The Master Magician

“Ceony!” Emery shouted.

Saraj grinned and retracted the pliers. “A fair bargain. I’m listening.”

“Let him go first,” Ceony pleaded.

“You English and your bartering,” Saraj quipped. He folded his arms, took a few steps away from Emery. “You don’t have leverage, kitten. But I’m in a pleasant enough mood. I already have one magician’s heart; I don’t need another yet. I might let him go. You, on the other hand—”

“Ceony, don’t you dare say another word!” Emery yelled. “It’s not worth it!”

“But you’re worth it,” she cried, though the words came out so quietly she didn’t think he heard them. Swallowing, she said, “The secret is yourself.”

Emery wilted against the entrails holding him.

Saraj raised an eyebrow. “You’ll need to be specific.”

“That’s what Grath discovered,” Ceony said, feeling her body hollow out with each confessed word. She’d be little more than a bag of skin in a moment. “You bond to your material’s natural substance, then to yourself, then to the new material. That’s how it’s done.”

The Excisioner smiled. “Interesting. The words?”

Ceony swallowed against a dry throat. “Material made by earth, your handler summons you. Unlink to me as I link through you, unto this very day. It starts with that.”

Saraj lifted the charm necklace, his eyes glancing over each charm. Then he studied them with his hand, pinching and turning. He frowned. “And what, pray tell, do I bond to?”

Ceony paused, looking at her necklace. Glanced at Emery. Refocused on Saraj. She had never considered that question, since she had never dreamed of dabbling in Excision.

Excisioners became Excisioners by bonding to a person—Ceony had seen Grath do it to Delilah. But what was the natural material of a person? People made people. They were one and the same. Unless Excisioners bonded to their original victims’ parents?

But that didn’t make sense. Even if an Excisioner managed to track down both parents of the person he murdered to gain his magic, he couldn’t bond with both of them.

Ceony blinked and licked her lips. “You . . . can’t.”

Saraj’s countenance darkened. “What?”

She shook her head. “You can’t. By definition humans are man-made, but they don’t have a natural substance. They merely . . . are.” A smile spread on her lips, and she added, more to herself than to Saraj, “Once a person becomes an Excisioner, they’re stuck. They can’t change.

“Excisioners can’t use the other magics.”

Emery lifted his head, his eyes reflecting the unnatural light hovering overhead. He actually smiled.

Ceony laughed. “You can’t use it, Saraj. You can’t, and neither can the others. No Excisioner can have those powers. You’re stuck. Forever.”

Saraj’s face darkened and contorted until he hardly looked a man anymore. His brow crinkled, his lip lifted, and his cheeks sunk into the spaces between his teeth.

“Well, then,” he said, his voice dark and thick. He shoved the necklace into one pocket and pulled the pliers from the other. He turned back to Emery.

All smugness drained from Ceony, leaving her cold and empty. “No, no!” she cried, but the words didn’t slow Saraj in the slightest. She had no leverage. Not anymore.

Her eyes did another sweep of the room, scanning the walls, the floor—

Her eyes stopped at her collar, and she spied the tip of the piece of paper the librarian had given her with the Spaniard’s address on it. Saraj hadn’t taken it. But she couldn’t cast paper spells without changing her material.

She couldn’t, but Emery could.

She couldn’t Fold a spell for him, and his arms were bound just as surely as her own. He hadn’t touched the paper, so he couldn’t call it to him with a sorting spell. Ceony sagged against her bonds—useless. Her one hope, and she couldn’t even—

Saraj crouched, reaching for Emery’s hand.

Yet again she searched for something she could use—a flame, a spark, anything. But Saraj had thought of that—the only light came from those eerie, glowing eyes. No lanterns, no candles. Nothing that could make fire, save for the match on her necklace—

Her necklace. It was in Saraj’s pocket. It had a paper charm on it—a charm she’d made from her history paper. Emery had touched it when he graded it.

Her memory transported her to the day she’d crafted the charm at her desk in her room. The scrap of paper had been torn from her homework. The date 1744.

“Sort it, Emery!” she cried. “Sort with the date 1744!”

Saraj turned around, perturbed. Emery didn’t question Ceony’s plea. He called out, “Sort: 1744!”