The Master Magician

He took another step forward. Ceony drew her pistol and pointed it at him.

Saraj grinned, his teeth not white enough to reflect the lamplight. He tilted his head to one side, staring at Ceony. Making her feel uncomfortable. Slipping a hand into his pocket, he began to chant words in a language no countryman knew—the language of the dark. She recognized this spell, its lilts and rhythm. A healing spell, not a spell meant to injure her. Not yet.

She let Saraj have his words and took the chance to whisper her own, hand on her necklace, hoping the darkness hid her lips.

“Is this about the rest of the litter?” Saraj asked, his chant finished. He held the spell in the hand embedded in his pocket, ready to use it should Ceony fire. Did he think she didn’t know? “Your parivāra? The mum and pop and other kittens?”

Ceony’s grip on her pistol tightened, her palm sweating. She kept it leveled at Saraj’s chest.

Saraj pulled his hand free—a dark drop of blood dripped down from his thumb—and the skin of it glimmered gold. The healing spell. Well, Ceony doubted it could cure a bullet to the head.

She adjusted her aim for Saraj’s forehead.

“Litter, kittens,” Ceony repeated, “this is all just a game for you, isn’t it? You didn’t care about Lira, and I don’t think you cared about Grath—”

“A game!” Saraj exclaimed, hand still aglow. “Oh, but they were poor players,” he said, advancing with a long stride. “And your littermates make boring pieces. A favor for him before, but they’re so dull, kitten.”

Ceony’s hand shifted on her necklace, skipping over the vial of oil, bag of sand, and starlight marked “in 1744.” Her words were so quiet she may have only thought them. She couldn’t let Saraj know her secret—Grath’s secret—but even if he learned it, he couldn’t share it if he were dead.

“I need money to get by, just like any dolly,” he said, moving forward. Ceony moved back. “Got to collect. But that’s not a game, is it? That’s boring. But you . . . you’re here, now. You’ve come to play. To show me what’s inside you.”

“I’ve come to put you down,” Ceony growled.

Saraj laughed and clapped his hands, though the motion didn’t disturb the glowing spell that awaited him on his right fingers.

“All a game,” Saraj said, rooting his feet, stiffening. His grin grew lopsided, almost into a snarl. “And now kitten is on the board. I still need a heart, kitten. I suppose yours will do.”

Cold sweat chilled Ceony from crown to knee. Saraj jerked forward.

Ceony flinched and fired.

The blast echoed between canal walls and off Simond’s Brewery, surely loud enough to alert someone. Ceony couldn’t see where she had hit Saraj until he lifted his glowing hand to his collar. The bullet had pierced just under it on the right. He coughed, wheezed, but the orange light of his spell quickly seeped into the wound and closed it up. He pulled his hand away seconds later and dropped the bullet onto the pavement.

“Checkmate,” Saraj said.

“Wrong game, friend,” Ceony countered, lowering her pistol. “I wasn’t firing for the bullet.”

No. She’d fired for the spark.

“Flare!” she cried, and the tiny spark she’d pulled from the pistol spit and grew, building a fire in her left palm. Giving her enough light to see Saraj’s wide eyes.

“Combust!” she called, and she flung her left hand forward, sending a hailstorm of fire raining down on Saraj. With her eyes adjusted to the dark and her target so close, the fire’s brightness seared her eyes, stealing her sight for a moment. Ceony staggered back, blinking away spots. Smoke assailed her nostrils. Coughing, Ceony backed up and croaked an “Arise” command, beckoning a spark back to her hand, preparing to finish off the Excisioner.

But as the hailstorm cleared, leaving scattered weeds and a board of the dock burning, Ceony’s adjusting eyes couldn’t pinpoint Saraj in the darkness. She whirled around once, twice, and commanded her little flame, “Flare!”

The fire grew in her palm, casting topaz light over the docks. Empty. Creaking.

Familiar shivers crept up her arms and back. She couldn’t have incinerated the man! Where had he gone? Jumped into the river?

Her eyes focused on the black depths of the canal, the shivers growing ever colder. Had he teleported? Where was he? Watching her?

Ceony ran.

She ran hard and fast, her self-made wind snuffing out the flames still licking her fingers.

She ran down lit streets and around sharp corners until she heard the piano music still streaming from the inn. She grabbed the door handle and wrenched it open, dodging inside. The door slammed closed behind her.

A few patrons—only a dozen or so lingered in the foyer—glanced at her, but the music radiating from the corner of the room had apparently drowned out her arrival.