The Master Magician

But still . . . Ceony didn’t know what she would be tested on, or how. Emery claimed he could not reveal any details about the testing process. For that reason alone, Ceony knew she should study harder. Study Folding, study every possible angle of paper magic. Any articles or essays that might be new to her, even if the content wasn’t.

With a sigh, she set down the rubber buttons. She still had leisure time. There would be the opportunity to upgrade Fennel then.

Glancing up, Ceony peered out her window, which was half-concealed by the branches of an alder tree. A brilliant pink highlighted the tree’s leaves, and the sky beyond looked lavender.

Tucking back that stray piece of hair, Ceony walked to the library, where the window was broader and un-skewed.

The view was beautiful.

Ceony had never appreciated sunsets until becoming a Folding apprentice. Her home in the Mill Squats had been surrounded by tall buildings, which blocked out the horizon and most of the sky. At Tagis Praff, despite having a room on the sixth floor of the student tower, she’d always been too focused on her endless mounds of homework to give heed to the palette of the setting sun.

Here at the cottage, where city met country, where no other people or architecture could obstruct her vision, Ceony had discovered the allure of sunsets.

Tonight several chunky clouds haloed the sun, acting as canvas to its dying light. They glowed a bright apricot where they were closest to the cap of gold descending beyond the hills, turning salmon and violet farther out, until they met the deepening azure of the evening sky. The clouds looked like ethereal creatures, sky-fish swimming across the blue expanse, following the sun to the other side of the world.

A hand settled on her shoulder, just at the base of her neck, pulling Ceony from the mural beyond the glass.

“How hopelessly romantic,” Emery said, the corner of his lip tugging upward almost enough to make a dimple. His eyes took on a more olive hue in the window’s light. His fingers felt cold from the dishwater.

“Just like the novels,” Ceony agreed, stepping back into his arm and leaning against him. “The same thought occurred to me. I was rather hoping we could re-create a scene from Jane Eyre.”

“I admit I’m ignorant on that one.”

“Quite good,” she said. “In a sad way, but it ends well.”

Emery turned toward her and lifted his hand to her jaw. “As long as it ends well,” he said. He ran his thumb along her cheek and studied her for a moment, his gem-like eyes gliding over her mouth, her cheekbones, her eyes. Ceony loved it when he looked at her like that. It made her feel . . . present.

She stood on her toes, and Emery closed the rest of the space between them, touching his lips to hers.

Despite her keen memory, Ceony couldn’t recall how many times she’d kissed Emery Thane since that day outside the train station nearly two years ago. Many times, yet the feel of his mouth still filled her with childish delight, still made her blood course faster.

Perhaps too fast.

Her fingers danced up his neck and over his earlobes, traced the length of his sideburns and the day’s worth of stubble that bordered them. The smells of him—brown sugar, stationery, charcoal—filled her lungs as she broke for a breath. Then she kissed him the way a lady should never kiss a man to whom she was not wed.

The tip of his tongue slid over her bottom lip, but he wouldn’t oblige for long. Sometimes Ceony wished he would forget she was a lady. He certainly never forgot he was a gentleman, no matter how hard Ceony tried to coax the rogue out of him.

Her back met a bookshelf. She curled a lock of Emery’s hair around her pinky, enticing him further. It worked for a moment, a second, really, before the kiss began to slow, Emery reining himself in as always. Kisses like these could lead to other things, especially in a house where the only possible interruption came in the form of a paper dog. But Emery—noble Emery—would not do other things with Ceony outside the bond of matrimony, and he wouldn’t marry her so long as she held the title of “apprentice.” He had said so himself, twice.

All the more reason for her to test for her magicianship as soon as possible.

They broke apart, their breaths spanning the short distance between them.

Ceony opened her eyes. “Yes, just like in the novels,” she whispered.

Emery chuckled, then kissed her forehead. “These books you’re reading . . . I question your taste, Miss Twill.”

She straightened the collar of his maroon coat. “I’ll read what I please, Mr. Thane.”

“I have a suggestion,” he said with a wry smile, stepping away and glancing back at the sunset, which had already grown ruddier. “I have a dissertation on eighteenth-century Folding basics on interlibrary loan. It’s wonderfully dry and has all its nouns capitalized. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Ceony frowned. “You want me to study primitive Folding techniques?”

“Only subprimitive,” he said, a smirk playing on his lips. “It never hurts to go back to basics, even if you think you know them.”

“I do know them.”

“Are you sure?”