“I don’t suppose I can command you to land, can I?” she asked the glider. “Take me to the ground, softly?”
The glider seemed to heed her as the birds had last night. It arched its wings up and dropped in altitude, making Ceony’s stomach lurch, but its speed slowed and it glided almost smoothly onto a length of dirt patched with crabgrass.
Ceony’s fingers stubbornly held to their pained, crooked positions even as she unhooked them from the handholds. The glider continued to slide along the ground, and she looked over the sides, checking for puddles to ensure her ride would stay dry. “Cease,” she commanded it, and the glider drooped and teetered onto its left side. “Cease,” she told the little bird, and it too went still. She tucked it into the large crease along the center of the glider’s body, hoping to give it time to dry off without being blown away.
Fennel in her arms, Ceony gazed out onto the rocky coast along the sea edge made purple and orange by the lowering sun ahead of them, which cast a golden road across the seawater as it considered its set. Ceony looked about the unfamiliar place ridged with black rocks of all shapes and sizes and free of trees. No sandy beaches comprised the coast here, just steep cliffs formed by the bellies of long-dead volcanoes. One wrong step on those and she’d drown.
Ceony sucked in a long breath and pulled a piece of cheese from her bag.
“Stay quiet, Fennel,” she instructed as she set the dog down on the ground. “Stay away from puddles and let me know if you smell anything sour.”
Ceony nibbled on the cheese as she walked toward the rocks, searching for a safe way down. She thought Lira very smart. If Ceony were a criminal, she would try to escape England as quickly as possible after committing such a heinous deed. Straight for the coast, where a ship of her accomplices could pick her up. The only faster way out of the country seemed to be by paper glider, and Ceony greatly doubted Lira had one of those.
Ceony pulled her Tatham pistol from her bag and held its wooden and steel barrel against her breast, pointing the muzzle over her shoulder. She found a drop between two large crags that did not look too steep and carefully climbed her way down. Fennel sniffed all about it before following after, slipping only once. Down on solid rock, much closer to the water, Ceony smoothed her skirt and continued forward. She didn’t need to muffle her footfalls; the crashing of waves against yet more rocks below hid her presence, even if they did make her hands shake. She stayed close to the cliffs. Her heart quickened, and while the ocean air made her skin cold, her blood pulsed hot and her insides grew taut as guitar strings.
A burst of salty wind tossed the last locks of her hair from her braid. She snatched the whipping strands from the breeze and hurriedly tied them at the nape of her neck before climbing downward once more, where droplets of water from those crashing waves pattered her cheek. She tried to stand between them and Fennel, who began to huff excitedly—perhaps he had smelled something.
A loud, uneven cry pulled her attention toward the ocean. Whirling around, she pointed the pistol not at a person, but at a squatting seagull staring at her with red-veined eyes. Half-molted feathers and stitches speckled its neck. Pieces of dried, blanched skin hung off its face and legs in strips, and the top of its beak had been broken in half.
Ceony froze, clutching the pistol in her hands. A dead bird. A living dead bird. The work of an Excisioner.
The gull cried once more and flew out over the ocean. Ceony’s heart started beating again when it was out of sight.
Her teeth chattered. She told herself it was from the ocean’s cool mist.
Could Excisioners truly reanimate the deceased? The thought made Ceony shudder inside and out. But why a bird? Was it a messenger? Ceony hadn’t seen a note tied to its mangled legs . . . Perhaps it had already dropped its message off, or it was a spy of some sort. Ceony didn’t know enough about Excision to know. Perhaps someone was trying to contact Lira. Someone trying to help her escape.
The cheese she had eaten grew heavy in her stomach. Ceony scooped Fennel into her arms and turned him away from the ocean, as much for her own comfort as anything.
Ceony picked her way along the rocky coast for perhaps a quarter mile before she saw a dark half oval ahead of her—a cavern of some sort. A splendid place to hide, for sure. Clutching Fennel and readying her pistol, she crept toward it.
The sun had sunk one-third of its majesty behind the horizon when she reached the cavern. There were no lanterns or torches to light, but the cavern didn’t look too deep. Spying about and seeing no one, Ceony moved inside the cave, keeping her back to one of its rough walls.
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