The Master Magician (The Paper Magician Series Book 3)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  Reading. She could try and find a mirror . . . but the one in the lavatory next door was too small to fit through, and what if she missed the mark again and ended up somewhere outside Reading, alone and at night? Could she just transport from mirror to mirror until she got where she wanted, depending on luck to protect her from getting trapped in the purgatory between tarnished looking glasses?

  She could summon a buggy at first light, but how much would it cost to hire a buggy to Reading? Would the train be faster? Would Mg. Bailey let her go? He might be happy to see the back of her, but she didn’t want to antagonize him any more than she already had.

  Ceony knit her fingers together and continued pacing. If she left now, she’d have the cover of darkness. Saraj would share that advantage, of course, but Ceony could handle that. Besides, if she were either a Gaffer or a Pyre, she could create light with the snap of her fingers. The cover of night would also help conceal her bond-breaking talent from others—bystanders, policemen, even Criminal Affairs itself. If others learned of it, they might not be as withholding with the information as Ceony was.

  And what will you do if you find him, Ceony? she wondered. Will you kill him?

  Her breath hitched. She worried her lip. She’d killed Grath, yes, and didn’t regret doing so. He’d murdered Delilah. He would have killed her and Mg. Aviosky, too, if given the chance.

  But did she really want to take a second life? Perhaps she could just maim Saraj, hurt him enough so he couldn’t fight back . . . but no. She couldn’t allow him another chance at escape. He had already been tried and convicted, besides. He was supposed to be dead.

  Breathing in, Ceony filled her lungs until they threatened to burst, then let the air out all at once. If she found Saraj, if they had a confrontation . . . she wouldn’t hold back. She couldn’t afford to. He was undeserving of mercy.

  But there was still the issue of getting to Reading. She could risk the mirrors again, but Ceony worried her luck with using non-Gaffered glass was wearing thin. A buggy might not come out this late, not without extra fees, and her next stipend payment was a week away. Still, it would be worth it, no? It would—

  “Magician Bailey has his own Mercedes, and sometimes he lets me take it out.”

  “Bennet,” she whispered. He could drive her to the train station now. She’d save on time, as well as a few pounds. And if she used the new enchanted Smelter rails installed at the Central London Railway, she could be in Reading before midnight.

  Do you really want to involve another person in this? asked the voice in the back of her mind. Could Bennet end up traveling the same road as Anise and Delilah? Was she destined to leave a path of devastation behind her?

  “I won’t let him come with me,” she told herself. “A drop-off at the train station, and that’s it.” After that, I won’t lean on Bennet for anything. Perhaps a touch of flirtation would help convince him.

  Seizing a gray square of paper, Ceony scribbled across its surface and Folded it into a simple glider, which she directed to the window below hers. She watched until Bennet’s window opened and his hand guided the glider into his room.

  The park will have to wait. Can you take me to the CLR? It’s vitally important and would mean the world to me.

  Best to leave Mg. Bailey to his rest. Secrets make friendships fonder, no?

  Turning from the window, Ceony opened her ledger with her free hand and flipped to her notes on Saraj, despite having memorized the words verbatim. She’d written both Delilah’s and Anise’s names in the corner and traced them over and over again until the letters were so thick the names were barely legible. Her conversation with Mg. Aviosky played through her mind. She mulled over that piece of brown glass stowed away in her purse.

  Ceony realized she had found a gold coin in the murky sewage of her situation with Mg. Bailey—a sort of freedom she would never have back at the cottage.

  Emery wasn’t here. She needn’t worry about hiding secrets or bending promises so long as she resided in this empty mansion so far from her dear tutor, and no one, not even Mg. Bailey, supervised her time.

  She cradled the red songbird against her chest. Yes. So long as she resided with the petulant Folder, she could—and would—continue her pursuit of Saraj.

  Enchanted lamps and fire workings kept the CLR aglow as Bennet, his hands sweaty, white, and gripping the steering wheel of his tutor’s car, pulled into the exact same parking spot Ceony had sat in nearly two years ago with Emery, before the paper magician had taken off to battle Saraj. Oddly, it was also the same place where he had first kissed her.

  Ceony didn’t mention this to her comrade, of course.

  “I don’t know what he’ll do if I’m caught,” Bennet wheezed, “but I don’t think it will be good.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Ceony assured him. She squeezed his shoulder. “Thank you. I’ll be back before too long. Don’t wait up.”

  “Are you sure? I can come with you, help you with whatever it is that needs doing. You shouldn’t go alone, Ceony. A woman out alone in the dark . . .”

  I have to. No one else will get hurt if I’m alone. She smiled. “Unless someone robs the train, I’ll be fine. You wouldn’t be much good in a robbery like that anyway. Besides, you have Magician Bailey to worry about.”

  Bennet swallowed, looking sallow and ill. “What should I say if he asks?”

  “Nothing,” Ceony replied, slinging her bag over her shoulder. It pulled with the extra weight of her Tatham percussion-lock pistol, which she’d stowed in the very bottom, just in case. “I left an illusion in my room of me sleeping, if he bothers to check.”

  “He’ll be able to tell.”

  “Only if he’s looking closely,” she countered. “Be safe.”

  Bennet nodded. “Best hurry. And then you can give me the details of why you need to be at the CLR so late at night. You can trust me, Ceony.”

  Ceony made no promises, merely let herself out of the vehicle and strode to the station, where she purchased a ticket and boarded the last train for Reading. Only three other people rode in the car with her.

  Ceony fiddled with her charm necklace as the train sped west, its wide wheels practically floating over the Smelter-enchanted rails beneath it. How the metal-induced spell of speed worked, Ceony didn’t know. None of her personal studies in Smelting came close to such a feat, which had only been built a few years back. She remembered glimpsing an article on it in the local paper, back when she’d still been a student at Tagis Praff.

  Unease began to creep into Ceony’s resolve when the train met its destination, blowing out smoke and steam as the engine relaxed onto its rails for a night’s rest. She imagined it to be near midnight, and despite the glow of more magicked lamps in the Reading train station, Ceony couldn’t help but focus on the dark spots in between them and beyond. She slipped her right hand into her bag as she walked, touching both Folded and un-Folded papers, fingering the handle of her pistol.

  Emery would be furious.

  Fortunately, Reading, like London, boasted a big enough population that most streets glowed with lamplight, all enchanted. In fact, Ceony couldn’t find a single ordinary lamp. She supposed that was due to Reading being the host city of Magicians’ English Enterprising, the largest material-magics engineering firm in all of Great Britain. It was the same company responsible for whatever hovering spell was boosting the railways’ efficiency. They had given an address at Tagis Praff the week before Ceony’s graduation, though it had turned into more of a hunt for future employees. As far as Ceony knew, the company didn’t employ Folders.

  The whistle of another train sounded through the illuminated city as Ceony strode down Broad Street, though this one came from another direction. At least three railways converged on Reading. Only one could take her back to London, however. Several people milled about despite the late hour—two businessmen absorbed in conversation, a scandalously dressed woman smoking a fag, three men exiting a different car on the train Ceony had taken, laug
hing hard enough to cry. Ceony left them all behind.

  Stopping near a statue with the name “George Palmer” engraved on it, Ceony pulled three songbirds from her purse and commanded them, “Breathe.” She whispered secrets to the birds, telling them how to detect Excision magic and find the elusive Saraj Prendi, and then released them into the air.

  Staying on the lit streets, albeit out of the way, Ceony meandered by a noisy inn and peeked through a window unshielded by curtains, scanning the faces within, listening to the music a young balding man banged on a piano in the corner. She wished she had more to go on but also hoped she wouldn’t find anything substantial. She’d considered bringing the paper bird that had alerted her of Reading, but the creature was so damaged it had ceased to hold its animation.

  Stifling a yawn with the back of her hand, Ceony continued onward, taking one road and then another, avoiding dark alleys, using a Folded telescope to peer down lanes. She found no mirrors or bits of reflective glass to cast upon and eventually crossed the street to avoid a laughing, inebriated couple who stumbled over the pavement. Eventually Ceony followed a line of blue-lit lanterns toward the bank of the River Kennet, which wound down from the River Thames and sliced through the south side of Reading. She kept clear of the docks, wanting to keep a safe distance from the water at all times. She still hadn’t learned how to swim, though Emery had mentioned wanting to teach her. Modesty, of course, was an issue, as was her unabated fear of drowning.

  The flapping of paper reached her ears, and Ceony looked up to see one of her songbirds, Folded from black paper, descending to her. It hovered at eye level for a moment before backflipping in the air.

  “You found something?” Ceony asked, voice low. How she wished these animated spells could talk! “Show me.”

  The bird flew over Ceony’s shoulder and down a bend in the next street, winding closer to the river. Clasping the pistol inside her bag, Ceony hurried after it, not quite running. The dark spell disappeared between streetlamps, blending in with the night sky, but it didn’t fly so fast that Ceony couldn’t keep track of it.

  It took her past a four-story building rowed with windows, a Victorian-esque structure waving a flag from its chimney, and a dark building that looked like a cross between a schoolhouse and a barn. A sign near its door read “Simond’s Brewery.” Only one of its windows—on the third floor—was dimly lit.

  Canals branching from River Kennet looped through this part of Reading. Ceony grit her teeth as she hurried over a short bridge crossing the still water. Here the enchanted lamps, shorter than those in the other part of town, had Pyre-made flames that changed from lime to fuchsia, perhaps to draw attention to the waterline. Their reflections off the canal’s surface looked like lily pads, but Ceony tried not to stare at the water too closely. She had more critical things to fear at the moment.

  The black songbird landed on a sign that read “Kennet and Avon Canal, Authorized Vehicles Only.” Ceony reached it, huffing to catch her breath. The little bird flew down into her hands, where she commanded it, “Cease,” and tucked it into her bag.

  She searched the area, noting a bench by the canal, as well as a drooping tree that had seen better days. Another bridge led to a dock behind her.

  On the water she saw a small boat, little more than a canoe, carrying two people—one rowed; the other smoked a cigar. A lantern sat between them, casting a mustardy glow off their faces. The man with the cigar had an old face with a prominent nose and loose skin; the man rowing wore long, loose sleeves and had a dark complexion—

  Ceony’s breath caught in her throat, and a shiver ran down her spine. She stepped to the left to put the tree between herself and the boat, which steadily drew farther and farther from her. Saraj—could that man be Saraj? She thought so, but she had never gotten a clear look at the man in the light of day, only glimpses here and there. What was he doing? Where was he going, and who was helping him?

  What exactly did Ceony plan to do? She had the upper hand of having found him first, but the water . . .

  She swallowed. Her compact mirror was in her purse. She could use it to contact Mg. Aviosky or Mg. Hughes, alert them of what she’d seen. Perhaps they would believe she’d come across a Gaffer who’d agreed to help her with the spell. She’d have to explain herself . . . Word would reach Emery . . . Surely Mg. Aviosky wouldn’t suspend her at the very end of her apprenticeship!

  But so what if she were suspended? Wouldn’t getting Saraj’s neck in the hangman’s noose be worth it? The well-being of her family was more important than any magician’s certificate.

  She released her pistol and fumbled through her bag for the mirror, glancing up to spy again at the distancing boat.

  “You’re like a kitten.”

  The honey-slick voice pricked at the back of Ceony’s neck like cold needles, making her jump. She whirled around to see a tall, thin silhouette of a man standing at the edge of the bridge to the port.

  Her hand snapped back to the pistol. “Excuse me?”

  The man moved forward until the light of the nearest flashing lamp cast its green and purple beams on him. They glinted off the gold studs in his ears. An Indian man who stood a little too slender, matted curls jutting out from either side of his almost triangular head. He wore tattered clothes that needed washing. The clothing of a man on the run.

  “A kitten,” his accented words repeated. “Who wanders around and follows those who offer her milk. But I have no milk, kitten.”

  An icy tremor coursed down Ceony’s back.

  Saraj Prendi took one step closer. “So tell me, Ceony Maya Twill . . . Why have I found you wandering this city so late at night?”

  He grinned a truly canine smile.

  CHAPTER 11

  CEONY’S THROAT CLOSED, and she took a step back from the Excisioner, her shoulder brushing a drooping branch of the tree. She dared to glance behind her, but the small boat and its oblivious passengers had sailed too far to hear her if she screamed. She couldn’t see their lantern anymore.

  “Curious,” Saraj said, folding his long arms and taking a step toward her—once, twice. “Usually a kicked animal fears its abuser, cowers from him. Avoids him. But I have this strange”—he waved a hand in the air—“inkling that you’ve sought me out. Inkling, correct? I believe I’m using the word correctly. Yes. What a strange kitten you are, kagaz. Unless you have another purpose.”

  He paused, looking her up and down. His gaze felt like slime on Ceony’s skin, but from what Ceony could see in the blinking lamplight, there was no lust in it. No, he looked at her as if she were a piece of furniture, an end table or chair. Something tossed on the street, and he couldn’t decide if it was worth salvaging. “No,” he said. “You’re not dressed like a harlot.”

  “Of course I’m not,” Ceony spat, her anger at the assumption giving her just enough fuel to speak. Still, she took another step back, her eyes searching Saraj’s belt. Lira had kept glass vials of blood secured at her waist for spells, but there didn’t appear to be any on Saraj, unless they were under his shirt. Then again, an Excisioner wouldn’t need blood to destroy her; just one touch would do.

  Ceony’s free hand moved to her necklace. She swallowed. “Why are you here, Saraj? Why not flee when you had the chance? I know about your prison break.”

  Saraj laughed. “I’m famous, it seems. If you must know, kitten, I have unfinished business to attend to. Things to collect. You are not my sun.”

  “Huh?” she murmured under her breath, barely moving her lips.

  “My sun,” Saraj repeated, relaxing his stance. He swirled an index finger around. “Orbits, rotations. My doings don’t revolve around you. See?”

  Ceony gave herself a few seconds before answering, her fingers playing across her necklace. “No, they revolve around Grath,” she said, clearing her throat once to prevent a tremor in her voice. “He seemed confident about that. But he’s not here.”

  Saraj frowned. “No,” he agreed, but Ceony detected no remorse
in the word, no regret, no loyalty.

  He took another step forward. Ceony drew her pistol and pointed it at him.

  Saraj grinned, his teeth not white enough to reflect the lamplight. He tilted his head to one side, staring at Ceony. Making her feel uncomfortable. Slipping a hand into his pocket, he began to chant words in a language no countryman knew—the language of the dark. She recognized this spell, its lilts and rhythm. A healing spell, not a spell meant to injure her. Not yet.

  She let Saraj have his words and took the chance to whisper her own, hand on her necklace, hoping the darkness hid her lips.

  “Is this about the rest of the litter?” Saraj asked, his chant finished. He held the spell in the hand embedded in his pocket, ready to use it should Ceony fire. Did he think she didn’t know? “Your parivāra? The mum and pop and other kittens?”

  Ceony’s grip on her pistol tightened, her palm sweating. She kept it leveled at Saraj’s chest.

  Saraj pulled his hand free—a dark drop of blood dripped down from his thumb—and the skin of it glimmered gold. The healing spell. Well, Ceony doubted it could cure a bullet to the head.

  She adjusted her aim for Saraj’s forehead.

  “Litter, kittens,” Ceony repeated, “this is all just a game for you, isn’t it? You didn’t care about Lira, and I don’t think you cared about Grath—”

  “A game!” Saraj exclaimed, hand still aglow. “Oh, but they were poor players,” he said, advancing with a long stride. “And your littermates make boring pieces. A favor for him before, but they’re so dull, kitten.”

  Ceony’s hand shifted on her necklace, skipping over the vial of oil, bag of sand, and starlight marked “in 1744.” Her words were so quiet she may have only thought them. She couldn’t let Saraj know her secret—Grath’s secret—but even if he learned it, he couldn’t share it if he were dead.

  “I need money to get by, just like any dolly,” he said, moving forward. Ceony moved back. “Got to collect. But that’s not a game, is it? That’s boring. But you . . . you’re here, now. You’ve come to play. To show me what’s inside you.”