The Glass Magician

Langston knocked on the door. “Here, this will help with that bruise,” he said. He handed her a bag filled with confetti, much like the confetti Emery kept in his icebox. The bag felt cold beneath Ceony’s fingers.

“Thank you,” she said. Langston departed with a nod, and Ceony pressed the bag to her cheek, wincing at the soreness beneath her skin. She must look dreadful.

She thought about cooking something, if only to thank Langston for his patience, but she found herself without the motivation. Langston, being a sweet man, did bring her some biscuits and honey at a quarter past six. She ate slowly, and not much at all. Her stomach felt too tight, despite her long stint without food, though she did guzzle the glass of water he brought with the biscuits. She chewed almost mechanically, thinking of her family and Delilah. Thinking of Emery.

She stayed up until midnight and slept only in fits, her mind cycling between Grath’s threats and her shadowy memories of Saraj from the paper mill, the night of the buggy crash, and the market.

She thought about Grath’s words: “It’s all in the material . . . Those blasted sealing words . . .”

But no one could break a bond, Ceony knew. That had been drilled into her at Tagis Praff, for choosing a material—those who had the option of choosing, at least—was a critical and final decision in the career of a magician. Somewhere in the timeline of his life, Grath had bonded to glass without proper authority—a felony in and of itself—and that bond couldn’t be revoked.

When Ceony finally fell asleep, she dreamed of mirrors, of Emery, and of Grath, on and off, until the rising sun finally gave her an excuse to get out of bed.




The next morning Ceony did find a pale-blue blouse that fit. Most of the skirts were both too wide and too long to sit comfortably on her, but she found a light-gray one in the back of the closet that fell to midcalf—shorter than what Ceony typically preferred. It must have been only knee-length on Langston’s sister, which made Ceony believe she had to belong to the Liberal Party, for no conservative woman would show so much leg, stockings or no. But Ceony’s own skirt had been terribly soiled, so she pulled on the new skirt and used a hairpin to tighten the waistband in the back. She combed out her hair, but without any spare pins or barrettes, she could only braid it over her shoulder.

Downstairs she found Langston eating a bowl of plain oatmeal at the dining table and reading an article in the science section of the newspaper titled “Polymaker Invents Cake-like ‘Polystyrene’ Plastic, Unsure How to Enchant.” He glanced up when Ceony approached, and thoroughly wiped his mouth.

“Have you heard from him?” Ceony asked.

Langston shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Can I get you some breakfast?”

Ceony glanced at the oatmeal—which looked overcooked—and said, “I could cook something, if you’d like. I don’t mind. What do you have?”

Langston stared at her dumbfounded for a moment. “Uh . . . well, there’s flour in the cupboard.”

Ceony managed a genuine smile. “I’ll do some exploring.”

She rummaged through the kitchen, pleased to see that Langston owned a full-sized stove. The man had mismatched ingredients, but Ceony whipped together some fried tomatoes, salted mushrooms, poached eggs, and some black pudding, albeit not her best batch of it. Langston didn’t seem to notice—he thought the tomatoes alone were a treat, and Ceony determined the man needed to get married right away. She wondered if Delilah could be coerced into dating him. She kept the thoughts to herself.

“So,” Ceony said when they had finished eating and silence had settled in. She pinched the fabric of her skirt in her fingers, trying to slide it down her legs—not that the Folder could see them, what with the table and all. “What have you been working on? That meeting you said got cancelled . . .”

He glanced up from the newspaper.

“When I first met you,” she finished.

He thought for a moment, then straightened. “Oh yes, I recall. It was a meeting with Sinad Mueller and the Praff Academic Board, actually. We rescheduled it for the following day.”

Ceony nodded, trying not to frown at the mention of Sinad Mueller. His name was attached to the most prestigious scholarship one could win for the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, the very scholarship Ceony had lost after dumping a pitcher of very expensive wine on the man’s lap. He’d deserved it, after trying to get a hand up her skirt. One of many reasons Ceony preferred her skirts long.

She tugged on the fabric again. “For the scholarship?”

Langston shook his head in the negative. “Oh no, just for the academic schedule. Tagis Praff is considering adding a Folding class to its second-semester courses to spur interest in paper-based magic. The shortage, and all.”