The Glass Magician

Her stomach suddenly felt drained. She slapped the back of her neck, thinking she felt a bug crawling over her skin, but it was only a wisp of hair.

Slipping off her shoes—Mg. Aviosky had particular rules concerning shoes on her carpet—Ceony pulled herself up the eleven stairs to the second floor, which held the library, the living room, and a long hallway filled with mirrors and bedroom doors. Delilah’s room was the third on the right, but Ceony found it empty, as was the bathroom and what she assumed to be Mg. Aviosky’s room, judging by the size and lack of décor.

She heard shuffling from the third floor. They had to be in the study or the mirror room, then. Perhaps Delilah was in the middle of a lesson.

Ceony wound around to the last set of stairs and climbed them, the boards creaking under her feet. Unlike in Emery’s cottage, the third floor of Mg. Aviosky’s home was the smallest, and it bore only three rooms—the large mirror room where Delilah practiced her craft, Mg. Aviosky’s study, and a tiny room for storage.

“Magician Aviosky?” Ceony called. She reached for the door to the mirror room, but it swung open before she could touch the knob. The man on the other side filled the entire doorway, and his sharp canines gleamed with a light all their own.

“Hello, pet.” Grath grinned.

Ceony sucked in air for a scream and stumbled backward, but Grath’s meaty hand shot out and grabbed her by the valley between her neck and shoulder, digging his nails into the muscle there. He yanked Ceony into the mirror room, which was bathed in sunlight from the uncovered windows. Misty clouds had begun to crawl across the sky.

Ceony’s feet lost the floor as Grath hefted her eye-level with him. Grinning wider, he shifted his weight and threw her onto the floorboards. The wood thudded under her kneecaps, and her joints screamed in retaliation. The skin over her left knee broke, and Ceony finally managed to get air over her vocal cords. The result sounded like a mix between a gasp and a whimper.

Shaking herself, Ceony pushed her body up. The first thing she saw was her own reflection in an antique mirror on the wall beside her. Two large, multipaned windows hovered over her, and the space between them was crowded with more mirrors and tables filled with blown glass, glass beads, and glass shards. Then she saw Delilah’s reflection in a tall mirror made of Gaffer’s glass—the same mirror she had stumbled out of on her return from Belgium.

Ceony scrambled to her feet. Delilah had been tied to a chair with coarse rope, her white handkerchief knotted and stuffed into her mouth. She tried to cry out, but the gag muted her words. Tears spilled from her wide, brown eyes.

Beside her stood—no, hung—Mg. Aviosky, her toes barely touching the ground, her arms stretched up over her head and tied with more rope, which had been slung over a hook in the ceiling, meant to hold a chandelier. Mg. Aviosky’s head lolled to one side, and her glasses sat crooked on her nose, the right lens cracked.

She was unconscious, and her hands had turned a ghostly white, her forearms purple.

“No!” Ceony shouted, running for the magicians, but Grath found her hair and yanked her back, pulling several orange strands from her scalp in the process. Ceony’s back collided with Grath’s wide chest, and he wrapped a thick arm around her neck.

“I’d hoped you would come, Ceony,” he said into her ear, low and snakelike. Delilah squirmed in her chair, screaming futilely against her gag. “I thought you should be the first to know that I figured out our little secret. Chasing you all over Europe gave me time to think about it, as did our chats about Lira.”

“Let them go!” Ceony pleaded. She dug her nails into Grath’s arm, but it didn’t seem to faze him. She kicked her legs, but couldn’t find a good angle to strike him. “Please, do whatever you want with me, but let them go. They’re not part of this!”

“Oh, but they are,” Grath said. He released Ceony and spun her around, then shoved her against the wall. A small, triangular mirror toppled onto the floor, cracking into thirds. Sharp pain radiated in her shoulder blades.

“They’re all part of this,” he continued. “I’ll make them part of this, and I’ll let you watch. Let you know how it feels to be able to do nothing while your loved ones die.”

“She’s not dead!” Ceony protested. “Lira, she’s just frozen—”

“I’ll take care of Lira,” Grath spat. He reached out and dug his knuckle into the bruise on Ceony’s cheek, making her cry out. “I’ll take care of her. I know it all; I just need the power first. But this time, I won’t let you get in the way.”

He pulled her off the wall, one hand under her armpit and the other around her neck, and slammed her into the window. Ceony struggled against the fingers pressing into her windpipe.