The Master Magician

The Folder’s face remained unchanged. “It’s there, Miss Twill.”


“Is it?” Mg. Praff asked. The two, simple words sparked some hope within Ceony. She was so close to finishing. She couldn’t flunk now!

Ceony glanced at Mg. Aviosky, meeting her eyes. If I were a Gaffer, I could be in two places at once, she thought. She wondered if Mg. Aviosky could read her thoughts, for a knowing smile touched her lips.

It vanished quickly. Mg. Aviosky pulled out a briefcase hidden behind her chair and opened it. She filed through the papers within until she pulled forth a booklet, which she then thumbed through without comment. The silence of the room pressed on Ceony from all sides. She reminisced traveling through the tight, hot valves of Emery’s heart. This felt very much the same.

Mg. Aviosky’s voice severed the quiet. She read from the booklet: “An apprentice cannot use the same prepared spell for two consecutive tasks. The perpetration of this will terminate the test.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Twill,” Mg. Bailey said.

Ceony’s heart splattered onto the floor.

“Don’t be, Magician Bailey,” Mg. Aviosky said. “The rule book says ‘consecutive.’ These two tasks are more than a dozen list numbers apart. Therefore, the paper doll is eligible.”

Ceony’s eyes widened and her hands flew to her heart. She bit down a loud Thank you! that threatened to break her teeth.

Mg. Bailey frowned all the deeper. “You realize that a simple reordering of the list would make the doll unusable, yes?”

“One does not simply ‘reorder’ the test list, Magician Bailey,” Mg. Aviosky said, placing the booklet back in her briefcase. “It has a set order determined by the Supreme Council of Magic. If you truly believe Miss Twill deserves to fail, you’ll have to send your request for reversal to them.”

Ceony felt a drop of sweat trace a path down her backbone.

The frown engraved itself onto Mg. Bailey’s features, but he nodded for Ceony to continue.

Ceony moved through her last spells with renewed energy, sprinting at the end of the marathon in a desperate attempt to reach the finish line before Mg. Bailey could cut the ribbon ahead of her. She demonstrated a vitality chain, the “Shred” spell, the illusion spell she had created of the night sky, even a cardboard box used to keep food from spoiling. For #53. A means of escape, she threw down two handfuls of navy-blue concealing confetti. She felt her body warp before it reappeared behind the judging table.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Ceony reached for the final spell in her bag, one that took up barely more space than her fist.

She imagined task number fifty-eight had been meant as the most challenging, one intended to make the apprentice reflect on her years of training and ponder her future years as a magician. A means of living. Unspecific, yet inspiring. As a paper magician, she could easily have written an inspiring essay on how Folding had changed her life, how it would shape her career as a magician. She could have orchestrated an army of animated spells, creating a room full of magic-induced life. She could have created a wall-to-wall illusion grander than the junglescape in Mrs. Holloway’s mansion, displaying an abundance of wild, perceived life.

But she hadn’t.

She’d used the first idea to bloom in her mind upon reading the last task. She’d set it aside at first and pondered on more clever and striking things, but her thoughts always returned to this one, simple spell. She could defend it with pretty words and tear-filled emotions if need be, but with Mg. Aviosky on her panel of magicians, she doubted she’d need to utter a single syllable.

Her fingers wrapped around the paper heart sitting in the corner of the tweed bag. She straightened and held it before her, cradled in both hands, and whispered, “Breathe.”

The heart pumped softly in her hands, it’s PUM-Pom-poom rattling gently against her skin.

A means of living. The greatest spell she had ever crafted.

She said nothing. Even Mg. Aviosky didn’t offer an explanation, which made Ceony wonder how far word of Emery’s near demise had reached.

Mg. Bailey stared at the beating heart in Ceony’s grasp.

And smiled.





CHAPTER 19




“MAGICIAN ERNEST JOHNSON, Siper, District Four.”

Ceony’s hands sweated beneath her white gloves. She wrung them together as she watched the newly appointed Siper, garbed in a black magician’s uniform, rise from two seats to her left and approach the podium on the other end of the stage, where Tagis Praff himself shook his hand and handed him a framed magician’s certificate. The audience that filled the Royal Albert Hall applauded, the noise sounding like crashing ocean waves in Ceony’s ears. She could feel the stage shake with it.

“Magician John Frederick Cobble, Smelter, District Three.”