The Paper Magician

Her mind swirled, her legs felt numb, and her hands perspired as she climbed over rubble in the hallway that had once been the front door and threw herself into the study. She ran for the shelves of paper, frantically sifting through them until she found a thicker piece. Not the thickest, but she had no time to be choosy.

She ran back into the dining room and slipped on spilled blood. She stumbled onto her knees and winced, but began Folding right there, against the wooden floorboards. She didn’t know the Folds—she couldn’t—but she had to try.

Visions of Mg. Thane’s handiwork zoomed through her mind. His Folding of the bird, the fish, the fortuity box. The paper trinkets, sculptures, and chains lying around the house. The few lessons on paper magic she had taken notes on at the school. The half-point Fold, the full-point Fold. Folds she didn’t know the names of. Anything. Just line the edges up.

She Folded the paper in half, then in half again, working it until she had the square that started Mg. Thane’s long-necked bird. From there she made up the rest, her brain summoning images from Anatomy of the Human Body. Her hands stilled. It looked something like a heart. Something like it . . .

She crawled to Mg. Thane, to the still-closing pit in his chest, and commanded the heart, “Breathe!”

It pumped weakly in her hands. She pushed it into the bloody cavity and withdrew her hands just before Mg. Thane’s skin closed around it.

The paper magician didn’t stir.

“Please,” she cried, his blood on her fingers. She patted his cheeks, slapped them, pressed her ear to his chest. She could hear the paper heart pumping weakly, like the heart of an old man on his deathbed.

He didn’t stir.

“You have to live!” she screamed at him, tears falling from her chin onto his chest. If magic couldn’t save him . . . this was all she had!

Breaths coming in short gasps, Ceony stood, ran up the stairs, and bolted to the library. Grabbing the telegraph, she connected the wires to the one person whose route she knew—Mg. Aviosky.

Her trembling fingers punched in the code quickly. She swallowed against a dry throat.

   thane hurt stop come immediately stop emergency stop excisioner stole his heart stop

She backed away from the telegraph as though it were a corpse and pressed her palm to her mouth to suppress a sob.

Fennel barked at her feet, jumping wildly on his paper legs.

As soon as Ceony glanced at the dog, Fennel darted into the hallway. Ceony ran after him, following him back down the stairs and into the dining room. She heard Thane’s rasping breath just before she saw him.

“Thane!” she cried, dropping to her knees beside him.

He looked dead, his eyes merely slits and his veins showing through his white skin. He tried to lift a finger to point, but dropped it. “Window,” he said, the words straining through his throat. “Second . . . chain. Get . . .”

Ceony jumped up and ran back into the study, distinctly remembering the chains hanging over the window there. She counted the second one from the left and pulled it down, a tightly knit chain made of Folded rectangles. She also grabbed the second from the right, a looping chain of ovals.

Rushing back into the dining room, she showed them to Thane. “Which one?” she asked.

He weakly jerked his chin toward the tight-knit chain made of rectangles. “Around . . . chest,” he whispered.

Pinching the end of the chain, Ceony leaned over Thane and pushed it under his back, then brought it forward over his chest so that the ends overlapped.

“Ease,” Thane said weakly, and the chain tightened about him at the command. Thane sucked in a deep breath of air and coughed.

Ceony lifted his head to help him. When he finished, he opened his eyes and looked at her.

She gasped. His eyes . . .

Their light had vanished.

No brightness, no emotion. Just dead, glass eyes.

Her tears started anew.

“I telegrammed Magician Aviosky,” she said, every other word shuddering in her throat. “She’ll be here. Someone will be here to help you.”

“That was wise,” he said, his weakened voice almost a monotone. “The closest doctor is . . . far.”

“Oh heaven,” Ceony whispered, pushing locks of hair from Mg. Thane’s forehead. “What has she done to you?”

“Lira . . . took my heart,” he said matter-of-factly. Like a talking textbook.

“I know,” Ceony whispered. “Why?”

“To stop me.”

“From what?”

But Mg. Thane didn’t answer. His glassy eyes shifted slowly about their sockets, taking in the room with no expression.

Ceony kept brushing his forehead, even when she had pushed back all his black locks. “What is the chain?” she asked, wiping her cheek on her shoulder. If she could just keep him talking . . .

“A vitality chain,” he said quietly, his dull eyes now focused on the ceiling above him. “It will keep this new heart beating, for a time.”

“A time?”

“A paper heart will not last long, especially one crafted poorly,” he said. “The chain will make it last a day, two at best.”