The Master Magician

“Language, love.”


She pressed a palm to her forehead. “I have more studying to do than I thought. I’m doomed. I . . . I need to get dressed.”

She rose from the bed and hurried out into the hallway, palm still pressed to her forehead, Fennel following at her heels.

“You haven’t touched your egg!”

But Ceony had far larger concerns on her plate than breakfast.



Ceony read through another eight chapters in the Folding dissertation Emery had given her, occasionally pinching herself to keep her mind alert and attentive as she read each long-winded, dry-as-toast paragraph about spells she already knew. Regardless, she refused to skim, and she studied the diagrams as though she had never heard of a full-point Fold. At least the artistic style in which the dissertation had been illustrated was new to her.

She later assigned herself complex animation for practice, picking an animal she had never before created: a turkey. With a few pictures for reference, she carefully Folded tail feathers and crimped paper to form a spherical body. She used three square pages for the neck, another for the head, and carefully cut and morphed a beak and snood. It took her the better part of the day to create and animate the fowl. The next day she Folded a larger turkey using more paper, carefully interlocking each piece to ensure safe mobility. After two days of working on that, she worried her knees would permanently indent with the lines of the floorboards she’d knelt on for hours.

Knowing the importance of her test, Emery seemed content enough to keep to himself, but he did pop in on occasion to offer advice, persuade Ceony to take a break, or, oh, maybe cook something. Ceony could only smile at the veiled requests.

By the end of the week, however, Ceony had thoroughly burned herself out on dissertations and animation, so she retreated to her closet to study up on Siping, the magical manipulation of rubber. She crafted the rubber buttons into paw pads, though she had to discard the first two after cutting them wrong, then used affixing spells to adhere the pads to the bottom of Fennel’s feet. This way his paws wouldn’t wear out as often, and if he stepped in a very shallow puddle, his paws wouldn’t crumple into soggy wads. After studying her finished work for a moment, she nodded to herself, satisfied that Fennel’s feet could pass as a mere craft project—nothing that would make a magician look twice.

Utterly tired of all things magic, Ceony went to bed early that Friday night, only to be woken a few minutes past midnight. Not by a nightmare, thank goodness, but by the faintest click click sound heard through the wall, just loud and familiar enough to pull Ceony from the space between dreams.

She lifted her head from her pillow, holding her breath to be sure she had heard right. The noise continued: click click click, click, click. The telegraph.

She sat up in bed, careful not to rouse Fennel, who dozed on her mattress tonight, curled up near her feet. She rubbed her eyes and put her bare feet to the floor. Who would be sending a telegram this late at night? The weather was clear; why not send a paper bird instead? Was Prit as opposed to normal rest as Emery was? Was this a message to cancel their arrangement? Ceony wouldn’t mind if it were.

She stepped out of her room. The cracks around Emery’s door were dark, so she padded to the library and opened the door.

The telegraph clicked steadily from its place on the table. It stopped before Ceony took two steps into the dark room, leaving her alone in an eerie silence.

Ceony reached for the switch for the electric lights and flipped it. The bulbs hanging from the library ceiling flickered on for a moment before their light fizzled out, recasting the library in shadow. Blinking purple spots from her eyes, Ceony flipped the switch back and forth a few times to no avail. Had the power gone out again? Being so far from the main city, Emery’s circuitry had a habit of turning sour.

She padded across the room, avoiding the loudest floorboards out of habit. She reached the table and tried the lamp, but it too stayed dark. She lit the candle beside it instead and picked up the curling telegram. The brief message seemed scrambled for a minute. She scanned the words, but they didn’t stick in her head. She tried again, slower.

prendi escaped en route to portsmouth for execution stop thought you should know stop alfred stop

Her fingers went numb holding that slip of paper. It didn’t tingle beneath her touch as it should. It felt dead, limp. Heavy.

Alfred. She hadn’t seen Magician Hughes since her ordeal with Grath, which had finally brought her entwinement with Criminal Affairs to an end, or so she had believed.

Ceony’s eyes fixated on the telegram’s first word. Prendi. Saraj Prendi. Grath’s dog. The Excisioner who had tried to kill her twice, all for the sake of convenience. The man who had threatened the lives of her family and her love.

And now he was loose.





CHAPTER 4