The Glass Magician

“I am sorry, Emery,” Ceony said, resting her hands on her bag.

“It’s hardly your fault,” he said, and he lifted his left arm up and around her shoulders. Ceony’s heart raced against its weight, and she dared not move for fear of scaring the gesture away. “If anything,” he continued, “it’s mine. If not for me, you wouldn’t be involved in this business at all.” He paused. “Actually, no. It’s Patrice Aviosky’s fault, for assigning you to me. Yes, let’s blame her.”

Ceony laughed and stifled a yawn. “I’m glad she did, though.”

“You are certainly the most amusing apprentice I’ve had,” Emery said in a strange sort of agreement. “Langston was the dullest.”

“He’s not much younger than you.”

“No, he’s not,” Emery said. His thumb absently traced the edge of Ceony’s braid, and Ceony thanked the darkness for hiding the reddening of her cheeks. “I was only twenty-four when I took him on, just two years out of my own apprenticeship. But the number of Folders had declined so rapidly that Praff was assigning to just about anyone. It was either me or sail across the ocean to New Orleans. Langston stayed in England to pursue a girl.”

Clearing her throat and trying not to focus on Emery’s closeness, Ceony asked, “Is he married now?”

Emery chuckled. “Goodness no. She wrote him quite the scathing letter two weeks into his apprenticeship. He was a bucket of sap for a month after that, but his focus improved in the end. Daniel, however, was a different story. He’s the reason I moved to the cottage and started warding the gate.”

Ceony let herself relax in her seat. Emery’s arm remained around her shoulders. “Was he a troublemaker?”

“A flirt. An awful one at that, but somehow he attracted women who fell for his questionable charms,” Emery said, thoughtful. “I had a new one on my doorstep every week, or so it seemed. That boy would have taken six years to earn his magicianship at the rate he was going. But another reason our time was cut short was the timing . . . and, well, you already know enough about that.”

Ceony nodded, swallowing another yawn. She had only learned a snippet about Emery’s second apprentice from her journey through Emery’s heart; all she knew was that he had to be transferred because of issues with Lira.

Emery chuckled. “One girl who came by couldn’t have been a day out of secondary. Tall as Langston. Daniel was a rather short fellow and seemed put out by her visit, but I invited her in, thinking maybe it would dissuade him from handing out my address like Halloween candy—”

A jolt in the road startled Ceony awake; she hadn’t realized she’d dozed off, and perhaps Emery hadn’t, either, for he was still chatting away beside her. Her head rested against his shoulder, and she straightened quickly, a new flush burning her skin.

“And it was shrimp,” he said, shaking his head. “Who puts shrimp and sweet cream in the same dish? Certainly you’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“It . . .” Ceony blinked sleep from her eyes. “It sounds like a soup I’ve seen in Devonshire,” she said. “I don’t think—”

She squinted through the windshield of the vehicle. Was that a person on the road, just beyond the glow of the buggy’s lights?

The light fanned over him, and time stopped.

The man jerked his arm upward. The windshield didn’t shatter and Ceony heard no pistol fire, but the driver’s head jerked backward, spurting black blood over his seat and the windshield.

The driver slumped in his seat, falling against the steering wheel. The buggy’s headlamps pulled away from the road, illuminating plants, earth, and finally—to Ceony’s horror—the dark, churning water of the river. Emery gripped her shoulder, pressing his other hand against the ceiling to brace himself.

Time started again when the buggy hit the black water. Ceony jerked forward and grabbed the seat in front of her. Pain shot up her wrists. Darkness flooded the cab. Cold water pooled at her feet.

Snow-cold chills spread from Ceony’s chest into her limbs, freezing her solid. Her thoughts shut down. Her heart stopped beating. Her throat went dry. Her legs turned numb.

“No no no no no no no no no!” she cried, but her voice sounded from somewhere else, somewhere distant. Water poured into the buggy, climbing like thousands of chilled spiders up her calves, knees, thighs—

Emery pushed against the door as water gushed in through the buggy’s glassless window. The entire car slanted, its nose pushing for the river bottom.

Drowning. She was drowning. Tears poured down her cheeks, but she still couldn’t move, not even as the water climbed up her legs and over the seat, up her blouse.

“I’m going to pull you out,” Emery said, his words airy and quick.

“No no no . . . ,” Ceony muttered, wide-eyed, clutching to the upholstery with white knuckles. “No no no no . . .”