When she had six birds, she commanded them, “Breathe,” feeling a confidence above her station.
Five came to life. The pink one, the second she had made, remained still and lifeless, as a folded piece of paper should be. Somewhere in the folds of its body Ceony had done something wrong, but now was not the time to determine what.
Two of the five living birds took off into flight, one began grooming itself, one watched her without eyes, and the last hopped about the table, making Fennel growl. Ceony shushed the dog and, finding a pen, pulled a white piece of paper over to her.
She began writing, the pen’s ink flowing in quick strokes over the parchment. She wrote quickly, but cautiously enough not to misspell anything. She didn’t know if this trick would work, but she couldn’t afford to have something as simple as bad grammar mess it up.
When she had finished, she called to the birds, “Come here. Come here, please!” and whistled to them in her best birdsong.
The two escapees flew down. The others came closer. They stood in two rows before her on the table.
Taking a deep breath to keep her voice smooth and calm, Ceony read, “A woman stormed into the dining room, her dark chocolate hair nearly black and her eyes almost as dark.” She pictured the scene in her mind—Lira’s confident stature, the curl to her red-painted lips, the length and sharpness of her fingernails as she dipped them into her vial of blood. “She was an evil woman and wore it in her face and clothes. She had a sneer that could sober any drunkard, and her dark arts left blood on her fingertips.”
The story, at least the beginning of one, formed in ethereal colors before the birds, forming the shape of Lira just as Ceony remembered her, and Ceony credited herself as having a picture-perfect memory. The dining room formed around the image of Lira, but Ceony concentrated on Lira, which made the background fade to mottled blurs while Lira’s face became sharp.
“I need you to find her,” Ceony said, letting the illusion slowly dissipate. “Find her and come back to me. Can you do that?”
The birds hopped in place. That was as much of an affirmative as Ceony expected to get.
Nodding, Ceony moved to the window and, with a great heave that seemed to rock half the room, opened it high enough for five paper birds to fly out. The wind felt cool, but no rain threatened the sky. At least Mother Nature was on her side tonight.
Then, with Fennel at her heels, Ceony gathered what she needed.
She took a small stack of paper from each pile in the library and set it aside, then went into Mg. Thane’s bedroom for the larger pieces, which she rolled together and fastened with a hair tie. In her room, with the door closed, she retrieved her Tatham pistol and stashed it at the bottom of the bag. She barely had time to so much as look at it over the past weeks, but she had made sure to keep it clean. The heft of it in her bag felt . . . soothing. Back in the library, she found an atlas and ripped out two maps, one of England and another of the entire continent of Europe, just in case. As she shoved the maps into her knit bag, Ceony had a sinking feeling that, if it came down to using the Europe map, she would never find Lira. It was far too big . . . and Mg. Thane had only two days, at most, to live . . .
She shook her head once. “I’ll find her,” she said, half to herself and half to Fennel. “I’ve got to.”
When Ceony had everything packed save the food downstairs—where she dared not go—she reluctantly turned in for bed, though sleep came only in discomforted spurts. At dawn she rose and trudged downstairs.
Only Mg. Aviosky had stayed, and she slept on the couch in the front room. Leaving her, Ceony grabbed cheese, bread, and a chunk of salami for her pack. Enough to survive two days. Then she knelt beside Mg. Thane’s still body. He breathed slow, raspy breaths.
She pressed an ear to his chest, which one of the magicians had had the decency to clean up. The only telling sign of the accident now was the blood around his ripped collar.
Pft . . . pft . . . , the heart pattered. The second beat sounded so faintly Ceony couldn’t hear it.
Looking at his pale face, a knife of fear passed through Ceony’s own heart. The Excisioner, Lira, had taken Mg. Thane down so easily. What chance did Ceony have against her?
Just don’t touch her, she thought, remembering the Cabinet’s discussion the night before. Ultimately, Ceony knew her only chance would be the element of surprise.
The Paper Magician
Charlie N. Holmberg's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene