The Paper Magician

“For a boat, we start with a half-Fold, then two double dog-ear Folds,” Mg. Thane explained, Folding as he spoke.

“What good is a paper boat?” Ceony asked. “No one can fit on it, and it will sink.”

“Ah, but an enchanted paper boat won’t sink easily.”

“Easily?”

“It will sink,” he said with a nod, more toward his knees than to Ceony, “but slowly. Generations of Folders have yet to waterproof paper, but they can at least make it stubborn. Boats are useful for relaying messages when sending one through air is too bothersome. Or too risky. A little outdated with telegraphs and this mythical telephone, perhaps, but you should learn it anyway.”

He flipped the spell toward her and Folded the paper’s edges to form the boat’s base. “Fold it like an animation. I’m sure you remember the rules.”

Ceony nodded, but as Mg. Thane finished the last Folds, she saw up his loose coat sleeve to a bandage coiled thickly around his right forearm.

Something inside of her twanged, like a fiddle string had been stretched down her torso, fastened between throat and navel. With a soft voice, she asked, “What happened to your arm?”

Mg. Thane’s fingers stilled. He glanced up at her, then to his arm. He pulled the sleeve down to the palm of his hand. “Just a bump,” he said. “I often forget how much focus walking requires.”

She frowned. That same string twisted, and she had a distinct feeling her tutor was hiding something.

She wondered if his arm hurt.

The paper magician handed her a sheet of paper and had her copy his Folds, which she managed to get right on her first try. The fact gave her little comfort.

Mg. Thane stood, board under his uninjured arm. “Now down to the river to test them out!”

Now the string pulled tight enough to snap. Muscles all over Ceony’s body went rigid, especially in the neck, shoulders, and knees. “R-River? The one outside?”

Mg. Thane grinned. “There’s hardly one inside, is there?”

Ceony felt herself root to the floor. Mg. Thane offered a hand to help her up, but she couldn’t lift her arms to take it. Her pulse quickened and her cheeks reddened. “I . . .” She cleared her throat. “Can we test them in the lavatory? The tub? Please?”

He lowered his hand. “I suppose. You’re not hydrophobic, are you?”

Ceony’s face grew hotter.

“Oh,” he said, sobering. “I admit that surprises me. You don’t seem the type.”

Ceony managed to loosen her shoulders enough for a shrug. “Everyone is afraid of something, right?”

The paper magician nodded, albeit slowly. “True. Very . . . true. The tub it is, then.”

He offered his hand a second time. Ceony grasped it and let him pull her up, getting a strange tingle in her fingertips just before he released her.

She pressed the fingers against her cheek to cool her face. She followed Mg. Thane to the lavatory, where they crowded around the bathtub and cast the spells “Float” and “Endure” on the boats. Before hers had a chance to sink, Ceony excused herself to her room and picked up Astrology for Youth, but for some reason she had a difficult time concentrating.



Fennel whined an airy whine at Ceony’s feet as she dropped the last fish cakes into the fryer. He wagged his tail, hopeful.

“You can’t eat it, silly thing,” Ceony chided the paper dog, scooting him back with her foot to open the oven. She pulled from it a shallow ceramic dish filled with asparagus. She had hated asparagus until she worked as a caterer during her last year of secondary school. Apparently anyone of importance ate asparagus, so she had coaxed herself into tolerating it as well.

The stair door opened and Mg. Thane emerged, looking somewhat less tired than he had that morning. Perhaps he had napped while Ceony cooked dinner. “Mmm,” he said. “I do hope you’re cooking for two.”

“I’m cooking for two so long as I can burn that papier-maché ledger without your review of it,” Ceony said. She picked up a fish cake with a fork and waved it back and forth, claiming both the magician’s and the paper dog’s attention. “It’s busywork I’d rather not finish, but if I must, I’ll finish it with a basket full of fish cakes in my lap.”

Mg. Thane laughed. “I’m sure this sort of bribery is disapproved by the school board. I really should read those letters they send me . . .”

Ceony let the fish cake hover, and Mg. Thane waved a hand. “Yes yes, let it burn. I’m famished.”

Grinning at her victory, Ceony put the fish cake back and pulled the last of them from the fryer before taking the dishes to the table she had already set. Mg. Thane pulled out her chair before sitting in his own.

“We need groceries again,” Ceony said, setting a fish cake on her plate before passing them to Mg. Thane. “And I was wondering what day of the month to expect my stipend.”