The Master Magician (The Paper Magician Series Book 3)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  Emery’s hand touched her shoulder. Handing him the telegram, she turned and walked away, the distance from the telegraph to her bedroom passing beneath her without notice. She flipped on the light. Fennel stirred. She crossed the room to her desk and pulled out a square sheet of white paper and a pencil. She wrote furiously, her words unaligned. She had just started her second sentence when Emery’s soft voice asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Warning my family.”

  “He doesn’t know where they live now, Ceony,” he said, gentle as a summer breeze. He entered the room slowly, his footsteps like a deer’s on the forest floor. “And Alfred will make them a priority. He probably already has.”

  Ceony shook her head.

  The paper magician’s hand found her shoulder again, the fingers curling gently around her. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  Ceony slammed the pencil onto the desktop, breaking off its point. She turned to Emery and felt tears sting the corners of her eyes. “Why haven’t they executed him yet?” she asked, the question burning her tongue. “They’ve had two years. All the people he’s hurt . . .”

  Emery cupped either side of her face, wiped a thumb under one of her eyes to catch a tear. “They lost Grath and Lira. Saraj was the only means of obtaining information for the underground.”

  “It doesn’t matter!”

  “I’m not disagreeing with you,” he said, voice faint. He pressed his forehead to hers.

  Ceony dropped her eyes and pulled from his touch, but then leaned forward into his shoulder. His arms encircled her, his warmth providing some amount of comfort. “What if he’s still after them . . . us?” she whispered.

  “He won’t get far. We’ll leave it to the Cabinet. They’ll take care of it.”

  “If we left everything to the Cabinet, we’d both be dead.”

  He stroked her hair. “Regardless, Saraj’s primary concern will be to escape. He has no reason to chase you anymore, and I doubt he cares to torment me. He’ll be heading for the coast in the hopes of crossing the channel. If Alfred has time to send word to us, we can assume it’s because he already has men on Saraj’s tail.”

  Ceony let out a long breath, trying to wrap Emery’s reassurances around her like a warm blanket. She calmed a little, relaxed, but a ping of worry still warped her pulse. Nothing Saraj did was ever direct or predictable. What if her family still lay in his sights?

  Grath’s voice licked her thoughts as she heard him repeat her mother’s and father’s names. She shuddered.

  At least Emery wouldn’t be involved in this mess. He hadn’t worked with Criminal Affairs since Saraj’s arrest. With his ex-wife out of the picture for good, Emery no longer had a reason to deal with Excisioners, and the Cabinet had accepted that.

  She stayed in Emery’s arms a moment longer before pulling back. Emery kissed her softly.

  “I can try to find out more in the morning if it will help,” he offered. “The best thing we can do now is rest.”

  “And ward the house—”

  “The house is warded.” He managed a faint smile. “You are safe, Ceony, and so are they. I promise.”

  She nodded. Emery lingered a moment, then pressed his lips to her forehead and excused himself without words. She could stay with him again tonight. To hell with propriety. Still, she decided against asking. She trusted Emery, of course, and she didn’t want him to think otherwise. But how could he really know where Saraj Prendi would go, what he would do?

  Fennel lifted his head and offered a papery bark. Sighing, Ceony picked up her half-finished message and crumpled it in her hands, then tossed it into the dustbin with the command, “Shred.”

  She shut off the lights and climbed into bed, beckoning the paper dog to lie by her head. Yes, the best thing she could do now was sleep.

  She didn’t sleep well.

  “Oh, bugger!” Ceony cried the following afternoon as sour smoke funneled up from the oven door. She waved a dish towel back and forth in a futile attempt to clear the air. Coughing, she pulled open the oven door. Smoke assaulted her and burned her eyes, but Ceony reached through it and pulled out a well-charred brisket, black down to its juice. Hacking, she set the smoking dish on the stove and retreated for the back door, yanking it open and savoring the clean, late-spring air. Tendrils of smoke wafted over her head, dissipating into the outdoors. The smell lingered between the cabinets.

  Leaning against the door frame, Ceony took several deep breaths, hoping they would clear her head and calm her nerves. She hadn’t burned brisket since she was eleven. At least Emery wasn’t home to witness the catastrophe; he’d gone to Dartford that morning to inspect a new line of paper products designed especially for Folders, and he likely wouldn’t be home until after dinner.

  Ceony slid along the door frame until she crouched at the bottom. Fennel’s dry paper tongue licked her knee, but when she didn’t respond to him, he hopped outside after the smoke, padding about the lawn with his new rubber feet. They gave more spring to his step, letting him run a little faster, closer to the speed of a flesh-and-blood dog.

  Ceony rubbed the bridge of her nose where the cartilage met her forehead. She’d been upstairs reviewing written spells—paper magic accomplished with a pen or pencil—all while writing down next week’s grocery list when the burned brisket made itself known with the foul stench of dying food. Having formed a pact with herself that morning to keep busy, she’d barely allotted herself time to use the washroom, and she’d forgotten about the brisket, which she had cooked hours before dinner just to give herself something to do. Now, crouching in the smoke-laced air, her troubled thoughts caught up to her.

  Emery had taken the telegram, but it didn’t matter. Its blocky letters had already inscribed themselves into her mind. Saraj had loosed himself on the world, and though Ceony would like to believe he would flee England and be done with them, she did not trust it would happen that way. There was something broken inside Saraj, something crucial. That’s what Emery had told her, not long after Grath Cobalt’s death. Emery didn’t like talking about Excisioners, but Ceony had insisted.

  A sigh escaped her mouth. Yes, the house was warded, but that hadn’t stopped Lira from busting down the front door and ripping Emery’s heart from his chest. Paper was a poor repellant to Excision. And if Lira was little more than an apprentice, what horrors could Saraj dole out?

  Ceony stood, examining the empty house. Emery picked one hell of a day to leave town! It seemed he had restored the spells concealing the house, at least.

  Snapping her fingers, Ceony beckoned Fennel inside and locked the door, then marched to the front of the house and checked the locks there as well. The windows next. Despite the heat, she locked her window and the library’s, even secured the trapdoor to the roof.

  As she stepped into her bedroom to resume her studies, her eyes settled on her empty desk chair, knocked askew from her flight to the kitchen. Her fears turned on her, transposing the quivering body of Delilah upon the chair, a gag in her mouth, ropes binding her down.

  Ceony closed her eyes and rubbed circles over her temples in an attempt to stave off a growing headache. This wasn’t fair. She’d never meant for Delilah to be hurt . . . At least Grath had been buried six feet under along with her, though Ceony would have preferred for his grave to be even deeper.

  Lowering her hands, Ceony studied her palms, imagining the scars that would have marred them had a nameless Excisioner at the hospital not wished them away. She could feel the bite of the glass as it cut into her skin, the pressure in her hands as she stabbed the shard into Grath’s torso and shouted, “Shatter.”

  She didn’t feel guilty for killing him. Perhaps she should, but she didn’t. Her only remorse was not making it to Mg. Aviosky’s home sooner. If she had arrived before Grath, there was a chance Delilah would still be alive.

  “Or you would be dead, too,” Emery had said when she related the thought to him, his tone dark.

  She returned her focus to the chair,
only this time she saw her brother Marshall tied to it, not Delilah. Marshall, Zina, Margo, her parents. Emery. It could have been any one of them. It could be any one of them.

  Ceony pressed her lips together. She hated being the victim. If Saraj did come back, she wouldn’t be his. Not her, and not her loved ones. Not when there was a way to protect them—something she, alone, could do.

  Leaving the door ajar, Ceony hurried down the stairs and made her way to Emery’s study, where she took several lengths of smooth twine. She revisited the cookbook in the kitchen for her ball of phosphorus, then retreated to her room, shutting the door behind her despite being the only one home.

  She sat at her desk and went to work.

  She measured the twine around her neck and cut it accordingly, then began forming the charms, one by one. She started with the easiest—paper. She snatched up the closest piece of paper—an essay she had written about the history of paper animation. She sliced the top of it off with her Smelted scissors and Folded a thick starlight. The words “in 1744” graced the starlight’s face. Using a pair of pliers, she looped a piece of wire from a paper clip through one of the starlight’s points. Ceony wrapped more wire around a match, which contained both wood and phosphorus and would serve a dual purpose—allowing her to both break her bond to paper, as well as strike a flame to bond to fire.

  Second, she cut a rectangle from one of her sturdier handkerchiefs and, with the supplies from a small sewing kit, stitched up its sides, using a bit of spare twine for an enclosure. She retrieved a jar of fine Gaffer’s sand from the back of her bottom desk drawer and poured a tablespoon of the sand into the tiny bag and set it aside. She picked up her makeup compact—the one Delilah had given her—and held the handles of her pliers over it, but hesitated.

  Several seconds passed. She set the compact aside and instead went downstairs, selecting a glass cup from the cupboards. Back in her room, she chipped a shard from its rim and wound it in wire. She wrapped up the phosphorus next, and strung three more matches together, ensuring she could loosen one at a moment’s notice.

  Ceony leaned back in her chair and rolled her head, hearing her neck crack too many times to count. After flexing and unflexing her fingers, she started on the more difficult charms.

  She pierced wire through a spare rubber button, stole a bronze bead from a bracelet, and threaded twine through a small wing of melting plastic she had purchased in town at the beginning of the year, when she had studied Polymaking. She’d given up on the plastic-based magic after making Fennel’s skeleton, however. Being the most recently discovered material magic, there were few spells Ceony could find that didn’t require molds and plastic welding kits.

  Siping with rubber and Polymaking with plastics had been her more recent studies merely because finding samples of their natural substance proved far trickier than the rest. She had done a great deal of research and dealt with a fair number of peddlers who didn’t take her seriously, as she was neither a Siper nor a Polymaker most days, and she dared not claim otherwise. But enough prodding and investigation had paid off, and she had samples of the materials she needed for bonding.

  She searched the house for half an hour, trying to find a vial smaller than the one half-filled with almond extract in the kitchen. Then she remembered the perfume samples her sister Zina had given her. She dumped the weakest-smelling one and rinsed out the tiny vial, then pulled a fist-sized jug of oil—only somewhat different from the substance that ran through the engine of an automobile—from the back of her bottom desk drawer. She carefully poured a few drops into the perfume vial, corked the vial tightly, and wound it up with wire.

  Another item she had stashed in the drawer was liquid latex, which had come in a bottle small enough for her purposes. This had been the hardest natural substance for her to find, and explaining why she needed it had proven a chore. She wound it in wire, then retrieved a pure silver spoon from the same drawer. The spoon, albeit tarnished, was her magic wand for breaking the Smelting bond.

  She took the tip of the spoon’s handle in her pliers and bent it back and forth until the soft metal snapped. She wound the belled portion in wire and topped it with a hook.

  She strung her handiwork along the twine, forming a haphazard necklace, memorizing the placement of each item. She secured the twine and slipped it over her head, careful not to scrape herself on the glass and broken silver.

  Her back ached, but she felt accomplished. With this, she could be ready for anything. Saraj might have had power over flesh and blood, but she had power over everything else.

  Ceony checked the clock. There was still time.

  After hiding the necklace beneath her blouse, Ceony packed a small bag and snatched her bicycle, ready to make the long ride into town.

  It was time to visit Mg. Aviosky.

  CHAPTER 5

  CEONY PEDALED INTO London, cutting through Parliament Square and passing St. Alban’s Salmon Bistro, the place where she had first met Grath Cobalt and last lunched with Delilah. She tried not to dwell on the memories as she swung around Big Ben and crossed a narrow one-way street between slow-going automobiles, though it felt as if her dear friend’s fairylike laughter followed her.

  Glad that her self-made wind cooled her from the warming sun, Ceony rode her bicycle down Grange Road and through Lambeth. The loud, low whistle of a departing train from the Central London Railway echoed through the city, though the tracks didn’t cross through this part of London.

  Ceony slowed as she rounded a corner, passing quaint houses until she reached a sizeable house painted a deep sage green, though the heavy stonework across its face almost hid the color entirely. It had a small yard and a short wrought-iron fence, every other picket topped with enchanted Gaffer’s bulbs that would light up once the sun went down. A security measure, Ceony imagined. Mg. Aviosky had never particularly cared for aesthetics.

  Ceony dismounted her bike and combed her fingers through her hair before re-pinning it into its French twist. Mg. Aviosky had resided in this home for nearly two years, having moved after Delilah’s passing. The Gaffer must have suffered from her own bad memories, though she never spoke of them to Ceony.

  She approached the front door, knocked, and for a moment she stood on the porch of another house, knocking on a door that no one answered because Grath had already tied them up in the attic . . .

  Shaking her head, Ceony squeezed her eyes shut and tried to banish the memories from her mind.

  If you had gotten here sooner, she’d still be alive, her own voice whispered from the black caves somewhere at the back of her skull. It had become an all-too-familiar refrain.

  She rubbed her temples. I’m always too late, aren’t I? she thought, her bones growing heavy. Had she made it but half an hour sooner to her dear friend Anise’s home years ago, Ceony could have stopped the other girl from killing herself. Had she arrived at Mg. Aviosky’s home in better time, she could have stopped Grath from murdering Delilah.

  “Stop it,” she whispered to herself. She rapped on the door, the sound of knuckles on wood shattering her redundant thoughts. Only then did she realize Mg. Aviosky might not be home, especially given the business of her career. Ceony frowned. As far as she knew, the Gaffer no longer kept an apprentice. She couldn’t bring herself to, not after what happened to Delilah.

  “At least I got exercise,” Ceony murmured to herself. She knocked again for good measure, then rang the bell.

  To her relief, she heard soft footsteps approach the door from inside. They paused for several seconds before the door opened.

  “Miss Twill,” Mg. Aviosky said, standing in the door frame and not sounding the least bit surprised. She must have spied Ceony with some spell or another. “I certainly didn’t expect your company today.”

  “I suppose I should have telegraphed, or sent a bird,” Ceony replied, clasping her hands behind her back. “I do hope you have a few moments to spare? I need to discuss some important . . . and private . . . matters with you.”


  Mg. Aviosky’s thin lips frowned as they were wont to do, but the gesture lasted only a moment. She adjusted her glasses on her nose—a new pair, silver, and enchanted, judging by the faint etch marks on the upper-right-hand corners of each lens. If Ceony recalled correctly from her ancillary Gaffer studies, that enchantment could make the lenses magnify something to a near-microscopic level. “Of course,” she said, stepping aside. “Come in.”

  Ceony stepped in and removed her shoes. Mg. Aviosky closed the door and gestured to the front room.

  “Are you here because you’re concerned about your test?” Mg. Aviosky asked, smoothing her skirt and sitting on a lavender chair near the fireplace. “You’re not required to try for your magicianship after two years, Miss Twill. Or are you troubled that Magician Thane won’t be the one testing you?”

  Ceony blinked, sliding down onto the edge of the sofa patterned with large prints of maroon and navy lilies. “You know about that?”

  “It’s my business to know,” Mg. Aviosky said, pointing her nose slightly closer to the ceiling. She relaxed her shoulders. “But truthfully, I feel an obligation to follow up with charges of mine from Tagis Praff, at least until they’re settled into their careers.”

  Ceony nodded, then smiled. “I didn’t take you for the sentimental type.”

  Mg. Aviosky raised an eyebrow.

  “But no,” she continued, clasping her hands over her knees. “I’m not here about my test. Or to speak about my studies at all. I came to you because of a telegram Em—Magician Thane received last night.”

  Stiffness seeped back into the glass magician’s shoulders. “From Magician Hughes,” she said. It didn’t sound like a question, but Ceony nodded regardless. Mg. Aviosky must have received word of Saraj as well.

  Releasing a sigh, Mg. Aviosky leaned back in her chair and pressed an index finger to her forehead, just above the nose guard of her glasses. “That man cannot keep his wits all in one jar,” she said. “He might as well initiate Magician Thane into the Criminal Affairs department officially.”