The Glass Magician

And though he had more girth than muscle, he was about twice Grath’s size.

“My name is Ceony,” she rushed. “I’m Magician Thane’s apprentice and I’m incredibly lost. Please, please, can you help me get home?”

Langston blinked several times, clearly confused by this turn of events, but nodded. “Of course—I have an auto parked just a few streets down. It won’t be a problem; my meeting was cancelled anyway.”

Langston offered his arm, which Ceony gratefully—and desperately—accepted.

As they walked she dared to spy over her shoulder, but she saw no sign of Grath Cobalt behind her.





CHAPTER 5



EMERY WAS KNEELING OUTSIDE “gardening” when Ceony and Langston stepped through the illusion that masked the paper magician’s house. He had positioned himself outside the curving garden of meticulously crafted paper flowers, and seemed to be replacing all the red, tulip-shaped flower heads with blue, lily-shaped ones. Fennel chewed on the discarded spells as Emery worked, crumpling them in his paper mouth and then spitting the balls into an overturned trash receptacle. The paper dog yipped at the sight of Ceony.

“Langston?” Emery asked as he stood and brushed off his slacks. “I didn’t expect your company today.”

Before the younger Folder could answer? however, Ceony blurted, “Grath Cobalt is in the city, and I think I’ve blown up my wallet.”

Emery’s expression turned to stone. Even his eyes darkened, reminding Ceony all too well of the third chamber of his heart, where she’d seen his failures and heartbreaks. His darkness. “Are you sure?” he asked, but it didn’t sound like a question. In fact, the words sounded . . . threatening.

Ceony nodded. “I know him, from . . . from before,” she said, eyes dropping to Emery’s chest for just a moment. “He spoke to me at the bistro.”

Emery’s skin grayed. “Both of you come inside,” he said, turning from the garden and crushing a blue lily under his foot, “and let’s talk.”




Langston headed for the crowded sitting room and sunk into the middle cushion of the sofa to make himself comfortable, but Ceony marched down the hallway to the kitchen. It was where she often went to think over difficult things. Needing something to busy her hands, she stoked the stove and filled the teakettle with water, then sifted through the cupboards until she found dried peppermint leaves. She divided them into three ceramic cups, despite not wanting tea herself. She doubted Emery would want any, either; in fact, he came into the kitchen before the water had a chance to boil. She took the kettle off the stove anyway.

He stood behind her while she poured the hot water into the teacups. “Tell me what happened.”

“No one got hurt, I don’t think,” she said. No one but Grath, she supposed. She had made the spell small enough to avoid hurting any of the other patrons, but it must have scared half the life out of them.

Emery pulled the kettle from her hands and set it on the counter, then grasped her shoulders and turned her toward him. “Ceony,” he said, enunciating each syllable, despite a hush in his voice. He stooped until his vivid green eyes peered straight into hers. “Tell me what happened.”

Ceony related her lunch date with Delilah, Grath’s poor disguise, and the Excisioner’s demands regarding Lira. Emery’s lips thinned more and more with every sentence, but they parted when Ceony mentioned the man’s threats.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have repeated the conversation verbatim.

Saying Grath’s words with her own lips somehow gave them more weight. She turned to the dining room wall where Lira had pinned Emery without hands and stolen his heart. She thought of the corpses trapped in the back room of the meatpacking warehouse, perhaps the most horrifying image Ceony had beheld inside Emery’s heart. She thought of the uneasy warmth that had flowed through her skin when Lira had grabbed her and started to chant.

She shivered.

“I would have used the Mimic spell to tell you, but it was in my purse. I only ran into Langston afterward. I didn’t want to involve him, but I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”

“I doubt he’ll become a target,” Emery said, solemn. “But let’s hope Grath didn’t see him, or doesn’t care. He tends to choose very specific quarries.”

He took Ceony’s hand, which calmed her nerves and excited a different set of them, and led her to the living room. He released her before they reached Langston’s line of sight.

Emery asked for his former apprentice’s story, but Langston didn’t have much to add, having only seen Ceony after her confrontation with Grath.