The Glass Magician

Chewing on her lower lip, Ceony carefully cut the line at the doll’s right hip. It fell away from its bordering paper.

Ceony grasped the doll by the shoulders and stood, taking it to the bedroom closet, away from direct line of sight of the door, as the bedroom didn’t have a lock. She straightened it as best she could, the two-dimensional head flopping, and said, “Stand.”

To her relief and exuberance, the paper cutout stiffened and stood on its own accord, feeling almost like thin cardboard. She released its shoulders.

Now for the real test. Mimicking Emery’s demonstration of the spell, she stood two feet away from the doll, arranged herself to match the silhouette, and said, “Copy.”

Wispy color—similar to that of a story illusion—began to form on the doll. Orange glazed the head; the shirt turned gray, the skirt, navy. The colors molded and darkened until a perfect, flat replica of Ceony stood across from her. It bore the same hopeful expression Ceony must have been wearing when she gave the “Copy” command. Even the backside of the doll matched Ceony’s backside. From straight on, it looked like a real person. From any other view, it was obviously a paper doll.

Ceony stepped back and sat on her bed, studying her work. A decent illusion, for paper, though the doll couldn’t speak, and its interactions with its environment would be incredibly limited. It had no joints, after all, and no brain. A Gaffer could create a much better illusion, if a less opaque one. Or a Polymaker. Polymakers always made such complex things out of plastic.

She stared at the doll, her exuberance fading.

She thought of Lira.

Emery Thane’s heart bore dozens of corners and alleyways that she hadn’t seen during her short stay there. For instance, she knew about none of Emery’s previous love interests besides Lira, whom he had married. Staring at the paper doll, Ceony couldn’t help but notice the physical differences between herself and Lira.

Thanks to her keen memory, Ceony could picture Lira down to the stitches in her clothing. She pushed away thoughts of the black-clad Excisioner who had stolen Emery’s heart in more ways than one, and instead pulled up the image of the woman with whom Emery had fallen in love—the Lira from the flowery hill at sunset and from the quaint wedding where, for the briefest instant, Ceony had stood in her place.

Though Ceony hated to admit it, Lira was one of the most stunning women she had ever laid eyes on, far more stunning than what Ceony saw in the mirror. Or, in this case, in her paper doll. Lira had dark, curling hair; long, dark lashes; and dark eyes. Ceony had oddly orange hair kinked with a few awkward waves, blond eyelashes and eyebrows, and pale eyes. Lira was built like one of those girls Ceony saw on glamour photographs outside risqué theatres; Ceony had a much narrower frame, all sharper angles and straight lines. She was short, too, the top of her head measuring about equal with Emery’s Adam’s apple. With the right shoes, Lira could have looked him in the eye.

Ceony didn’t know much about what Lira had been like before becoming an Excisioner—only that she had been a nurse and far more pleasant—but she knew she and Emery’s ex-wife were very, very different people.

So how could she possibly believe that a man like Emery would fall for a simple girl like her?

Ceony fell back onto the bed and stared up at the beige ceiling. She thought again of the fortuity box she’d Folded the day Emery awoke from his Excision-induced slumber. Its vision had been as crisp as anything she’d seen in Emery’s heart, yet the future was always changing. Any psychic at the county fair knew as much. Would Emery’s future include her at all if she were to read it now? She didn’t think she wanted to know, assuming the paper magician cared enough to humor her a second time.

Ceony pushed Lira out of her mind and thought instead of all the small moments that had fueled her hope—the signs that Emery might harbor some affection for her, too.

And Mg. Aviosky had obviously sensed something between them if she had gone so far as to set up another apprenticeship for Ceony. It couldn’t all be in Ceony’s head.

“You’re my apprentice. I don’t . . . don’t think I need to remind you of that.”

Ceony deflated. Or perhaps what Mg. Aviosky saw truly was entirely one-sided. No wonder she hadn’t spoken to Emery first. Mg. Thane, that is.