The Master Magician

He’s not coming for you; he’s not coming for you. Something else. Perhaps he went that way because the police were in pursuit from the south . . . or he wanted to avoid the naval base, that’s all. And just because he headed north doesn’t mean he continued north.

Why couldn’t the logic soothe her? But the answer to that question was apparent enough. She knew neither where Saraj Prendi was nor his intentions. He’d left her—and the rest of Criminal Affairs—in the dark, again.

Ceony stood, brushing dirt off her knees, and slid the shard into her purse.

A yellow paper songbird glided overhead.

Pinching her necklace and uttering the words, Ceony returned to paper magic and beckoned the bird down. It swayed on the breeze and almost missed her hand. Its crinkled body looked weary. Ceony smoothed a bent wing.

This one had traveled far.

“What did you find?” she asked it, wishing the spell could talk. Would the paper bird be strong enough to make the trip back? Would Ceony be able to follow if the distance was as great as she feared?

She pressed her lips together and hummed. Scanning the sky, she saw no sign of her other two birds. Cradling the yellow bird in one hand, Ceony headed toward Gosport and, after a few attempts, found a buggy.

After the driver pulled over, she stepped up to his window and showed him the paper bird hopping on her palm. “I’m a Folder,” she said, for that morsel of information would make the rest of her request sound less foolish. “I need you to follow this yellow bird best you can, and I’ll compensate you when we reach our destination.”

The man eyed her and rubbed one eyebrow, then the other. “How . . . far? Will it keep to the roads? I’m not savvy with Folding, miss.”

“Not too far,” Ceony assured him, though she hadn’t a clue. “As for roads . . . well, he’s yellow. Hopefully that will make him easy to follow, regardless. I have absolute faith in your abilities, as far as traffic laws permit them to extend, of course.”

The driver inhaled deeply, held the breath in his cheeks a moment, then blew it out like he would cigar smoke. “I hope magicians tip well,” he said under his breath, but loud enough for Ceony to hear. “Er . . . set the thing down on the hood, I guess. Do you need help in?”

“I can open my own door,” Ceony said, and she did, taking the seat right behind the driver. “Show me what you found!” she called to the bird.

The songbird beat its rumpled wings and flew a few feet ahead of the buggy. The driver took after it at a slow speed, but picked up his pace once the bird made its first illegal turn. The driver mumbled what could only be foul language not meant for a woman’s ears, while Ceony pretended not to notice. He wound west through Gosport, then north, honking on occasion at stopped carriages or pedestrians who seemed to be considering crossing the street. Ceony only lost sight of the bird once, when it dove behind a bank of grass, but it reappeared a moment later.

Meanwhile, Ceony quickly Folded a new bird, constructing it differently from the others. There were Folds one could place into a spell that enabled non-Folders to use it, else paper magicians would have a difficult time making any money. She incorporated these Folds now to disguise the fact that the bird had come from a Folder. Mail birds were common; this one would blend in with the rest, no more obscure than a purchased envelope and stamp.

Muddling her handwriting, Ceony wrote into the bird’s body, Saraj headed north after his escape. Please follow. Do not attempt to contact me; I wish to remain anonymous.

After animating the creature and whispering to it the address for the Magicians’ Cabinet’s central building, Ceony let the bird fly out the buggy window and out of sight.

The buggy followed road after road for just over a half hour. The streets had become mostly residential, with a small shop set on approximately every other corner.

The yellow bird swung back around to Ceony’s glassless window and into her hands. So this was it.

“Cease,” she told the bird. To the driver she said, “Take this road slowly, if you would. I need to look around.”

The driver did as asked without so much as a grumble. Ceony pressed her back into the seat, keeping herself out of direct sight. As the buggy crept past the line of houses and buildings, she scanned them, noting the arc of the sun. She needed to return to the dressmaker’s shop soon if she hoped to make it home before Emery.

What caught Ceony’s attention first wasn’t what she saw, but what she heard and smelled. Beautiful music—almost festive, yet eerie in its own right. It was like nothing she’d ever heard. The melody played on the lips of flutes and the twanging of . . . well, Ceony couldn’t be sure.

She smelled meat, lamb perhaps, and spices. She picked out marjoram and curry, but the rest of the nuances eluded her.