The Paper Magician

“There are guests at the door,” the man said, closing the ledger. The ensuing burst of air rustled his wavy black hair. In words pitched at a light baritone, he added, “And I would have thought the knock gave it away.”


Ceony gripped her suitcase all the harder to keep herself from starting, or from thinking too hard on the man’s words, for she couldn’t decide if they had been meant in mockery or not.

Mg. Thane looked much younger than Ceony had expected, perhaps about thirty or so, and he hadn’t taken the effort to dress up, either. He didn’t wear his magician’s dress uniform, or anything particularly fancy at all, just plain slacks with an unadorned high-necked shirt, over which hung a lightweight, oversized indigo coat that dropped clear to his ankles, with loose sleeves that fell nearly to his palms. He seemed quite average, his skin neither light nor dark, his height neither short nor tall, and his build neither thin nor broad. His dark hair fell just below his ears in a sort of kempt-but-unkempt way. He had black sideburns down to his jaw, and his nose had a slight bump to it, just above the middle of the bridge. The only thing extraordinary about him was the brightness of his eyes—green as summer leaves and shining as if someone had hid a light behind his forehead.

Mg. Thane glanced at Ceony without the slightest smile, gesture, or draw of the brow, but in those bright eyes Ceony could tell the man was rather amused. Whether with her or with himself, she couldn’t be sure. She ground her teeth together.

“Magician Thane,” Mg. Aviosky said with a nod of her head, and Ceony wondered how well they knew one another, “this is Ceony Twill, whom I telegraphed you about.”

“Yes, yes,” Mg. Thane said, setting down the ledger on the stack of unread mail by the couch, aligning the book’s corners just so. He turned and met Ceony’s stare. “Ceony Twill, eldest of four and top of her graduating class. How many students made it out of that prison this year?”

Ceony adjusted her hat, if only to give her free hand something to do. “Twenty-two.”

“Still an accomplishment,” he said, almost offhandedly. “Hopefully you can put those study habits of yours to good use here.”

Ceony only nodded. She did have good study habits—she prided herself on them—but schoolwork had always come easily to her. She had a sharp memory, and often remembered things after reading them through only once or twice. It was a blessing that had pulled her through many difficult and dull lectures. Hopefully it would help her here as well.

Mg. Aviosky cleared her throat, breaking through the silence before it could settle. “I have her new uniform in my case. Do tell me you prepared the bonding.”

“Of course,” he answered, dismissing the question with a slight wave of his hand. He looked at Ceony. “I suppose you’ll want a tour of sorts.”

Ceony felt herself shrink. How easily this man could crush her future with a wave of his hand! For once she bonded to a material, there would be no turning back—a bond was for life. She searched for a possible escape route should she need one and spied the paper skeleton immediately behind her and shrieked for the second time. Who needed ghosts to haunt a house when one could form his own demons out of paper?

“Jonto, cease,” Mg. Thane said, and the skeleton collapsed in a heap of paper bones right there on the floor, his carefully Folded skull resting right at the top.

Ceony stepped away from it. What sort of morbid man constructed a butler out of paper? Was there no one else to answer the door?

“Do you live alone?” Ceony asked.

“As it suits me,” Mg. Thane replied, leading them down the hallway. “The study,” he said, gesturing to the closed door on the left, “and the dining room is through here,” he added, pausing at the second right in the hallway.

Ceony followed with slow steps and peeked around the corner, half expecting another paper atrocity to jump out at her.

Instead she found a short hallway with mirrors hanging across from one another on either wall, a bench, and a simple stunted dresser with an empty vase on top of it. Tightly Folded paper triangles lined the walls close to the ceiling in teal and yellow where the hall opened into a small, well-stocked kitchen. A marble countertop surrounded a single-basin sink. Dark-stained cupboards loomed to either side, but gave enough room to work in. A metal grating above the sink carried a small set of pots and pans, their dark bottoms denoting that they were well used. Around the edges of the grating wrapped a paper vine that looked very similar to the skeleton’s—Jonto’s—bones. Did it have a use, or did the paper magician merely grow bored being cooped up here, away from real people? How much of the paper décor in this house was actually used for spells, and how much of it was pointless ornamentation?