The Paper Magician

CEONY FLEW UP FROM the yellow cottage disguised by spells and into the sky itself, gaze locking onto the little green bird that banked hard to the west.

Ceony, her knuckles white from gripping the handholds on the glider and her right elbow latched securely around Fennel’s neck, attempted to follow. She leaned in with the glider and pulled the right handhold harder than the left, but she oversteered and went veering hard to the south, then hard to the north, then hard to the southwest. Trying to force herself to remain calm, even as the glider rose higher and higher into the sky, Ceony guided the massive spell back and forth until its nose pointed toward the distant speck of green that was her guide. Then she lay low—wind blowing strand after strand of orange hair from her braid—and zoomed toward it.

With the help of currents and updrafts, the glider flew faster than the bird, so Ceony had to reel it in with care every few minutes. Pulling too hard on the handholds made the glider climb, and pushing made it descend, but switching between the two and lifting her body higher off the paper seemed to slow it down fairly well.

When she finally took a moment to look around her, she gasped with surprise. One would think a girl who attended the top-ranking magic school in the country would have had some spell or another take her high enough for the view she saw now, but that was not the case. She had never seen London in such great expanse.

The city, in which Mg. Thane lived on the far, far south side, stretched before her in a motley assortment of colors that grew less and less sharp the farther she flew. It took on the shape of a triangle, and Ceony swore she could see the Masters’ Tower of the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined beyond a line of trees that must have been Dulwich Park. Streets like slick eels wound through the city, none of them quite straight, and many of them looking quite lost. She saw the Mill Squats where she had grown up, mostly brown buildings too close together for her to discern her house, as well as Steelworks Avenue, which led to the catering house that had employed her before her accident with one of its most prestigious customers—something that Ceony didn’t regret, but didn’t like to ponder.

Homes, shops, trees, even the smokestacks all grew smaller and smaller as she looked over her shoulder, sailing away on the air the way a sea captain might sail on the sea. How foolish of her to ever think Folding was pointless. Surely no Smelter would be able to fly like she did! Mg. Thane needed to patent the glider. That was, if he ever got the chance to.

The thought sobered her. Ceony faced forward, catching the green bird in her vision. Mg. Thane would have the chance. Ceony would make sure of it. However, she had to admit that once the little green bird got to where it was going, she wasn’t entirely sure what to do. Fortunately the sights below—roads diverging for thick forests and country cabins, rivers weaving in and out of the trees—and the wind singing loudly in her ears made it difficult to think of the consequences of her rash actions.

On and on the little bird flew, its wings never tiring, though on occasion a sudden gust would send the poor thing off track, and it had to flap relentlessly to get back on course. The morning sun turned the sky light blue, then a solid cerulean as it reached and passed its peak. Fennel huffed softly under her arm, thankfully not squirming. Ceony’s fingers felt ready to break from her hand, and her stomach rumbled, but she dared not release the handholds long enough to either rest her fingers or fish her lunch from the heavy bag at her hip.

They flew until Ceony smelled brine flies and seawater, and she saw the great azure expanse of the English Channel ahead of her. Judging by the coastline, the bird had directed her right to the edge of Foulness Island. Adequately named, given the circumstances.

Her stomach churned and her white grip on the glider’s handles brightened as she squeezed all the harder. Please not the ocean, she thought. She didn’t know if she could follow Lira past the coast. The ocean was so endless, so vast . . . and she couldn’t swim. Ceony hadn’t stepped foot in water any deeper than what a bathtub could hold since she was a little girl, and she never would, if she had any say in the matter. She could still taste the algae of the Hendersons’ fishpond in her mouth, hear the silence of water in her ears.

She swallowed against a dry throat and prayed.

Thankfully the small bird began to descend, sea-spray splotching its wings and slowing it down. Ceony pushed her glider faster until she came up beside it. Daring to release one handhold, she snatched the bird from the air and tried to determine how to land without breaking every bone in her body.

“Here, is it?” Ceony shouted over the whistle of the wind, her voice only cracking once. The bird pulsed beneath her.

Ceony circled the glider around a dozen times, taking each loop lower and lower, aiming for a spot well away from the water.