The Master Magician

She sat at her desk and went to work.

She measured the twine around her neck and cut it accordingly, then began forming the charms, one by one. She started with the easiest—paper. She snatched up the closest piece of paper—an essay she had written about the history of paper animation. She sliced the top of it off with her Smelted scissors and Folded a thick starlight. The words “in 1744” graced the starlight’s face. Using a pair of pliers, she looped a piece of wire from a paper clip through one of the starlight’s points. Ceony wrapped more wire around a match, which contained both wood and phosphorus and would serve a dual purpose—allowing her to both break her bond to paper, as well as strike a flame to bond to fire.

Second, she cut a rectangle from one of her sturdier handkerchiefs and, with the supplies from a small sewing kit, stitched up its sides, using a bit of spare twine for an enclosure. She retrieved a jar of fine Gaffer’s sand from the back of her bottom desk drawer and poured a tablespoon of the sand into the tiny bag and set it aside. She picked up her makeup compact—the one Delilah had given her—and held the handles of her pliers over it, but hesitated.

Several seconds passed. She set the compact aside and instead went downstairs, selecting a glass cup from the cupboards. Back in her room, she chipped a shard from its rim and wound it in wire. She wrapped up the phosphorus next, and strung three more matches together, ensuring she could loosen one at a moment’s notice.

Ceony leaned back in her chair and rolled her head, hearing her neck crack too many times to count. After flexing and unflexing her fingers, she started on the more difficult charms.

She pierced wire through a spare rubber button, stole a bronze bead from a bracelet, and threaded twine through a small wing of melting plastic she had purchased in town at the beginning of the year, when she had studied Polymaking. She’d given up on the plastic-based magic after making Fennel’s skeleton, however. Being the most recently discovered material magic, there were few spells Ceony could find that didn’t require molds and plastic welding kits.

Siping with rubber and Polymaking with plastics had been her more recent studies merely because finding samples of their natural substance proved far trickier than the rest. She had done a great deal of research and dealt with a fair number of peddlers who didn’t take her seriously, as she was neither a Siper nor a Polymaker most days, and she dared not claim otherwise. But enough prodding and investigation had paid off, and she had samples of the materials she needed for bonding.

She searched the house for half an hour, trying to find a vial smaller than the one half-filled with almond extract in the kitchen. Then she remembered the perfume samples her sister Zina had given her. She dumped the weakest-smelling one and rinsed out the tiny vial, then pulled a fist-sized jug of oil—only somewhat different from the substance that ran through the engine of an automobile—from the back of her bottom desk drawer. She carefully poured a few drops into the perfume vial, corked the vial tightly, and wound it up with wire.

Another item she had stashed in the drawer was liquid latex, which had come in a bottle small enough for her purposes. This had been the hardest natural substance for her to find, and explaining why she needed it had proven a chore. She wound it in wire, then retrieved a pure silver spoon from the same drawer. The spoon, albeit tarnished, was her magic wand for breaking the Smelting bond.

She took the tip of the spoon’s handle in her pliers and bent it back and forth until the soft metal snapped. She wound the belled portion in wire and topped it with a hook.

She strung her handiwork along the twine, forming a haphazard necklace, memorizing the placement of each item. She secured the twine and slipped it over her head, careful not to scrape herself on the glass and broken silver.

Her back ached, but she felt accomplished. With this, she could be ready for anything. Saraj might have had power over flesh and blood, but she had power over everything else.

Ceony checked the clock. There was still time.

After hiding the necklace beneath her blouse, Ceony packed a small bag and snatched her bicycle, ready to make the long ride into town.

It was time to visit Mg. Aviosky.





CHAPTER 5




CEONY PEDALED INTO London, cutting through Parliament Square and passing St. Alban’s Salmon Bistro, the place where she had first met Grath Cobalt and last lunched with Delilah. She tried not to dwell on the memories as she swung around Big Ben and crossed a narrow one-way street between slow-going automobiles, though it felt as if her dear friend’s fairylike laughter followed her.