The Master Magician

The sun, though it hadn’t set yet, had grown orange with age, and made the town look more orange in turn. Beyond the park, Ceony passed a shop for bobbin lace and another for fabrics. A small grocery store and an inn sat on Bridge Street, where a few men in suspenders loaded some kind of animal feed onto a horse-drawn wagon.

She continued past Market Place, passing houses bricked in red and blue, an almshouse, and the Woodard Anglican School. Only one student graced its grounds at this hour. He sat on a bench reading a mathematics textbook.

Ceony asked him if he’d seen any Indian men, especially one driving a Model A, but he hadn’t.

The sun drooped, encouraging Ceony to stick to the shadows. She wished she had brought a hat with her to hide her hair—surely its vibrant color would give her away to Saraj, though he wouldn’t expect to see her in Brackley. The element of surprise was still hers.

Her hands danced over the charms of her necklace as she skirted by a small hospital. Scaffolding on its east side spoke of renovation. She peered down the next intersection, eyeing a row of apartments and a tall parish church the color of sandstone. A Ford Model A was parked across the street from it.

Ceony stiffened and stepped beneath a brick alcove overhanging the door of a single-story library. Could this be Saraj’s vehicle? The policemen hadn’t mentioned the automobile’s number. Perhaps she should check again in the glass.

The sound of an engine caught her attention as a second Model A came around the corner—or perhaps a Model C. The driver wore a top hat and an auburn mustache. His passenger, a woman in a frilly pink dress, laughed at some joke as they passed.

Some clue you have, Ceony, she thought. Half the people in this town probably own a Ford!

She lingered in the alcove a moment longer, watching the first automobile, until a young man exited the library with two books under his arm. He tipped his hat at her as he went, and Ceony stepped into the library.

Passing a well-dressed gentleman reading the day’s paper, she approached the librarian behind the desk and said, “Excuse me, I’m looking for someone. An Indian man, perhaps forty years old? Thin, tall—he dropped his wallet outside the hospital and I didn’t see which way he went.”

The librarian—an older woman with gray hair worn in Mg. Aviosky’s favored tight bun—shook her head. “I think I’d remember . . . Sure he wasn’t Spanish?”

“Spanish?”

“Mario lives on Bridge Street,” she explained. “He’s from Madrid, been here four years with his wife and little girl.”

“I . . . Perhaps it was him,” Ceony said, and tried to graciously accept the address the woman scribbled down on a scrap of paper. She tucked it under her collar and into her brassiere; her skirt pockets were full with spells.

As she walked through the streets of Brackley, Ceony’s hand counted the spells in her bag and occasionally caressed the handle of her pistol. By the time she came full circle to the park, it was getting dark and her legs hurt. She chose a different route this time, one that took her by an old-looking spike. She saw some of the workhouse employees through lit windows, though none of them looked remotely like Saraj.

A Ford drove by without its lights on, startling her. The driver was a middle-aged Caucasian male.

She crossed the street and wound back through another residential street, stopping to ask a gardening woman about Saraj, but she had seen nothing, either. As the evening darkened, Ceony became a Pyre and held a match in her right hand, just in case. She searched the houses carefully, thinking that Saraj might avoid busy streets if he wanted to stay out of sight.

When the sun had sunk three-quarters of the way behind the horizon, she considered sending out birds to gather information for her but didn’t dare risk it.

Crouching behind a whitewashed picket fence, Ceony pinched phosphorus and paper and became a Folder. She pulled a long sheet of paper and rolled it between her hands, commanding it, “Zoom.”

Eye to the telescope, she searched the area with what little light was left, even spied through a few windows. A man out walking his dog a few doors down eyed her with suspicion. Flushing, Ceony lowered the telescope and continued down the street and around the corner, emerging near the school.

She searched with her telescope again, spying another empty Model T near the back of the school. She made a mental note of its location—

Ceony’s breath caught in her throat as she angled the telescope up a centimeter, putting the back wall of the school in her scope. A sudden whirl of movement—a flash of black hair and the billowing of a dark cloak—caught her eye, but just as she registered what she was seeing, the man disappeared into one of the back doors.

Lowering the telescope, she let it unfurl in her hands, breaking the enchantment. Her heart raced in her chest. The familiar prickle of fear stippled her skin, but she ignored it. Lira. Grath. She had done this before; she could do it again. She was more prepared than anyone could be. One more Pyre spell and it would all be over.