. Criminal Affairs. A Smelter. She’d been involved in the hunt for Grath Cobalt. According to Emery, she was the one who had arrested Saraj in Saltdean.

  Her eyes focused on Mg. Aviosky’s last word: murdered.

  Images of Delilah’s wide, panicked eyes filled her vision. The way she’d struggled against her restraints in that chair as Grath grabbed her neck . . .

  Ceony squeezed her eyes shut
for several seconds, waiting out a chill that slid down her spine. Opening her eyes, she wrote, He killed her?

  Ripped out her heart. Mg. Hughes isn’t sure if he’s used it yet.

  Ceony pressed her hand to her chest, feeling her own heartbeat speed. Stolen her heart. Just as Lira had stolen Emery’s. Just as Saraj had wanted to steal hers at the dock. Except Juliet didn’t have anyone to steal it back for her. How much time had passed since Saraj . . . But would he have even left Mg. Cantrell’s body whole enough to be revived?

  Ceony shuddered. Her stomach twisted and knotted around itself, sending bile climbing up her throat. She swallowed hard.

  Saraj had said he still needed a heart in Reading. He’d gone for Mg. Cantrell’s. If Ceony had only stopped him then . . .

  She paused, and for a moment her whole self felt empty. Had Saraj stolen Mg. Cantrell’s heart because she had gotten too close to finding him, or had he stolen it because Mg. Cantrell had been one of two magicians responsible for his imprisonment?

  Nausea replaced the emptiness. Emery had been the other.

  Swallowing, she wrote, Where?

  You are safe, Miss Twill, the Gaffer replied. Mg. Hughes is on top of the case. I’ll let you know—

  Ceony wrote in the space ahead of Mg. Aviosky’s sentence. Where?

  Several minutes passed before the spell read, Do not be brash. I will let you know when Saraj is found.

  Ceony tried to goad Mg. Aviosky further, but the Gaffer refused to respond after that. The mimic spell had nearly run out of space in any event.

  Crumpling into a chair, Ceony stared at the brief conversation in her hands. Saraj wouldn’t have stayed in Reading, not after his run-in with Ceony, but Criminal Affairs would have started their search there after her anonymous tip. How far had Mg. Cantrell tracked Saraj before?

  Ceony tapped her pencil against the tabletop, clenching her teeth to keep from sobbing. Deeper and deeper into England. Still not arrested. Mg. Cantrell was likely the reason Saraj hadn’t tracked Ceony down yet—he hadn’t had time, being on the run. Would he save the Smelter’s heart for the spell he’d use on Ceony? On Emery? Ceony knew one thing: there was no limit to the number of people Saraj would kill to get his freedom and a little pocket change on the side. Was he headed toward London for her, in pursuit of Grath’s secret, or had he given up that chase for the sake of escape?

  She slammed her pencil tip onto the table, breaking it off. She’d beaten Lira. She’d beaten Grath. And yet still no one would confide in her! No one would let her help.

  She couldn’t go to Reading to try and track Saraj down, could she? Her magician’s test was approaching rapidly. Could she scour an entire city searching for one elusive man? Her clues at Gosport had been found by luck alone. She hadn’t even been able to deduce where Emery had gone off to.

  But she had a better chance of beating him than anyone else. She could play both prey and predator. She could be Mg. Cantrell and Mg. Hughes and Mg. Aviosky and Emery all in one.

  She scanned the mimic spell. Paused. Touched her necklace.

  Whatever Mg. Aviosky knew, Mg. Hughes told her. And Ceony had a hunch as to how he’d conveyed the information.

  She’d strike in the afternoon, when Mg. Aviosky would be away for her educational duties.

  By this time tomorrow, Ceony would know, too.

  CHAPTER 13

  THERE WERE TWO nice things about mirror-transporting to the home of a Gaffer. First, there were dozens of available mirrors large enough for Ceony to fit through. Second, all the mirrors were crafted from Gaffer’s glass, so they were free of impurities, which made the travel incredibly safe. Delilah had once told Ceony that one should only travel through Gaffer’s glass to avoid becoming trapped, but so far Ceony hadn’t afforded the caution.

  Ceony’s socked feet stepped soundlessly into Mg. Aviosky’s mirror room on the third floor of her home. Ceony entered through a rectangular mirror taller than she was, and the swirling portal of its glass smoothed as soon as she made it through. She paused, holding her breath, listening to the creaks of the house. As far as her ears could tell, the house was empty.

  She rubbed shivers from her neck. This mirror room was not the same as the one in which Delilah had died, but the mirrors were, and Mg. Aviosky had arranged them in the same way. Ceony hadn’t been surrounded by these mirrors since the day Grath Cobalt had jerked her through the doorway and sliced open her skin with hundreds of window shards.

  Ceony glanced to the corner, imagining Delilah strapped to a chair there. She felt hollow. Hollow, and an almost unbearable chill.

  She shook her head, willing sad thoughts away. Mg. Aviosky herself had said it would do no good to dwell on the memories. Such an easy thing for the Gaffer to claim. If only Ceony’s memories dulled as easily as others’ did.

  She searched for one mirror in particular—the one she’d used to contact Mg. Hughes as she lay bleeding on the floor beside Grath. Mg. Hughes had never asked her how she managed to contact him; he likely thought Delilah or Mg. Aviosky had performed the spell. And Mg. Aviosky . . . well, she had been unconscious at the time. She’d never questioned just how Mg. Hughes had come to the rescue.

  Ceony turned around and spotted the mirror behind her. It had been moved. She approached its dark frame.

  “Reflect, past,” she said, fingers to the glass. Her image swirled. As in Gosport, Ceony rolled the images of the mirror backward, carefully watching them scroll. She saw sunlight fade and dim, saw Mg. Aviosky enter, use a different mirror, leave. The room darkened, lightened. Mg. Aviosky appeared again, standing right where Ceony now stood.

  “Hold,” Ceony commanded, and the image of the Gaffer froze. Ceony focused on Mg. Aviosky’s spectacles, where she saw a reflection of Mg. Hughes in the lenses.

  She scrolled back a little further and played out the conversation.

  “—found her body near Waddesdon,” Mg. Hughes said, his voice low and tired. Ceony couldn’t see his reflection in the mirror, only his skewed face in Mg. Aviosky’s glasses. “The heart was harvested, but no blood drained. I doubt he had time. I won’t know the details for sure until the autopsy . . .”

  Mg. Aviosky’s face grew waxy and pale. Her lips quivered, but she said nothing.

  “We’re contacting her family tonight,” Mg. Hughes continued. “In the meantime I’m sending patrol into Oxford and Aylesbury. We’ll find him, Patrice.”

  Ceony froze the image. “He’s heading back to London,” she whispered. “He’s coming for me.”

  She rolled her lips together—this was information Criminal Affairs didn’t have. Closing her eyes, she pulled forward the memory of Mg. Bailey’s map, traced her mind’s eye over London, Waddesdon, Oxford, Aylesbury. If Saraj was going to pass through any of those cities, Ceony would bet a year’s worth of stipends it was Aylesbury, which was closer to London. She had little time to prepare.

  Breaking the spell, Ceony turned back for the mirror she had come through, using it to return to the lavatory on the third floor of Mg. Bailey’s mansion. She gathered her things from the sink—toothbrush, comb, handkerchief—and brought them into her room, laying them out beside Fennel on the bed. She needed to pack light, but smart. Anything she could use. Plus anything she’d need for spells—

  A shadow passed over the afternoon sunlight streaming into her room. Peering out the window, Ceony again spied the paper hawk from before, flying vulture-like circles beside the house. Such a peculiar pet for Mg. Bailey to keep around.

  She checked the windowsill, but Emery had once again failed to contact her. She tapped her fingernails against the sill. Why had he stopped? It was starting to anger her. Emery Thane wasn’t the passive-aggressive type. If he had an agenda, he would open his mouth and—

  Her thoughts cut off. She looked again at the hawk. A strange choice of pet, indeed. That was the beneficial thing about paper animals—so long as they didn’t get wet, they required less maintenance than real creatures. Take Fennel, for instance. Ceony ne
ver had to walk him, bathe him, clean up after him. Feed him.

  And what do hawks eat? Ceony thought, retreating from the window. She pulled a square of paper off her breakfast table and Folded a songbird. Animating it, she opened her window and tossed it into the spring air. The small bird fluttered back and forth for a moment, then flew toward the tree line at the edge of Mg. Bailey’s property.

  And, like a real bird of prey, the hawk swooped down and intercepted it, snatching the bird in its long paper talons. Then it glided toward the mansion, where it perched near one of the windows of the first floor, the paper bird still in tow.

  Mg. Bailey’s office.

  Ceony’s hand rushed to her mouth. He knows, she thought, chills raining onto her from every direction. She hadn’t seen the hawk in her first few days at the mansion because Mg. Bailey hadn’t built it yet. He must have seen the birds leaving Ceony’s window . . . or the creatures coming to her window. Messages from Emery. Messages he could break the confidentiality spells on. Messages that revealed her relationship with . . .

  She stepped back from the pane. Emery hadn’t stopped writing her; Mg. Bailey had intercepted his letters. Read them. He—

  And like oil heating in a pan, something in Ceony popped. Searing heat evaporated any trace of fear. Reddened her face. Quickened her heart.

  “How dare he!” she shouted. She stormed from her bedroom, unshod feet hammering into the floorboards of the hall, banging down two sets of stairs. Steaming, Ceony strode right to Mg. Bailey’s office and threw open the door.

  The room was unoccupied. The hawk remained perched outside the window.

  Ceony rushed into the room, scanning the desktop, and pulled open one drawer after another. The bottom drawer on the right stuck—locked.

  Her hand reached under her collar to her necklace. She murmured a few quick words and became a Smelter. She pressed her thumb to the lock, hoping it was made of an alloy, and commanded it, “Unlatch.”