The Glass Magician

“Third?” Mg. Aviosky repeated, eyes bugging behind her thin glasses.

Mg. Hughes nodded. “I received a report yesterday evening concerning the reappearance of Grath Cobalt. Seems he’s back in town, and he paid Miss Twill a personal visit.”

Delilah gripped Ceony’s arm to her chest and shuddered.

Mg. Aviosky’s skin paled. “But he left England!”

“So we thought,” Mg. Hughes said. “But he’s come back for this one.”

“No, he’s come back for Lira,” Ceony interjected, adjusting her damp shirt with her free arm. The towel she had been given upon her arrival had already soaked through and now hung off the back of her chair. “He thinks I have the secret to restoring her.”

But Ceony barely understood how she defeated Lira in the first place. They had fought outside the cave. In a struggle for Lira’s knife, Ceony had sliced open the woman’s eye . . . and in a moment that her memory could still not piece together, Ceony had written Lira froze on a piece of damp paper. Written as she would a story illusion. Only Lira’s frozen state was no illusion.

“Seems he didn’t like your response,” Mg. Hughes said, intrigued.

“No,” said a tired baritone behind them—Ceony recognized the voice as Emery’s. “This wasn’t Grath.”

They all turned toward Emery. Mg. Cantrell, who had also emerged from the office, was busily writing something in a ledger at a nearby desk. Delilah’s grip on Ceony’s arm tightened even more.

“Ceony agrees with me on that much,” Emery said, giving Ceony a sympathetic look. She felt a surge of relief that the paper magician wasn’t angry with her for making a bad situation worse—or, at least, he didn’t seem to be. “I don’t know for sure. I had a poor vantage point and it was dark, but I suspect that Saraj Prendi might still be in cahoots with Grath.”

Mg. Hughes frowned. “We haven’t heard high or low on Prendi for nearly three years.”

“I imagine you have,” Emery said, “you just didn’t know it was him.”

Mg. Hughes scoffed, but he didn’t debate the point.

“Who is Saraj?” asked Delilah.

Mg. Hughes sighed. “Perhaps you should take your apprentice to another room, Patrice.”

“Please let her stay,” Ceony said. “She should know, too. She was almost part of it.”

Delilah’s mouth dropped, but she kept her wits about her enough not to ask how for the time being.

Mg. Aviosky nodded, and Mg. Hughes shrugged.

“Saraj Prendi is an Excisioner who hails from India,” the Siper said. “At least, his lineage is Indian. We don’t have enough details on his history to confirm his place of birth. But we do have a solid criminal profile on him.”

Gooseflesh prickled Ceony’s arms.

“Which is?” Mg. Aviosky asked.

“He’s unpredictable,” Mg. Hughes said. “Sometimes he does solo jobs; sometimes he works with large groups of Excisioners, such as the one Grath Cobalt used to lead, until our sting operation in 1901 disbanded it. Two things we do know are that Saraj Prendi likes to show off, and he has a distinct lack of conscience.”

“Show off,” Ceony said, “like with explosions.”

“Perhaps,” Mg. Hughes said, “but we have no evidence to link him to the paper mill. In fact, we have nothing to tie the mill to these other events save for you, Miss Twill.”

Ceony thought of the Indian man she had seen in the crowd outside the mill after the explosion, thought of the strange feeling of being watched that had prickled her skin that day. She shuddered.

“I think it was him,” she whispered. “I think . . . I think I saw him, outside the mill. Dark skin, dark eyes . . . thin, with a half beard, right? I think he was there.”

Emery’s brows drew together, making his forehead crease. His eyes glimmered in a way that reminded Ceony of the heat that rose from sunbaked cobblestone streets.

Ceony’s body itched under her clothes. What if Saraj had gotten close enough to touch her? What if one simple gesture on that road had sent her blood flying, too?

“Well,” Mg. Hughes said, sounding quite sober, “if that’s the case—”

Ceony shook her head hard enough that Delilah, who was still clinging to her, stumbled. “But they can’t be working together! Grath wanted me to cooperate with him. He wants to hear what happened at Foulness Island from my lips. If he kills me, he won’t get his answers. Even if this other man is Saraj Prendi, he couldn’t possibly be working with Grath. Grath wants me alive, and I think it’s fairly obvious that Saraj does not.”

“Very astute,” Emery commented darkly.

Mg. Aviosky nodded. “A good point, if an uneasy one.”

Mg. Hughes returned to rubbing his beard. “And yet they both seem fixated on Ceony. I can think of no motivation for Saraj outside of Grath’s direction, unless they’ve become cross with one another. But if I recall correctly”—he glanced to Emery—“Saraj greatly disliked Lira. I highly doubt her well-being would be any motivating factor of his.”