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

  Ceony yelped.

  Dangling the orange hair from his fingers the same way he did the necklace, Saraj ignored Emery’s cursing. “I don’t joke,” he said. “I’m not a funny man.”

  “I think you’re hilarious,” Ceony spat.

  He smiled. “Oh? Then you’ll love this.”

  He strode away from Ceony. Toward Emery. The entrails holding the paper magician shifted and turned him about so that Saraj—and Ceony—could see his full person.

  Ceony barely recognized him. He looked so pale, so wide- and white-eyed. There was a trail of blood on his neck, likely drizzled from where Saraj had hit him, too.

  Saraj muttered under his breath for several seconds—Excision spells tended to be longer than other spells, unless pre-prepared—and the hair in his hands stiffened and straightened. It looked sharp as glass.

  “How much blood must be spilled before the kitten sings?” Saraj asked, tracing Emery’s jaw with the hair. It split the skin open, leaving an angry red trail. Saraj hesitated. “But kittens don’t sing, do they?”

  “Stop it! Stop!” Ceony cried.

  Emery’s eyes were locked with the Excisioner’s, but he said, “Tell him nothing, Ceony.”

  “Don’t hurt him!” she wailed, wrenching back and forth. The entrails didn’t budge. Whatever enchantment Saraj had placed on them held tight.

  Saraj jammed the hair-blade into Emery’s shoulder. Blood welled around the wound, seeping through his shirt. Emery bit back a scream.

  Ceony’s eyes darted back and forth, scanning the room. Searching for her bag, her things, anything that might help her. She pressed her hands to the pillar, but she could do nothing with stone. Nothing with the entrails, with her clothing. The rubber was still on the bottom of her shoes! She felt a rush of hope for a moment, but she was a Pyre now, with no way of changing that. She feebly patted her pockets, studied her blouse buttons—

  “Please!” Ceony begged, blinking through tears. She had to tell him—she couldn’t live in a world without Emery. She couldn’t!

  Saraj retracted his hand and patted Emery twice on the cheek as though he were a dog. Emery scowled at him.

  “Did you know, kitten, that Excisioners can break a man’s fingers, one at a time, without even touching him?” Saraj asked, glancing at Ceony over his shoulder. He reached into his pocket and drew out a pair of rusted pliers. “All I need is one nail. I don’t even have to be in the same room to make the bones bend.”

  He opened and closed the pliers in his hand, returning his focus to Emery. “I like the thumbnail, myself. Call it a . . . what’s the word? Quirk.”

  Ceony wrenched herself back and forth, squirmed, loosening pieces of hair from the twist at the back of her head. The locks stuck to her tear-moistened skin. Not Emery. Emery wasn’t supposed to be here! He wasn’t supposed to be part of this!

  Saraj turned to her one more time. “I might be willing to kill him mercifully with, say, a piece of glass instead of bone by bone, but of course, you’ll need to tell me what you know.”

  Her body trembled against the entrails. Visions of Anise lying in a pool of bloody water and Delilah hanging white and limp against her own bonds flooded Ceony’s mind. Drowned her.

  “I—”

  “Ceony,” Emery warned.

  But I’m here, she thought, another tear cascading down her cheek. I’m here this time. I can’t watch you die. I’m here.

  Shrugging, Saraj reached for Emery’s hand.

  “I’ll tell you!” she blurted, stopping the Indian man’s hand. Tears trickled down her throat, making her voice husky. “I’ll tell you, but only if you let him go!”

  “Ceony!” Emery shouted.

  Saraj grinned and retracted the pliers. “A fair bargain. I’m listening.”

  “Let him go first,” Ceony pleaded.

  “You English and your bartering,” Saraj quipped. He folded his arms, took a few steps away from Emery. “You don’t have leverage, kitten. But I’m in a pleasant enough mood. I already have one magician’s heart; I don’t need another yet. I might let him go. You, on the other hand—”

  “Ceony, don’t you dare say another word!” Emery yelled. “It’s not worth it!”

  “But you’re worth it,” she cried, though the words came out so quietly she didn’t think he heard them. Swallowing, she said, “The secret is yourself.”

  Emery wilted against the entrails holding him.

  Saraj raised an eyebrow. “You’ll need to be specific.”

  “That’s what Grath discovered,” Ceony said, feeling her body hollow out with each confessed word. She’d be little more than a bag of skin in a moment. “You bond to your material’s natural substance, then to yourself, then to the new material. That’s how it’s done.”

  The Excisioner smiled. “Interesting. The words?”

  Ceony swallowed against a dry throat. “Material made by earth, your handler summons you. Unlink to me as I link through you, unto this very day. It starts with that.”

  Saraj lifted the charm necklace, his eyes glancing over each charm. Then he studied them with his hand, pinching and turning. He frowned. “And what, pray tell, do I bond to?”

  Ceony paused, looking at her necklace. Glanced at Emery. Refocused on Saraj. She had never considered that question, since she had never dreamed of dabbling in Excision.

  Excisioners became Excisioners by bonding to a person—Ceony had seen Grath do it to Delilah. But what was the natural material of a person? People made people. They were one and the same. Unless Excisioners bonded to their original victims’ parents?

  But that didn’t make sense. Even if an Excisioner managed to track down both parents of the person he murdered to gain his magic, he couldn’t bond with both of them.

  Ceony blinked and licked her lips. “You . . . can’t.”

  Saraj’s countenance darkened. “What?”

  She shook her head. “You can’t. By definition humans are man-made, but they don’t have a natural substance. They merely . . . are.” A smile spread on her lips, and she added, more to herself than to Saraj, “Once a person becomes an Excisioner, they’re stuck. They can’t change.

  “Excisioners can’t use the other magics.”

  Emery lifted his head, his eyes reflecting the unnatural light hovering overhead. He actually smiled.

  Ceony laughed. “You can’t use it, Saraj. You can’t, and neither can the others. No Excisioner can have those powers. You’re stuck. Forever.”

  Saraj’s face darkened and contorted until he hardly looked a man anymore. His brow crinkled, his lip lifted, and his cheeks sunk into the spaces between his teeth.

  “Well, then,” he said, his voice dark and thick. He shoved the necklace into one pocket and pulled the pliers from the other. He turned back to Emery.

  All smugness drained from Ceony, leaving her cold and empty. “No, no!” she cried, but the words didn’t slow Saraj in the slightest. She had no leverage. Not anymore.

  Her eyes did another sweep of the room, scanning the walls, the floor—

  Her eyes stopped at her collar, and she spied the tip of the piece of paper the librarian had given her with the Spaniard’s address on it. Saraj hadn’t taken it. But she couldn’t cast paper spells without changing her material.

  She couldn’t, but Emery could.

  She couldn’t Fold a spell for him, and his arms were bound just as surely as her own. He hadn’t touched the paper, so he couldn’t call it to him with a sorting spell. Ceony sagged against her bonds—useless. Her one hope, and she couldn’t even—

  Saraj crouched, reaching for Emery’s hand.

  Yet again she searched for something she could use—a flame, a spark, anything. But Saraj had thought of that—the only light came from those eerie, glowing eyes. No lanterns, no candles. Nothing that could make fire, save for the match on her necklace—

  Her necklace. It was in Saraj’s pocket. It had a paper charm on it—a charm she’d made from her history paper. Emery had touched
it when he graded it.

  Her memory transported her to the day she’d crafted the charm at her desk in her room. The scrap of paper had been torn from her homework. The date 1744.

  “Sort it, Emery!” she cried. “Sort with the date 1744!”

  Saraj turned around, perturbed. Emery didn’t question Ceony’s plea. He called out, “Sort: 1744!”

  The necklace flew out of Saraj’s pocket and into Emery’s left hand. Saraj spun back to Emery, but not before Emery tossed the necklace to Ceony, using as much force as his restrained wrist would allow.

  The glass perfume vial carrying the oil and the bottle containing the liquid latex shattered the moment the necklace hit the floor. The necklace skidded across the tiles toward Ceony’s pillar, slowing down before it reached her. Saraj hadn’t bound her below the hip, so she reached out a foot and pulled the necklace toward her with her toe.

  Saraj spun back toward Ceony.

  Sweating, heart racing, Ceony pulled the necklace between her feet. The entrails encircled her tightly enough to hold her in place as she pinched the necklace between her shoes and, bending her knees, lifted it up until her right hand could reach the cord.

  Saraj sprinted for her, pulling a bloodstained handkerchief from his pocket.

  Ceony’s fingers hunted over the necklace until she found the match tied there. She pressed her thumbnail into its tip, scraped in and up.

  Lit it.

  “Flare!” she yelled just as Saraj reached for her, his handkerchief glowing a ruddy sheen. The fire in her hand grew a thousand times its former size, licking out and causing Saraj to stumble. Whatever spell Saraj had been about to cast nullified itself.

  “Burn!” Ceony commanded, and the fire chewed away at the entrails holding her. She stumbled from the pillar, her ribs aching as they expanded back into place. With the command “Split,” she divided her fireball into two. She sent one flying toward Saraj, forcing him to retreat. Running to Emery’s side, she used the other to incinerate his bonds.

  Emery gasped for air as the entrails broke apart. His hand flew to his shoulder to rip out the hair-blade there; he groaned and pressed his palm into the wound, which began bleeding with renewed vigor.

  “I need . . . my coat,” he wheezed, gawking at the fire in Ceony’s hands. “Spells.”

  “The stairs,” she guessed. “He came from the stairs—”

  Emery’s eyes widened and he grabbed her fireless hand, yanking her behind the pillar just as red throwing stars soared past where they had been standing. The stars bounced off the stone pillar and reverted to liquid blood upon hitting the floor.

  “Split! Flare! Combust!” Ceony cried, dividing her flames once more. She kept one fireball in reserve and threw the other at Saraj. He leapt from its path; the flames sailed toward the hospital beds, charring their metal rods as it went.

  “Go!” Ceony shouted. “Find the spells. I’ll hold him off!”

  “Ceony—”

  “Go!”

  Still clutching his shoulder, Emery ran to the door to the stairwell. Ceony cast a pinwheel spell on her fireball and tossed it toward the pillar behind which Saraj had barricaded himself—the fire bloomed into a four-petal flower and spun back and forth across the tiles, forcing Saraj to withdraw farther. The spilled oil on the ground ignited into a puddle of flames.

  Gripping her necklace, Ceony recited the words for bond breaking so quickly she nearly tongue-tied herself. She became a Gaffer and ran to the window, yanking down the muslin sheet covering it. If nothing else, perhaps someone would see the flames before they went out and would send for help.

  Making contact with the glass, Ceony commanded, “Leftward, Shatter!” The window fragmented into hundreds of pieces and, with a swipe of Ceony’s hand, flew toward Saraj. The glassy darts broke into even smaller shards as they collided with walls, pillars, and the floor. One slid between Saraj’s ribs before he could take cover.

  “Kutiyaa!” Saraj shouted. Ceony moved for the next window, but her legs suddenly gave out under her. She dropped to the floor, catching herself on her hands.

  She tried to get up but couldn’t move her legs.

  She couldn’t feel her legs.

  “You forget, kitten,” Saraj said between heavy breaths, “that I’ve touched your skin. I own you!”

  He stepped out from behind a pillar, holding his bloodied side. The first two fingers of his right hand were crossed—perhaps a method of holding the numbing spell over her.

  Ceony pushed herself backward with her arm. Glimpsed the oil puddle, still burning, barely. If she could get that fire—

  Clutching her necklace, she moved her hand to the pouch of sand, only to have her tongue and lips go numb as well. The spell turned to mush in her mouth.

  “No more of that,” Saraj said. He took a deep breath and started chanting. The hand holding his wound began to glimmer with gold, and within moments his breathing evened. He pulled his hand away, the wound healed.

  He managed to take one step toward Ceony before a gunshot rang out through the room. Saraj stumbled and gasped, his hands flying to his chest, cupping the bullet hole there. As soon as he uncrossed his fingers, Ceony’s numbness vanished.

  Ceony scrambled to her feet as Saraj fell from his.

  Whipping around, Ceony spotted Emery in the doorway, her pistol clutched in his hands. He wore his charcoal coat and Ceony’s bag slung over his shoulder.

  Saraj lay lifeless on the floor.

  “Emery,” she breathed. She inched closer to Saraj, watching his chest, waiting for it to rise with air . . . but it remained still. The Excisioner’s eyes stared up at the ceiling, half-closed.

  She hurried to Emery and threw her arms around his waist. He dropped the pistol and embraced her in turn.

  She pulled back, glancing toward Saraj. “I didn’t know you were such a good shot.”

  “I’m not,” he said, wincing as he moved to hand her the bag.

  Ceony returned the charm necklace to her neck and grabbed Emery’s hand. “We need to go. The police are searching for him; if they haven’t seen commotion through the window, they’ll be here when—”

  “Wait,” Emery said, jerking back.

  Ceony paused.

  “The lights,” he said, glancing to the floating eyes. “When an Excisioner dies, his spells become void.”

  Ceony stopped breathing. She turned back to Saraj’s prone form, which began to shake with convulsive laughter.

  “Too true, too true,” his accented voice said. He rose from the floor, each wheezing breath wet and heavy. He moved like a rag doll in a child’s hands, hunched and loose.

  He turned toward them and, with glowing fingers, plunged his hand into his own chest, removing a beatless heart.

  Bile returned to Ceony’s mouth.

  “A benefit of having two hearts, Thane,” he gurgled with a laugh, dropping the organ at his feet as the cavity in his chest stitched itself together. “My regards to Magician Cantrell.”

  Emery growled and ran from Ceony’s side, his coat flying behind him like a cape. The burst spell from the school flung out from his hands and began vibrating wildly in the space between himself and Saraj.

  Ceony ran back toward the windows, shattering one just as the burst spell exploded. She caught sight of Saraj in the corner of her eye and sent the shards raining toward him. She had to keep him busy, keep him moving, or he would cast another spell on her body. On Emery’s. The moment the Excisioner had time to think, she and Emery would be dead.

  She ran back for the stairs, hand flying over her necklace as she uttered the words to become a Smelter. She reached for the pistol Emery had dropped on the floor—

  The room warped around her, dizzying her, causing her to stumble. Not the result of an Excision spell—this was Emery’s doing. A distortion spell. The jellyfish-like paper bobbed in his hand.

  She took two more steps before falling onto her hip. The floor rippled like an angry ocean. Her pistol wavered like oil on water.
r />   She reached for it, clasped it. The room froze back into place, a thin mist of blood spraying over Ceony—remnants from a spell aimed at Emery.

  Shaking off the effects of the distortion spell with only moderate success, Ceony stood and, holding out her pistol, called, “Attract!”

  The spell radiated out from the metal of the pistol, calling forward anything and everything made of metal alloys. Buttons from Saraj’s shirt cuffs ripped from their stitches; needles lost between floor tiles rose into the air. Even the charred hospital beds zoomed across the room, hitting Saraj in the back of the knees and forcing Emery to duck behind a pillar to keep from being run over. At the last second Ceony dropped the pistol and darted for the corner, narrowly missing being hit by the hospital beds herself. The needles and buttons rained onto the pistol, clinging to it.

  Saraj vanished in a swirl of red smoke and reappeared behind Emery.

  “Behind you!” Ceony cried.

  Emery spun and dropped to the floor, missing Saraj’s outstretched arm by inches. Saraj’s hand hit the pillar instead, leaving a bloody print, and Emery slammed his foot into the other man’s shin, knocking him over.

  Grabbing one of the hospital beds, Ceony dragged it across the room with her. Emery got to his feet; Saraj clawed at his pant leg, murmuring under his breath. His hands began glowing red.

  Ceony didn’t need to call out for Emery to see the spell. The paper magician grabbed Saraj by the hair and slammed his fist into the Excisioner’s cheek.

  “Throw him against the pillar!” Ceony shouted.

  Emery hit Saraj again and grabbed the man’s collar, heaving him against one of the stone pillars. The instant he was in place, Ceony shoved the hospital bed against him and shouted, “Bend, circular!”

  The charred bones of the bed creaked as they wrapped around Saraj and the pillar, pinning him in place.

  Saraj began to laugh.

  Emery grabbed Ceony and pulled her back, then reached into his coat, bringing out handfuls of paper spells. To Ceony’s surprise, he commanded them, “Shred!”

  The spells tore into hundreds of pieces, ruined.

  “Gather, forward!” Emery commanded, and the pieces of paper collected into a cloud and stormed toward Saraj, floating about him and clinging to him like leeches.