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

  A Ford drove by without its lights on, startling her. The driver was a middle-aged Caucasian male.

  She crossed the street and wound back through another residential street, stopping to ask a gardening woman about Saraj, but she had seen nothing, either. As the evening darkened, Ceony became a Pyre and held a match in her right hand, just in case. She searched the houses carefully, thinking that Saraj might avoid busy streets if he wanted to stay out of sight.

  When the sun had sunk three-quarters of the way behind the horizon, she considered sending out birds to gather information for her but didn’t dare risk it.

  Crouching behind a whitewashed picket fence, Ceony pinched phosphorus and paper and became a Folder. She pulled a long sheet of paper and rolled it between her hands, commanding it, “Zoom.”

  Eye to the telescope, she searched the area with what little light was left, even spied through a few windows. A man out walking his dog a few doors down eyed her with suspicion. Flushing, Ceony lowered the telescope and continued down the street and around the corner, emerging near the school.

  She searched with her telescope again, spying another empty Model T near the back of the school. She made a mental note of its location—

  Ceony’s breath caught in her throat as she angled the telescope up a centimeter, putting the back wall of the school in her scope. A sudden whirl of movement—a flash of black hair and the billowing of a dark cloak—caught her eye, but just as she registered what she was seeing, the man disappeared into one of the back doors.

  Lowering the telescope, she let it unfurl in her hands, breaking the enchantment. Her heart raced in her chest. The familiar prickle of fear stippled her skin, but she ignored it. Lira. Grath. She had done this before; she could do it again. She was more prepared than anyone could be. One more Pyre spell and it would all be over.

  She’d killed before. She could do it again, couldn’t she?

  Her pulse, still fast, seemed to change its rhythm. It sounded—felt—unfamiliar to her, like she had stepped into the body of another person, moving their flesh as her own.

  “Material made by earth,” she whispered, pinching the wooden staff of one of the matches on her necklace as she moved toward the school, “your handler summons you. Unlink to me as I link through you, unto this very day.

  “Material made by man,” she continued, pressing her hand to her breast, “I summon you. Link to me as I link to you, unto this very day.”

  She lit the match and said, “Material made by man, your creator summons you. Link to me as I link to you through my years, until the day I die and become earth.”

  She closed her hand around the flame as she stepped onto the grassy lawn of the school. Heat radiated through her palm and arm—tingling, though not burning. She let the match drop from her fingers but kept its tiny flame at her palm.

  Saraj had left the door cracked open. She pulled its handle to open it wider, then stepped into a dark hallway lit in dim patches from shutterless windows. She stepped softly, balancing on the rubber pads still adhered to her soles. The narrow spaces between her fingers glowed red with the flame they concealed.

  She heard a footstep around the corner, the faintest creak of a shoe as the other foot stopped short. He was listening. Waiting. He knew she was here.

  Ceony stepped up to the corner. Pushed her shoulder into the brick. Brought her fist up to her mouth and whispered, “Flare.”

  The footsteps started again and sped up, louder, louder. Coming for her.

  Her body surged around the corner, flames bursting from her hand now, sending their golden brilliance down the hallway. Illuminating her attacker and the burst spell flying from his hand.

  And in that light she saw him, his dark hair cropped short, his charcoal-gray coat, the flames reflected in his green eyes.

  Instead of yelling the “Combust” command lingering at the edge of her tongue, Ceony stopped short and croaked, “Emery?”

  CHAPTER 15

  EMERY’S EYES WIDENED. Stumbling, he shouted, “Cease!”

  The vibrating burst spell dropped from the air and hit the floor, harmless.

  Ceony felt a thunk as her body suddenly became hers again. The school walls seemed more solid, and her heartbeat, though frantic, was steady.

  She flushed and grew gooseflesh at the same time. Her thoughts spun ovals in her mind. “Wh-What are you doing here?” she asked.

  Emery’s eyes remained large. He took a step forward. “Ceony—”

  “You cut your hair!” she exclaimed.

  He paused, eyebrows skewed. “And . . . your hand is on fire.”

  Ceony blinked and turned to the flames still burning in her palm. “Cease,” she said, and the fire extinguished, leaving only the faintest trail of smoke behind.

  Half a second after the flames dispersed, Emery grabbed Ceony’s upper arm and pulled her into a nearby classroom, shutting the solid-wood door behind them. Three rectangular windows, one of which was unlocked, let in blue-hued twilight. Ceony’s hip bumped against one of the many desks. The chalkboard at the front of the class still bore a half-erased reading assignment from Alfred Lord Tennyson.

  “What,” Emery began, but he shook his head and rubbed his temples. Closed his eyes, opened them. “Heavens, I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Then let me,” Ceony said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same.”

  Ceony felt her forehead crease as she narrowed her eyes. “You’re here for Saraj, aren’t you? You tracked him down.”

  “A habit of mine,” the paper magician replied, rolling back the sleeves of his coat. They fell back into place at his wrists mere moments later. “I severely doubt you’re in Brackley for a shopping expedition, Ceony! You promised me you wouldn’t—”

  “I promised?” Ceony asked. “You promised!”

  He opened his mouth to respond, closed it. Pushed fingers back through his short hair, then actually laughed. “I suppose we’re both horrible people.”

  Ceony’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose so.”

  His eyes met hers. “Is this why you’ve been avoiding my letters, then? To hide . . . this?” He gestured to the classroom.

  “No! I haven’t been . . .” she began, but changed to, “Magician Bailey’s been intercepting our messages. I found them earlier today in his office. He had an animated hawk scouting the estate and attacking anything paper and mobile.”

  Again Emery raked his fingers back through his hair. A soft chuckle escaped his lips. “Well, that’s a relief.”

  “A relief?” Ceony repeated, spine stiffening. “He read them, Emery! He knows about—”

  “I hardly care. Prit’s a nose and always has been. I just thought I was clever enough to stay over his head.” Another chuckle. “And here I thought you were having second thoughts.”

  Ceony felt herself soften, even smile. “I worried the same.”

  Folding his arms, Emery leaned back against a navel-high bookshelf pressed against the wall. “Care to explain the pyrotechnics?”

  Ceony blanched.

  “I believe you told me you were not going to dabble in . . . this. After that day in hospital—”

  “I know, but . . . how could I not do something with that information, Emery? How could I let a secret like that go to waste?”

  “How could I think you wouldn’t pursue it?” he asked, more to himself than to her. “A Pyre,” he said, his voice light and incredulous. He rubbed his forehead. “And a Gaffer, too. Next thing I’ll be living with a Polymaker.”

  Ceony bit her lip.

  Emery straightened. “Polymaking? And . . . Siping? Smelting?”

  Rubbing the back of her neck, Ceony said, “All of the above.”

  He stood still as a statue for a moment before his expression fell. “Ceony,” he said, cool as a tombstone, “please tell me you haven’t tried—”

  “No!” she said, louder than necessary. “Not Excision, Emery. You know what I’d have to do to
. . . You know how I feel about that.”

  “I know, I know,” he said, hands raised in surrender. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . with Saraj, I don’t know how far you’d go—”

  “Not that far,” she replied. “Never that far.”

  They were silent for a moment.

  “He’s here?” Ceony asked, dropping to a whisper.

  Emery shook his head. “I’m not sure. I suspect he’s in Brackley. After hours—the building is empty. A safe holdup, but I have no hard evidence.”

  “Magician Hughes sent you?”

  “Ha . . . no. I assure you I broke my word entirely on my own.” He sobered. “Ceony, I don’t need to explain to you how much I don’t want you to be here. I’d be furious if it didn’t make me an utter hypocrite.”

  “Same,” she said, though without malice. “But I think . . . I think the reason Saraj is in Brackley is that he’s heading to London after his chase with Magician Cantrell.”

  Emery’s face fell at the mention of the Smelter.

  Ceony pushed forward. “You see . . . I may have broken my promise first. I . . . ran into him in Reading.”

  Color leached from Emery’s countenance. He lunged forward, gripped Ceony’s shoulders. “You what? Ceony—when—I—what happened? Did he—”

  “He didn’t touch me,” she assured him, lifting one hand to his jaw. Despite the circumstances, it felt wonderful to be so near Emery again. It felt . . . safe. “I happened to be a Pyre at the time.”

  Taking a deep breath, he released her and attacked his hair again. “A Pyre. Right. Because you know how . . . God’s mercy, Ceony.”

  “I think he’s coming back for me, though,” she confessed, averting her eyes so she would not have to see any fear or disapproval in Emery’s face. “He thinks it’s a game, Emery. And I may be his playmate. That, and he knows I can break bonds. I hit him hard, but not hard enough.”

  “We’re leaving,” he said, grasping her hand. “Please, Ceony. Come with me.”

  The bud of a protest rose in her throat. She’d come so far. Prepared so much. She could do this. For Delilah, for Anise. She had the power. Couldn’t Emery see that?

  She looked at his eyes, hard on the edges and glistening in the centers.

  And she realized that no amount of power or preparation could put Emery’s heart at ease. His broken, beaten heart. More than anything else, she wanted to calm its tremors. Make it whole again.

  I broke my promise, she thought. His actions aside, I broke my promise.

  She nodded, and Emery heaved a heavy sigh. He reached for the door handle.

  “Where were you?” she asked before he turned the knob. He paused, and she clarified: “I came to the cottage last week to find you, to tell you about Reading, but you weren’t there. Where were you?”

  He glanced back at her. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “Tuesday,” she said. “I searched for a hint . . . waited, but you never came. I left the note on your windowsill.”

  A small smile touched his lips—almost a sheepish smile, of all things. Ceony had never before seen such an expression on his face. “Just out for a stroll.”

  “You don’t stroll.” Why is he lying to me?

  “I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands.”

  “Emery Thane.”

  He rolled his eyes without quite rolling them, his own small show of exasperation. “I was with your parents, Ceony. Your father, specifically.”

  Ceony blinked, relaxed. “To warn them. They’re safe?”

  Emery hesitated for a moment, and Ceony thought she saw the slightest glimmer of confusion, but he only nodded. “They’re well taken care of.”

  A comfortable, hot-cocoa kind of warmth spread through her. “Thank you, for seeing after them. It means a—”

  The red, iron-scented smoke filling the room broke off Ceony’s sentence. Emery stiffened and reached for her just as a sharp and resounding thud echoed through her skull, and the room went dark.

  The first thing Ceony sensed was the smell of dust—metallic and rotten and dry. Then she registered the throbbing at the back of her head, the stiffness in her neck, the tight, bruise-like pain encircling her arms and torso. Dim light prodded at her eyelids, and she pulled them apart, blinking. A groan escaped her throat.

  She was in a long rectangular room with tall windows draped in long, muslin cloths. Large brown tiles. Two folded hospital beds had been pushed into a corner near a door. Two rows of support pillars cut through the room, and it was to one of these that Ceony had been tied. On first glance, the room appeared to be empty apart from her.

  She struggled against her slick bonds, realizing after a few futile attempts that the rotten scent came from them. She studied them in the dim light, their sackcloth-like color, flatness, translucency. Almost like sausage casing.

  Bile rose up in Ceony’s throat, and she barely managed to swallow it down. Her sinuses burned from the effort.

  Intestines. And they couldn’t be from a pig or cow. Only humans were man-made. Excisioners could do spells with only humans.

  Saraj. Ceony lifted her head to search the room, spying the tiny, floating orbs that provided light. About the size of an infant’s fist, each bore a ring that didn’t glow: green, blue, brown. She bit her lip upon realizing they were eyeballs. It took all her willpower and a silent prayer to keep the contents of her stomach down.

  The entrails bound her arms tightly to her sides, but Ceony could move her wrist just a little, back and forth. She clawed at her skirt pocket, slipped in a thumb and forefinger . . . but found it empty. The other, too. Her bag, missing.

  And she realized one more thing, looking down at her rotting bonds. To tie her up . . . to bring her to the hospital . . . Saraj had touched her.

  The thought sprung tears and turned her skeleton to ice. She shivered. Acid clawed at her throat. Oh Lord in heaven, he touched me. I’m dead. I’m dead.

  Emery.

  She pulled against her bonds. Her breathing quickened as she rescanned the room, searching for the paper magician. Two tears etched trails down her cheeks. Had Saraj killed him? Had he escaped? Emery . . . where was . . .?

  She spied him on the other row of columns kitty-corner to her. Saraj had bound him the same way, but he faced the windows. Ceony could see only a sliver of his person. His head drooped forward. Unconscious. Saraj had taken his coat and turned out the pockets of his slacks.

  “Emery!” Ceony cried, trying to keep her voice low. “Emery, please wake up!”

  The paper magician stirred, and so did the Excisioner.

  “The game isn’t fun when you cheat, kitten.” Saraj’s accented voice sounded from Ceony’s right. She strained against the entrails as she watched him enter the room through another door, one that led to a staircase. He’d changed his clothes since Reading; he wore a narrowly tailored gray suit without the jacket. A splatter of crimson stained his shirt where it tucked into his slacks, and another dark stain coated his left knee.

  He muttered something under his breath, a spell, and the slick entrails binding Ceony to the pillar shifted, moving her to its right side so that she faced Saraj. He grinned at her and said, “There’s no pleasure in the chase when you come to me.”

  Ceony swallowed, searching for the voice trapped somewhere in her shaking body. “I guess y-you’re not used to p-people playing back,” she said, but there was no confidence in it.

  “Saraj,” came Emery’s voice—Ceony could see even less of him now—“your fight is with me.”

  Saraj laughed. “Oh, no it isn’t. You’ll be discarded in a moment, Thane.”

  Ceony writhed against her bonds, her heart hammering. “Saraj, no! Deal with me; leave him out of this!”

  “Don’t change the rules, kitten,” Saraj said, holding up a scolding finger. “Now”—he reached into his pocket and pulled out Ceony’s necklace—“tell me your little secret, hm?”

  Ceony froze.

  “Grath had been so . . . What is
the word? Adamant? Adamant about breaking his bond to glass. Obsessed,” Saraj said, strolling between the lines of pillars, fondling the charms on the necklace. “I didn’t know he’d succeeded. Unless you figured out the secret on your own?”

  He paused, held the necklace up to his face. “You have some strange things on here. Wood for paper, sand for glass. Oil . . . and a match? So the foundation of the material is part of it. But how?” He lowered the necklace and met Ceony’s eyes. “Tell me how it works, kitten.”

  “Ceony!” Emery shouted, but with a wave of Saraj’s hand, Emery’s bonds tightened around him, choking out any ensuing words. Choking out his air.

  “Stop it!” Ceony screamed.

  Saraj smiled and lowered his hands. Emery’s bonds loosened, barely. The paper magician’s next breath came as a gasp.

  He’ll kill him. Ceony panicked. She breathed hard and fast. The ceiling started to spin above her. He’ll kill him. Oh, Emery. Not him. She could not even bear to contemplate . . .

  But she couldn’t tell Saraj, either. She couldn’t give him that power. How many more people would die once Saraj knew her secret?

  Emery, or them?

  She never should have come after Saraj. She never should have tested her knowledge in the first place. She never—

  “Ticktock,” Saraj said.

  “Tell him nothing!” Emery shouted.

  Ceony pressed her lips together. Tears trickled down her face.

  Saraj chuckled and walked toward her, his gait unhurried. Once close enough, he placed a hand on the pillar beside her head.

  Emery struggled against his bonds—Ceony could see his legs kicking. “Saraj!” he shouted, his voice filling the room. “Touch her and I’ll have your head for a mantelpiece!”

  “This is the strange thing about Englishmen,” Saraj murmured to Ceony, his breath caressing her forehead. It smelled like cardamom and some kind of meat. “They make threats they cannot carry out.”

  He smiled without teeth and slid his fingers into the hair above Ceony’s ear. She winced and pulled her head as far away from him as she could, but Saraj simply wound a lock of her hair around two fingers and, with a growl, yanked it from her head.